Schizophrenic Domains

Would you ever consider listing your business in the phone book under a different name? Unless you don’t want business, you probably wouldn’t. The same exact principle should apply to your domain, but be prepared to fight dirty.

Nissan (Cars) is currently suing Nissan.com (computers) over the domain. They are obviously upset about the fact that a ton of Nissan.com visitors are probably there to buy a car instead of a computer. In fact, with such a strong brand most people probably don’t search for Nissan using a search engine. This is the real key here. If your business domain is nothing like what people think it should be then you could be losing out on a lot of business. Since the current price tag on this lawsuit is ten million dollars, I’ say that this is a bit of a sore spot for Nissan.

A key takeaway here is that not all people will find you using a search engine. If you have a strong enough brand, repeat customers and new customers will go directly to your site. Hopefully that will be pretty close to your domain and they won’t choose to go elsewhere because they can’t figure out or remember what your domain is. Also, a customer that goes directly to your site is much cheaper than one that you had to obtain through search engine marketing. Cost per conversion is a different thing when customers go right to your site. Overall, even if you don’t have a brand that will accomplish this try to remember that you might someday. It would be a sad day if your brand gets enough equity but looks and sounds nothing like your domain.

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