Frequently Asked Questions

There are many studies that have told us that within as little as 1/10th of a second and up to a maximum of 7 seconds, humans decide whether or not they will look further into your offering. Some surveys have shown that the purchase decision was loosely taken within 2 seconds, which has enormous implications. Your name is one of the few critical things that will be taken into consideration in the first impression.

With over 300 million websites online, and the many characters who are out to defraud and take advantage of others, online consumers have a healthy level of skepticism regarding what they find. It is a much higher level of resistance to trust than when meeting others face-to-face. Trusting a site enough to enter their financial information into a form is not something that comes easy. Overcoming this barrier is key for those who seek success in an online business. A good name helps by exuding a level of decency and implied proficiency that can influence customers into feeling less mistrust.

People are more open to the things they like, and spend more time exploring their curiosity for them. In that same way, a good name, can help promote interaction with your content, which leads to greater strength in message delivery, conversions, and revenue.

Search engine algorithms take into account a great many things, however, 3 main, big picture aspects dominate the algorithm. First is the quality and relevance of the site content (does your offering address the needs of the user who typed in the keyword phrase? Is it well written, varied, and substantial?). Second is your popularity, which is largely determined by the traffic to your site from sources other than the search engines (do you have your own following?). The third is how people interact with your content. If you have a high bounce rate (people leave your site quickly), search engines will lower your site in ranking because people seem to not find what they were looking for in your content. If you have a low click through rate in the search results (people don’t click on your link), you also lose rank, because people don’t seem to find your link interesting. A good name piques the interest of potential visitors and makes them more open to view the content of your page, improving click-through rates, time spent at your site, pages visited, and a host of other engagement related metrics, improving your performance in the search algorithm and improving your site’s ranking.

Interesting Fact:

In old cowboy movies, the good guys wore white hats and the villains wore black hats. Today it is a metaphor used in programming. Improving relevance, quality, site traffic, attractiveness of result links, user engagement, and user satisfaction, are known as “White Hat SEO”, because they are clean, and fair tactics that ultimately enhance the experience of search engine users. In contrast “Black Hat SEO” is the use of deceptive tactics (against the rules of the search engine) to hack an unworthy site into the results. And “Grey Hat SEO” is the use of legal tactics whose sole purpose is to target the algorithm to boost a less worthy site in rankings.

The name must set you apart in the eyes of consumers. It is not necessary to have a total departure, but enough to where it is obviously not the same. This will be important later in the life of a business to have branding benefits.

It is easier to gain traction marketing names that are logically connected to your offering. Absolute relevance is very generic, and absolute uniqueness is the strongest for branding, so here we are talking about a place in the middle. A subtle relevance, not a hard, overt tie.

Interesting Fact:

In feudal times, people were named after their profession. That is the reality behind many common last names like "Carpenter", "Smith", "Barber", "Mason", "Hunter", "Bowman" etc.

Sounds can be smooth, choppy, sloppy, gooey, sharp, or any of a multitude of phonetic descriptors, and the combination and flow can be phonetically appealing to a target audience, or not. Good names are easy to pronounce and have an enticing sound that goes hand-in-hand with the product or service that relates to the name.

Long names take up space in ads, clutter the message you are trying to deliver to your audience, are harder to remember, take longer to type into a browser, are more prone to take potential customers to a competitor's page due to a typo, and look unenticing on marketing materials like business cards, flyers, etc. There is a "sweet spot" in the range from 7 to 11 characters. Good names that are shorter, are likely better, but the price of short names is often prohibitively high for most people.

Many names have an “Aha!” moment, when the customer thinks “I get it. That’s pretty cool.” That moment helps promotes memorability. Fun, short, relevant, witty names are easier to remember than long names with complex spelling. Combinations of words that create a clear mental image are also easier to remember, because people don’t remember specific details as much as a storyline.

People know about color psychology. It is the same with language as well. Words can evoke beautiful, strong, successful, scary, or any of a multitude of emotions. It is good to convey a feeling with the name that is appealing, and avoid words or implied words that can evoke negative emotions. Some people are critical of this idea, but the fact is that if words did not convey emotions, nobody would read books for fun.

Since domains are so scarce, after many frustrating attempts, failing to find names you feel would be good, it can be very alluring to get a domain name that has a technology you offer. For instance, if you purchase the domain “CSS3Developer.com”, which is an acceptable length and pleasant, somewhat memorable, and tells people a little of what you do, so it is not bad, but you are tying your business to “CSS3”, which is a version of CSS that, although you may be a master of it, will feel dated when the next version is released. It is so expensive to rebrand, that you are probably better off continuing to work with your obsolete name regardless of it now losing relevance and appeal to customers who want the latest in the field. It would’ve been much better to have paid a little more upfront and started out with “CyberGC.com” for instance. Tech changes. Don’t tie yourself to it.

