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I know this was discussed again and again, but although the choosing of a domain name should take you very few time it is very important. You will have to spell your domain name thousand of times, you will have to write your domain name million of times. Your visitors will hear, read or type your domain billion of times.

I write about this because i’ve seen some examples of  website that after they went popular they changed their domain name. You invest a lot in your brand, in your domain name, people start to remember it and then you simply change it. Why ? Is that a marketing strategy to change the domain name ? I think not. But for a reason or another they changed their domain name and in most cases they changed because they want a new one.

The companies want to go to the next level and invest in their domain name but as a requirement they need a good name to invest in, a brandable name. So the benefit of promoting a good domain name is better than the benefit to keep the old domain name. But it is still a loss, the perfect thing is to have a good domain name from start and stick with it.

Before i analyze the websites that changed their domain name let’s remember the most important things you have to keep in mind when you choose a domain name. You will notice that i don’t put too much weight on the keyword in the domain name. In my opinion, having the primary keyword in your domain name will help you at the start, when you compete for low traffic keywords with low competition. If the competition is higher than the presence of the main keyword in the domain name is useless, and you will want to be on the first page for a lot of keywords, not only one.

There are main 3 requirements:

  • the domain name must be short
  • the domain name must be spellable
  • the domain name should be easy to remember

Now let’s see look at some big websites who just changed their domain names and why.

Rentacoder changed it’s name to vWorker

Rentacoder is probably the oldest rent a coder website. They are in business for a long time and when they started they had the option to choose what domain name they want. “Rentacoder” is spellable, it is not long but not long, but neither short. The domain is relatively simple to remember.

When it was taken probably they thought a lot of people will search for “rent a coder” keyword. Probably it was the case at the begining, but when competitors arrived they concluded that they have no advantage for the domain name. The industry evolves and new compenies comes with new approaches to the market and they can get more visitors with the new vision, making old companies with difficulties.

Old companies have to adapt and change, but a name like “rentacoder” fixes the company to a specific vision. When they are forced to change, they have to change the domain name too.

What about vWorker ? It can mean everything they want. It comes from virtual worker. It is easy to remember, spellable, very short. But there is another factor: the domain name should be brandable. If the domain name describes exactly what you do is not fine, you can never change your vision or your approach of the market. Now vworker can work with anything related to working online. People reading “rentacoder” can think that it is only for coders, but the online work requirements are much larger.

Rocketprofit changed their domain name to Atrinsic

I don’t know RocketProfit very well, but the name explains very well what they do: you make profit with them. Why they think i shouldn’t figure out from the domain name what they actually do ? Because they think it is better to have a short brand-able domain.

They are a CPA network, “Rocket profit” name could make people to think that they care only for profits and nothing more, but a company name and slogan should tell more about quality. When the competition is high we need to find only the quality ones. A domain name that not sounds like a quality is a barrier between our perception and the real quality.

Azoogleads changed the name to EpicDirectNetwork

In this case, the new name is longer. Azoogleads is also a CPA network, but if you notice they have “ads” in name. I’m not sure what they were when they started to do business, but now the CPA networks try to make the website monetization to look beyond “ads”. Display ads just not make it anymore, so a CPA company that want to make a revolution in website monetization can’t have “ads” in their domain name. I bet they never thought about that at the beggining.

Conclusions

Here again it was demonstrated that keywords in domain name are not so important in the long run. Maybe if you just want to start your business and take benefit then sell links or sell the domain to someone who thinks that a domain name should have keywords in it is good, but else you have to think very careful about your domain name.

If you want to register a domain name click here.