The million dollar domains aren’t real

It’s internet history that a lot of today’s best domains were already off the market in 1994-1996. What defines a “good” domain? Some would say a good domain would consist of a single real word, short and easy to remember, and be related to the content of the site.♣ I’ll get to examples of this later. If you look at some of today’s most successful domains you’ll find something in common: they aren’t real words.

Examples of these include Verizon, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Digg, Comcast, Orkut, Wikipedia, Blogger, Friendster, Flickr, and Veoh. These words would probably appear in the Webster’s dictionary eventually, but they weren’t before becoming popular.

Examples of domain with real words include Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Adobe, About, and Ask. Searching Alexa’s global 500 doesn’t come up with many single real word domains.

So, what really makes a domain “worth” a million is not how commonly the word is used, but by the effort and skill of the people that develop it. There are some that try to hoard the best domain, only to shelve them because they don’t have the drive or ability to capitalize on those domains. They might sell their claim for an exuberant price, but they probably won’t get it. The face value of a domain is more like of a stock rather than an antique. The older an unused domain becomes, the greater the uncertainty for profit.

A case in point is NBC’s newest video streaming offering. The site Hulu was purchased from a 7-year-old, and currently has millions invested in its market branding. According to sites CEO Jason Kilar, “Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premier content when, where and how you want it.”

So, according to Hulu’s CEO the definition of a good domain takes into account it’s audience and mission statement. If you offer something to your audience that delivers the image of what you promise, you have the makings of something successful.

So, if the name should relate to its audience, the best place to start looking for your new domain wouldn’t be Webster’s Dictionary or any other academic dictionary, but the Urban Dictionary. What better way to relate to the culture and interests of the internet community but from a dictionary created on the internet.
The million dollar domains aren’t real words, they are made up. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about having the common words taken, just think of your content and audience and the word (or words) will come to you.

♣ I haven’t forgotten the other top domains, but for simplicity I only mentioned single word domain.

Source doc: wikipedia thestreet valleywag alexa