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Domain Dilemmas: When Your URL No Longer Describes You
Posted in: Blog, Industry News, SEO, Social Bookmarking by SpiderWriters on May 25, 2010
No matter how tall you are, we can help with your social media writing success! Call 757-499-1990 to learn more!
It’s true, Spider Writers has enjoyed opportunities to mingle with the rich and famous. We’ve always been proud to count a bona fide Guinness record holder among our clientele. For years, Hampton Roads resident George Bell was known as America’s Tallest Man, yet today we have learned his title is now claimed by a man in Minneapolis. Igor Vovkovinskiy appeared on the Dr. Oz show to be measured for the official title.
Our friend George took the news in stride, saying he was happy for the opportunity to have been the country’s tallest man, and he congratulated Igor. If you’ve ever met George, you know that he’s truly a stand-up guy (no pun intended), and his friends in Hampton Roads will always look up to him (literally!).
Now, those of us who helped George with his website are wondering: what about his URL? We registered http://www.americastallestman.com for George for the purpose of promoting his record, but now that he’s officially off the Guinness books, what is the future for the website? Of course we would like to keep it live, since being the second tallest man in the US is quite a bragging point, too. To our knowledge, Igor hasn’t expressed interest in building a website, or registering a URL to define him. When George’s domain expires, should we let it go or re-up for another year?
When you think about, Igor is Ukrainian-born, but lives in the US. Technically, then, George is the tallest American-born man. If Igor moves back to the Ukraine, will George get his title back? One might think charting world records is simple, but there sure are a number of provisions!
Well, we haven’t decided what to do yet. For now, George’s site is still active at the same URL and you’re welcome to visit. This experience, in the meantime, has prompted other thoughts on domain naming issues, in particular for businesses and organizations that change scope and may require a new identity.
Let’s say when you launched your online presence, you specialized in writing services. You chose a domain that naturally represented your skills, and included “writer” in some form on the URL. You do a decent business, win a few clients here and there, but as you work you realize you’re doing more work directly with social media and networking. The writing component is still there, but not as prominent as, say, your freelance Facebook and Twitter work.
Suddenly the “writer” URL doesn’t really define your business. You can change the way your page looks easily, and maybe re-title it for search, but the URL sticks out like a sore thumb. What to do? Should you register a better domain, or keep what you have? There are a few schools of thought on this. For one, depending on how long you’ve had your URL, you may have established solid branding and recognition with it. It may also be solidified within search…it’s not uncommon for some websites to lose that mojo when they move to a new domain. That’s something to think about.
If you are able to secure a more appropriate name for your business site, you can always point the URL to land at your current site. That way you don’t lose the momentum you built and you have a proper domain for print promotional items. Going to a site like Domize can help you determine a good name to register.
Until then, we’ll keep an eye on George. He could have a late growth spurt, you never know.
