[GTALUG] TLDs

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Thu, Jul 25, 2024 at 12:03 PM Karen Lewellen via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:


> I have a personal website, that I originally set up using my name,
> instead of  the name of my production company which  is g. a. f.
> Entertainment.  I do have the domain gafentertainment.com but it is not
> hosted anywhere.
> Lewellen is welsh, and there are several different spellings.


All of the Welsh Llewllyns I know (a few, from my wife's history) have four
Ls and a Y in their spelling.
(But then I'm not one to talk. There are more Leibowitz's than Leibovitch's
out there, but they all trace the same Romanian roots.)

I got leibovitch.ca and evanleibovitch.com ages ago but have never really
used them. The latter I may keep for defensive purposes just in case I
really piss someone off; I'm getting old but there's still time.
A surprising number of domains are unused and just kept for defensive
purposes (ie, I won't use it but I don't want anyone else to have it
either).


> Imagine my surprise   though learning there is another karen lewellen.
> My own site being
> www.karenlewellen.com
> Meant the other person ended up creating itskarenlewellen.com instead.
>

Or she could have done karenlewellen.ca (if she was Canadian),
karenlewellen.co.uk (if British), karenlelellen.org or
karenlewellen.something-else

That's the whole point of the new TLDs, dot-com doesn't have to be the
make-or-break TLD anymore (though it is still the preferred default).
My solution these days to unavailable first-choice domains is to add
punctuation, for instance karen-lewellen.com is available and works fine.

Do not get me started on the gmail problems, I still get her stuff
>

That's the biggest flaw of domains versus search. Search engines can add
context such as location.

There is only one joespizza.com in the world and it's in Los Angeles. The
most famous Joe's Pizza had to settle for joespizzanyc.com because the
California place registered first.

But searching "Joe's Pizza near me" will almost always come up with
something more useful wherever you are, when used here offering one in
Brampton (joesbigpizza.ca)


> When the nonprofit organization I worked for first chose a name  the idea
> was to hype the name of our flagship radio series, Curtain Up!
> As we distributed Curtain Up!  our founder decided curtain up distribution
> was  a fine name..but this was before we had a web presence.
> giving my work email address is quite a dance,  our site is
> www.curtainupdistribution.org
> ahem.
>

Domain names are the least of this organization's problems, as a casual
search reveals the term "curtain up" is used in major contexts within the
London and Broadway theatre scenes.
Good and distinct naming for an organization is way more off-topic and out
of scope than this thread has already evolved. Any domain problems here are
symptoms and not causes.

My point is that there really can be far more than vanity in a domain
> name, especially  when you want to be found, and fund raise, and so forth.
>

You're confusing domain names with corporate identity.

A domain name is just a tool, not the identity, except for those few and
diminishing companies whose domain name IS the company name (such as "
pets.com").
Creating a functional corporate identity, which includes but is not limited
to branding, is a much bigger deal than the domain name chosen.

- Evan
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