What If The Dotcom Is Already Taken?
(I wrote the post below for StokeSignals, hence the “we” instead of “I” — but it’s information that others may benefit from, so please forgive the repost and the royal “we.”)
It’s probably obvious that there are a finite number of “dotcom” domains, and as time goes on, it’s increasingly difficult to secure one of them. We get it — most people want the clean dotcom for their name. We’re right there with you: we’ve been waiting for years to see if this is the year the guy squatting on StokeSignals.com doesn’t renew. (Shhh! Don’t tell him — maybe he’ll forget!)
But while having the dotcom for your brand has historically felt like a stamp of approval — a sign that you’re a real, legitimate business — times and attitudes are changing. Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen more people start businesses and be forced into using either a prepended or appended dotcom domain address like hello___.com or ___store.com. Even big brands are doing this — Peloton uses onepeloton.com, for example, and they’ve certainly managed to build a brand and a business. Additionally, as new TLDs become available, there’s an increasing opportunity to do something interesting with your domain name. We opted for the URL stokesignals.agency, for instance — perhaps not the most creative approach, but it adds a useful descriptor to our online address.
So there are a lot of ways to approach the domain name. If, like most people, you’ve chosen a name for which the dotcom domain is not available, we encourage you not to grow discouraged or think that you must choose a different name. That would be letting the tail wag the dog. The domain is one small element of your brand, and Google will make sure that people can find you — so optimize first for name and brand, developing the name that best suits your business. If you instead choose a name from available dotcom domains, it is highly unlikely that you’ll land somewhere strategically sound. You can always attempt to purchase that dotcom someday when you’re big and famous (you know, because your brand name was just that awesome.)
All of this assumes, of course, that you’ve confirmed that you CAN, in fact, use the name you’ve chosen — and that’s a question of trademark, not domain name. The two are not the same. In fact, it IS possible to acquire a domain name without owning the trademark. Here’s what the experts (aka Marcy Sperry of VividIP) have to say about that:
“Domain names can qualify as trademarks, but the two are not inherently the same. A domain name is simply an internet address (e.g., apple.com), whereas a trademark can be a number of things: a word, phrase, logo, or design that identifies the source of particular goods and services. In order for a domain name to qualify as a trademark, it must successfully function as an identifier of the source of particular goods and services. A domain name can qualify as a trademark if it successfully accomplishes two things: Being used as a standalone mark or brand (i.e., when displayed, it’s set apart from surrounding text, stylized or with a logo, with the TM symbol), and promoting or offering goods and services under that domain name/mark. If a domain name passes the test based on those criteria, you’ll still need to consider whether that domain name is associated with goods and services that are related to yours. If the domain name is associated with goods and services that are not related to yours, then you shouldn’t let that stop you from adopting that domain as a mark. Conversely, if the domain name is associated with goods and services that are related to yours, you should steer clear of using that domain.”
^^This is why we leave the legal stuff to the lawyers and focus on the naming process! It’s just not that simple — another good reason to START with the name and THEN figure out the domain. The bottom line: we can’t all have dotcoms, and that’s ok.
Originally published at https://stokesignals.agency.