The real pros in branding are the higher level marketing guys in companies like Procter and Gamble. Truly masterful marketers. There is a reason it is “Pringles” and not “Potato Chips”, and it is “Pampers” not “Baby Diapers”, and the reason is simple. You cannot apply for (and get) market protection for a generic term, per the Lanham Act, so they must find a creative name to trademark. Names like “Pringles” and “Pampers” carry a feeling that fits the product, they are distinctive, phonetically appealing, memorable, fun, engaging, and over time they develop a following. And that, tied in with trade protection, makes it very hard for competitors to encroach on their business. These brands are slightly different, in that they do not need to be relevant, because the brand owners’ budget hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and the point where they needed engagement was the supermarket aisle. Domain names need to engage with users who have never seen the name before in search engine results, and that is not the same.

Interesting Fact:

There has been an interesting debate among branding professionals regarding the mattress manufacturer “Purple” using of such a generic word. Some say the brand is strong regardless of the generic name and others that the name is not distinctive enough to promote branding. The reality is simple: You put enough marketing resources and uniqueness into a product and you can brand practically any name. Purple can catch as a brand. The problem they will have for choosing a generic name is that “color coding” is a standard and reasonable practice. Many companies do it with products and sales events. If Purple decides to take a competitor to court over the use of the color “purple” or even the word in some contexts, they may find it hard to protect their brand. The fact that the generic packaging in retail outlets is the same color pattern as the top branded product in their category, means this debate has already been lost in court before.

Some names may be illegal to use, others may expose you to a law suit due to regional and industry specific trade protection. For instance, you cannot use the word “bank” or “trust” if you are not incorporated as a financial entity. If you do, the Federal Trade Commission may want to have a word with you regarding misrepresenting your offering and being in breach of the Truth-in-Advertising Act, and the potential adverse consequences in a court of law. Or for instance, if you start a business called “Fampa”, focused on marketing Tampa attractions to tourists, you will probably have no problems. However, if instead you use your “Fampa” site to market fruit flavored carbonated drinks… As soon as you have a little success, the legal team of Coca-Cola may want to have a word with you regarding their exclusive rights to market fruit flavored carbonated drinks as “Fanta” and how your offering is violating those rights, and the potential adverse consequences in a court of law. It is of paramount importance that you research thoroughly and make sure that the name is one you can use.

When people see search results of similar named sites, the assumption is that the “.com” domain is the original. For instance, if we see “BidProdigy.com” and a different site at “BidProdigy.net”, we have a sense that the “.com” is the official site. The sentiment is mirrored in feedback from search engine algorithm updates that reportedly affect “.com” extensions less, because sites with “.com” are sites that on average, indeed have the greater authority.

There are many domain extensions today. However, studies have shown that people trust “.com” more than the same name with any other extension. It is also something we intuitively know because we search for things online, and Credibility is critical, and “.com” has more of it.

It is not the same to stand at a traffic light in a Porsche than in a Volkswagen… It is not the same to drive a Jaguar, than a Ford… In the same way owning a great domain that is an original .com, has its status. It is not the same to say “I own SomniMax.com”, that it is to say “I own SomniMax.xyz”.

We make assumptions of the quality expected from the services of a person by the level of professionalism by their point of contact. For instance, if Adam started a microbrewery, he would have a tough time getting people to buy from him if his point of contact was “[email protected]” because it is very unprofessional. But if his point of contact was “[email protected]”, the professional presentation is very high, and potential customers would be much more likely to make a purchase. The same holds true with an unprofessional address like “[email protected]” Vs “[email protected]” or “[email protected]” Vs “[email protected]”.Simply stated, professionalism sells. Of course, there are many more points in the scale of professionalism in presentation, but a clear, short, and memorable “.com” domain is the top end of the spectrum.

In the business world, we place our contact information on business cards, advertisements, printed marketing, stationary, directories and many other places. When people glance at the information, they immediately recognize “.com” as the ending of a website or an email address. Often people have doubts as to whether “.co” is a typo, and can fail to recognize other extensions as a web address. The gold standard is “.com”.

Our selection process involves research on the name and it’s meaning in western cultures, assessing all the qualities we list as important in name selection, including distinctiveness, relevance, phonetic appeal, length, memorability, and the emotions the name evokes, among other parameters. We rate our findings and select only the best.

