Do Generic Word Domains Really Deserve Higher Value? (5.Viewing)

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NiceNIC

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People keep saying dictionary-word domains like travel.com or coffee.com are priceless.
I get it, "real words" used to impress people. But now everyone brands everything, Spotify, TikTok, Notion.

So who's still paying money just because it's in the dictionary?
 
First off, Notion is a word.

Secondly, I just looked through a list of the top startups of 2024/25 and the majority were single words, and in second/third place was first or last names. In a distant fourth was two-words and short brandables.

The reason: Words may be more expensive but they get free promotion and user connection just by saying them out loud, while brandables require significant and long-term $$$ promotion to achieve the same thing.
 
TikTok is a great example - they probably picked that name because the owner of TickTock.com didn't want to sell or wanted too much, so they decided to go cheap with a hipster homophone domain.

It was easier for them as they already had a user base, and were primarily an app, but there is still significant web traffic to worry about. It's estimated that to launch this web brand and get people to grasp their new misspelled brand/domain TikTok.com (from Musical.ly), they spent over a BILLION dollars on promotion during the first year.

Not everyone has an extra billion dollars in their pocket, so they just buy the dictionary word and can spend less.
 
Think of it this way:

Your brain is a massive relational database. There are tables for words, tables for meanings, tables for context, etc, etc... And there are temporary tables for each, as well as limited space for long term storage tables for each. Entries in the temp tables get flushed if they're not used much, and only after they've been used from the temporary tables numerous times do they justify getting moved into the permanent tables.

To make this data useful, there are links between these entries. The links are very small and easy, and don't require the work of entering and storing those words, meanings and context from scratch.

So adding new links between existing long term data entries is much easier, faster and more efficient than creating completely new entries and having them slowly move from temporary to long term storage.

When a brand is using a well known word, that's what they are doing, just creating a link between existing long term entries in the brain. Much more efficient, which means much quicker recall, less training (dollars spent) of the public mindset is involved.

That's EXACTLY what major brands know and understand. That's why popular and meaningful one-worders will always be more valuable.
 
Look at this years top domain sales chart at DNJournal. Most are one word domains. Next would probably be short 2 and 3 letter domains. Then you have a few strong two word domains. Look at any of their top year sales charts, and their all time domain sales chart, heavily slanted to one word domains. The stats bear out that people have always been paying up for good one word domains. Even in .AI .IO .XYZ, the top sales are one word.
 
DomainRecap said:
First off, Notion is a word.

Secondly, I just looked through a list of the top startups of 2024/25 and the majority were single words, and in second/third place was first or last names. In a distant fourth was two-words and short brandables.

The reason: Words may be more expensive but they get free promotion and user connection just by saying them out loud, while brandables require significant and long-term $$$ promotion to achieve the same thing.
Click to expand...
Good point, though do you think short two-word combos can ever rival strong single words?
MacMan said:
You can combine two common short words like Face & Book instead instead of making up a brandable.
Click to expand...
Interesting, and have you personally tried using any two-word combos yourself?
rlm said:
Think of it this way:

Your brain is a massive relational database. There are tables for words, tables for meanings, tables for context, etc, etc... And there are temporary tables for each, as well as limited space for long term storage tables for each. Entries in the temp tables get flushed if they're not used much, and only after they've been used from the temporary tables numerous times do they justify getting moved into the permanent tables.

To make this data useful, there are links between these entries. The links are very small and easy, and don't require the work of entering and storing those words, meanings and context from scratch.

So adding new links between existing long term data entries is much easier, faster and more efficient than creating completely new entries and having them slowly move from temporary to long term storage.

When a brand is using a well known word, that's what they are doing, just creating a link between existing long term entries in the brain. Much more efficient, which means much quicker recall, less training (dollars spent) of the public mindset is involved.

That's EXACTLY what major brands know and understand. That's why popular and meaningful one-worders will always be more valuable.
Click to expand...
Makes sense, though emotional relevance can sometimes outweigh pure familiarity in how brands connect.
 
DomainRecap said:
TikTok is a great example - they probably picked that name because the owner of TickTock.com didn't want to sell or wanted too much, so they decided to go cheap with a hipster homophone domain.

It was easier for them as they already had a user base, and were primarily an app, but there is still significant web traffic to worry about. It's estimated that to launch this web brand and get people to grasp their new misspelled brand/domain TikTok.com (from Musical.ly), they spent over a BILLION dollars on promotion during the first year.

Not everyone has an extra billion dollars in their pocket, so they just buy the dictionary word and can spend less.
Click to expand...
Exactly, but do you think that built-in marketing value still holds in the app era?
domains said:
Look at this years top domain sales chart at DNJournal. Most are one word domains. Next would probably be short 2 and 3 letter domains. Then you have a few strong two word domains. Look at any of their top year sales charts, and their all time domain sales chart, heavily slanted to one word domains. The stats bear out that people have always been paying up for good one word domains. Even in .AI .IO .XYZ, the top sales are one word.
Click to expand...
Good observation! Do you think investors favor one-word names more for liquidity or end-user appeal?
 
NiceNIC said:
Exactly, but do you think that built-in marketing value still holds in the app era?

Good observation! Do you think investors favor one-word names more for liquidity or end-user appeal?
Click to expand...
end-user appeal. you might have low level bread-and-butter type sales with mediocre multi-word domains, but those one-word domains are where you make your real profits. That is, if you are smart and don't sell cheap.
 
NiceNIC said:
So who's still paying money just because it's in the dictionary?
Click to expand...
My buyer clients, that's who. ;+) I estimate that 75% of my clients, who are end-user buyers (VCs, serial startup founders, marketing execs) want to buy and brand around English (or other language, such as German or Spanish) one-word .com (or .ai, .co, .io, and sometimes .ca) domains. They often don't have the six or seven-figure budgets required for this, but that's another story... Today alone I was working on two different one-word .com domain hunts for a client, and he's willing to spend high six-figures on each of those domains.

Signed,

Guy who brokered the purchase of Notion dot com. ;+)
 

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