By Larisa Hall
Vice President, Marketing

TheFind.com

Generally, I make it a rule not to disagree with Shakespeare. But since search engines weren’t around during the Elizabethan era, I feel that I have some wiggle room.

Now don’t get me wrong – naming a website (search engine or otherwise) is not an easy thing to do. Or maybe better put – it’s easy to name it, it’s just not easy to name it well.

First, you have to intimately know what problem you are trying to solve, and who your audience is. Second, you have to think about what your core, brand attributes are and make sure the name evokes those values when seen or heard. Third, and possibly the hardest part, is to make sure the URL is available – and in this day and age, I can pretty much guarantee that it’s notavailable! Which means fourth, you have to figure out a way not to pay a zillion dollars to get it. And fifth, you have to make sure the name is easy to remember, easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to identify when heard.

So – when did we start seeing names that would have caused my third grade English teacher instant panic, and will probably cause an entire generation of children to lose nation-wide spelling bees and their chance at getting into a decent college?

It happened when steps three and four above became the sort of stories we tell our grandchildren. Instead of telling them “i-walked-to-school-uphill-in-the-snow-both ways”, we tell them “i-bought-a-three-or-four-letter-domain-name-spelled-correctly-for-$9.95”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a firm believer in the fact that the third and fourth step above is what results in step number 5 being thrown out the window. Or, in this case, off a balcony – probably by Juliet Capulet herself.

But marketers are a wily bunch who devised a clever way to get around the problem. Enter Voyij, Spezify, Cookstr, DeepDyve, Growyn, FeedMil, Yureekah and many, many others.

Ok, before my fellow marketers at some of these wonderful sites start throwing things at me the next time we are at the same conference, perhaps I should dare tell you some of the names we considered before settling on “TheFind.” Frankly, we considered some names that I don’t even think are words – in any language. I could be writing this post as the VP, Marketing of Ubuubuu right now.

In our case, we quickly abandoned the thought of turning “Ubuubuu” into a verb synonymous with comprehensive online shopping by asking ourtarget audience what they thought. Let me tell you, the overwhelming majority of folks looking for a search engine for shopping identified with “TheFind” instead of trusting “Ubuubuu” to help them find the best products, stores and deals online.

In all seriousness, I know from experience that naming a website is tricky business. It is hard enough to get the first two steps of the process right. Having to worry about buying URLs throws an added wrench into the mix that can drive any talented marketer crazy. I applaud the creativity of the first marketers who came up with the concept of “crazee nayming”. I just hope, for their sake, that it doesn’t come at the expense of repeat traffic who can’t-for-the-life-of-them-remember-how-to-spell-ubuubuu. In the ultra-competitive environment of attracting online audiences, having your name itself contribute to your downfall would be the ultimate Shakespeareantragedy. Just ask Romeo and Juliet.

A response to our Call for Papers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 8:18 am and is filed under Guest Authors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.