Domain Descriptions: Pro and Con

Imagine for a moment that you wander into a new car dealership.  You look around and see several cars that appeal to you.  Do you want to know more than simply the price of these cars?  For example, are specifications, fuel efficiency, resale value, warranty, etc. of any interest?  Most of the time car dealers are only too happy to place glossy brochures in your hands that will both help associate the model with positive emotional feelings and also answer questions that might arise when comparing the vehicle to those offered by competitors.  In the domain world, the majority of sellers do not do a corresponding thing, rather taking the view that good domains sell themselves.  I look at arguments on both sides of the question of whether you should include a description with your domain listing.

Pro Arguments

First, let's make an argument in favour of including descriptive information.

1. You have obviously thought and researched the domain name, and it is good to share some of this background to help inform and persuade the prospective buyer.
2. You may provide ideas regarding use of the domain name that the potential purchaser would not have considered. This may help turn those browsers into purchasers.
3. As a convenience to the potential buyer you provide key information (such as registration period and renewal cost) in one place.
4. It may be an opportunity to counter potential negatives with respect to your domain name (e.g. it is a plural, but in this case the plural is the more frequently used form).
5. An attractive presentation may engage and encourage people to spend more time browsing your domain names, and some will become purchasers.
6. It shows that you see value in the domain name, since it is worth the time to provide a detailed presentation.

Con Arguments

I believe the majority of domain investors generally are not in favour of including descriptive material.  The thinking might be summarized as follow.

1. A good domain name speaks for itself. If you explain the virtues of the name, it is saying you don't really have confidence that it is truly a great name.
2. Any serious potential buyer will do her/his own background on the domain name, so there is no need for you to provide the information.
3. If you outline how the name might be used, and that is not consistent with the ideas that the prospective buyer has, that may limit how they view the name.
4. If you include a balanced view of the domain, it might bring up negative aspects that the purchaser had not considered, and their view of the domain name will go down.
5. By including  some items (like automated appraisal values or advertiser data) it may turn off some potential purchasers that place no importance on such measures.
6. I have a huge portfolio.  I don't have the time to put into a detailed description for each domain name. 
7. I prefer the standard description provided, for example by Efty, since that has been researched and is better than anything I would write. 

One More Advantage

There is one more advantage in providing a description. I show below a screen capture (click on image to see higher resolution view) of a domain search from my Efty Marketplace.  I searched on the word CRISPR (a gene editing acronym important in health and agriculture fields).  If I did not have any descriptive content, then it would only have yielded my domains that included the acronym CRISPR.  However, with descriptions Efty the search engine includes all domains with the term in the title or the description.  Therefore domain names like editDNA.co and medit.life appear.

This is an important advantage of descriptions, and you should write them accordingly, making sure that any keywords are included somehow in your descriptions. 

What to Include

I think there are strong arguments against descriptions, as well as a convincing case for including them.  If you do decide to include descriptions, what might you include. Note that not all of these are applicable to all domain names, and depending on your potential audience some of them are perhaps unwise to include.  Nevertheless, here is a list of ideas you might consider.

• Possible uses for the domain name.
• If an acronym, some of the possible meanings.
• Advantages (e.g. short, memorable, trending term, etc.).
• Prior sales of similar words.
• Period of current registration (particularly if already registered for extended period).
• Automated estimates of worth, including commentary if necessary
• Multiple language suitability if relevant.
• Search and advertiser statistics for the domain name.
• Commentary on the TLD extension.
• Renewal cost.
• Age of domain.
• History in actual website use, if any, including backlinks information.
• Possibly other related domain names (in case the potential purchaser does not quite like this one, but would be interested in one of those).

Discussion

There is no single correct answer regarding this question.  Personally. I usually do include descriptions, but at the same time I understand why many others choose not to do so.  As with most aspects of domaining, you should decide for yourself what works for you and you feel comfortable with. However,  I would urge you to be informed on both sides of the argument, prior to making the choice.

I also would stress that this is not necessarily an all or nothing issue.  It may make sense to include descriptions with some domain names or venues, and not others, and if you do include descriptions what to include in them depends on the domain name.

If you do decide on the description route, there are some practical points to make the task easier.  The main one is to keep all of your descriptions in a text file in some organized (e.g., alphabetical) form so you can easily copy and paste when you list the name on a new marketplace.  While I see advantages to the Efty approach of using a very short description along with additional bullet points, it is certainly easier to deal with the single text field of Undeveloped  and other sites that allows a longer description.

