Brandable names?

[MAllie]

I'm interested in what I think is meant by a 'brandable' name. Having read a lot now about domain names, I have come to the conclusion that this refers specifically to names that don't have an inherent meaning, or have one that is so obscure that most people won't know what it is - like Yahoo or Google (which is, of course, a misspelling), although of course all names are ultimately brandable.

The questions I have about these 'brandable' names are: first, how do you choose parking keywords for these domains if they are as yet undeveloped? Do you pick these by your vision of the brand?

Second, we are told that traffic is what interests buyers, yet does development of a brand name according to my vision not affect its later use by someone else for his/her vision?

Just two more things about domain names that puzzle me.

[HuntingMoon]

hello-

google et al are more in the 'pronounceable' category.

if a domain is not trademark infringing, and a strong combination of standard words for an industry, product/service etc... then it is brandable.

parking might require testing multiple feeds and also building your own adsense pages.

[MAllie]

Right. So I haven't understood the distinction between generic and brandable after all? Words that don't immediately evoke a clear idea are 'pronounceables'?

But the question still remains, how do you provide keywords for a name the meaning of which is fuzzy? And if you develop this name to give it a meaning, does this not make it less attractive to someone looking for a catchy name to brand?

[katherine]

The basic answer is that brandable names are difficult to monetize, unless they have been previously registered then you can check archive.org, whois history etc and analyze residual traffic to determine where visitors are coming from, and what they may be looking for.
If it's a made-up word with no history usually it will get little or no traffic anyway. I wouldn't waste too much time optimizing domains with 10 monthly UVs
It is worth having a few in your portfolio for development/end user sales but if your portfolio is too heavy on brandable you will have cash flow problems (little PPC revenue, too few sales etc).

[biggedon]

The basic answer is that brandable names are difficult to monetize, unless they have been previously registered then you can check archive.org, whois history etc and analyze residual traffic to determine where visitors are coming from, and what they may be looking for.
If it's a made-up word with no history usually it will get little or no traffic anyway. I wouldn't waste too much time optimizing domains with 10 monthly UVs
It is worth having a few in your portfolio for development/end user sales but if your portfolio is too heavy on brandable you will have cash flow problems (little PPC revenue, too few sales etc).

excellent points "sdsinc", I totally agree!


also, a generic domain can be "branded" as well.

[mediawizard]

A brandable domain is one that you can use to start a company or service with. It could also be generic or not, depending on budget.

Brandable names which are made up (like Google) don't have any value unless developed with a business purpose in mind.

Generics on the other hand get type in traffic and hence monetization is possible even without development and hence are more valuable.