One final point: always be honest and fair in your description.  It is probably unwise to list a single high NameBio database comparator if multiple closer comparators are much lower in value. One difficulty of including automated appraisal information from GoValue is that these may change fairly dramatically from month to month in some cases.  Therefore, you might want to include a disclaimer alerting the reader to that.  Fortunately, it is easy for them to check this information without cost to them. Most of the time we only deal with any particular client in a single sale, but treat each as though you were building a long term relationship based on openness and honesty.

Even if you do decide on a comprehensive description, also be alert to the value of concise writing.  Try to keep it informative and engaging, while also short!  I look forward to reading your domain descriptions, or not!

Original post Aug 28, 2018.


Fine Print

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Eight questions to ask when choosing a name

Whether you are starting a new business or organization, an early choice that you must make is what name to use.  Here are eight questions to ask yourself as you consider a name for your business, club or organization.

1. Is the name descriptive?  If someone hears the name, and did not otherwise know about your organization, would they have an idea about what it about?
2. Is it positive? If two names are equally descriptive, but one has a more positive connotation, then go with that. But be careful about being so positive others will regard the name as silly or frivolous. Ideally your name should be 'feel good' positive, as in the most effective media advertisements.
3. Is it easy to remember? If you expect people to tell others about your service, or to look for it on the web, it helps if they can easily remember the name. People being able to spell it is important too! I registered the name and domain chignecto.ca, and it was in many ways a good name for the service: unique, part of our story line, available, legal.  But people unfamiliar with the name have constantly misspelled it!
4. How unique is the name?  You don't want confusion between you and someone else, so this argues for a name that is easily differentiated from others. Be creative as a team when choosing a name for your startup.
5. Is the name available?  This is necessary but sometimes overlooked.  You want the name to be available both as one that can be registered as a trademark and/or business name in your region, but also as a domain name and possibly on social media, for example as a Twitter handle. 
6. Can it be abbreviated?  Some names can naturally be abbreviated, and that is usually a plus,  helping make the name easy to remember.  Make sure that the abbreviation will itself not be a negative though (some time ago a Canadian political party almost adopted the name Canadian Reform Alliance Party).
7. Is it legal? You are not allowed to use a name that would be deliberately confused with another business or organization. Before registering your business name this will be checked, but it is good at the outset to make sure your name is not too similar to an existing name that operates in a similar business.
8. What TLD is natural for your venture? You should think about the domain name at the same time as you consider the company, brand, or organization name. Now that we have many top level domain (TLD) choices, you should ask yourself if one of these makes more sense than the generic ones. For example, if in the design business. surely a name ending in .design makes sense, or if you are naming a new club, why not use a .club TLD?

Picking names is both easy and hard! It's easy, because you start with a good knowledge of what you want the name to reflect, and probably already one or more choices in mind. It's hard because there are so many potential options, and the choice will be important to the success of your venture.

You should be involved, so never farm out the entire name selection process to outside firms.  That being said, those with experience and expertise can provide invaluable expertise.  Even if you decide not to hire a name consultant, you should at the very least bounce your proposed names off colleagues and friends.  This is too important a decision to base only on your opinion, no matter how creative and smart you are!

The Canadian Business Network have a helpful short post that includes their take on questions to ask yourself when choosing a name, along with the legal requirements with respect to business names in the various provinces.

Want a second opinion? This article in Entrepeneur on 8 mistakes to avoid when naming your business is well worth a read.

This site is about giving you help as you decide on the name that will represent your business, service, or organization. 

In all our posts please feel free to comment, even if you disagree with the advice we offer!

The Fine Print: We are an education service, and nothing you read here should be considered individual legal or business advice. Briefly our background is that we have owned a business, managed numerous websites, and registered many domain names. While every attempt has been made to be current and accurate, any details important to the reader should be independently verified. We are members of Google Adsense, so you will see some ads from them on these pages, and also are members of several affiliate programs including Amazon, HostPapa, and Namecheap. We only join affiliates if we use that service ourselves, and have had a positive experience.  Unless we explicitly indicate otherwise in a post, we have not been offered compensation by any company or organization for any post or recommendation.