Traditionally, naming a new business venture involved a group of people brainstorming and coming up with possibilities, then discussing the options, and clarifying preferences, then checking the availability of those names’ domains. With domain names being as scarce as they are today, it is likely the name is not available, and if the domain is not available, then it is back to brainstorming. This iterative process can ultimately end in a name that is not very good because there tends to be lower quality in each iteration. And perhaps equally importantly, it is very time consuming, and expensive. Checking Empire URL’s name recommendations is a great shortcut, since there is additional marketing insight filtered into those names already. Also, checking through the names allows you to get a first impression of the feel of the name when seeing it for the first time. It is very valuable insight, and is practically impossible to get when brainstorming, because you have been playing with words for so long that the names feel like a collection of prioritized possibilities, rather than a business. The result is less time to market and a superior name.

Marketing design allows us to better understand how the name will feel in use, and you get to keep the copyrights with your purchase. We developlogos and materials to be appealing, brandable, trademarkable, and flexible for different marketing needs, including being rendered in black and white, and being scaled down to a 16px X 16px favicon among many others. Having the preliminary marketing also means that you are not starting from scratch developing your site. With a few adjustments, the site design can be ready to launch, saving time and money and creating a very appealing end result. Having professional marketing support from the initial design stage means less problems later on when designs often reveal issues that make them unsuited for some marketing needs.

We feel that our domains deliver superior value to those of competitors simply because of our marketing research, extensive prescreening, rigorous selection process, and experience behind them. In addition to that, many of our domains are offered with even greater value with bonuses like being bundled with similar domains, extended aging, social pages, artwork, and others. The detailed bonuses included with each domain can be found in the detailed listing of the domain.

Many online suppliers are guarded, playing in what seems to be an adversarial role with their cards close to their chest. Their online offerings often hide their price, and other information from their customers. Granted, their domains are probably very valuable indeed, and sticker shock can prevent people from contacting the seller, and each entrepreneur has the right to do business as they wish. But at Empire URL we are 100% transparent. Our offering is very straightforward. We research and screen hundreds of thousands of names and source those with the most potential, we then develop marketing designs to enhance the power of the name, and provide the package to our customers with the intent that our efforts will serve them in building the online empire they dream of. Our efforts are in line with our customer's interests, and our transactions are intended to be a win / win.

In marketing we use statistical data to validate our interpretation of market opportunities. And of course there is great value in it, particularly in the feedback areas to better understand how people are engaging with our offering, where they are coming from, and what preferences are met and unmet. This process should be the core of the marketing evolution of a company. However, in areas where a market has not yet experienced a product (prior to launch), it can be very difficult to use statistics because there is no reliable data available. Even a focus group of target market customers, which is very advisable, can be tricky to manage and can give wildly incorrect data, even when well managed.

There is a phenomenon that challenges data. It is the opposite of Murphy's Law, and could be expressed as "If the business can be successful, it will be." And it relates to the drive of the entrepreneur. It is a severely underrated marketing influence. The passion to bring something new into the world, the strength of courage, facing competition, and uncertainty, while carrying the weight of responsiblity for employees and the effects of the business in the community. It is sheer will power, and it is fueled by belief. When you, as an entrepreneur, feel a name is right, and you know it down to the core of your bones, you just know…

New domains are often considered to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Often, the better domains were taken a long time ago, and as there have been fewer domains available, older domains can sometimes provide better options. Of course, an old domain does not mean it is a good name.

Old domains often have a number of visitors who arrive out of a variety of reasons. Like backlinks in past SEO efforts with the domain, or bookmarks in past visitor’s browsers, old magazine or news media could contain printed links at the end of an advertisement or editorial content, online directories or personal contact information linking to the domain, or people remembering the domain name and typing it in the browser. This is not the case with all aged domains.

At EmpireURL we do not put much weight on existing traffic, because it can often be counterproductive. A previous use of the name would likely have been with a different application, and when visitors arrive expecting a solution related to the previous application and don't find it, they quickly leave the site. This bounce metric can give search engines the impression that your content is not good and harm your rankings. Some backlinks are also not good because they can be associated with spamming tactics and having them can also hurt your search rankings. Buying a name with 10,000 backlinks can actually be a challenge and a time-consuming chore for SEO purposes. We feel that in the vast majority of instances, it is best to start your backlinking strategy for your new application for your domain name, from scratch.

But overall, having people see your new site is a good thing, and if there is a lot of traffic, and the visitors are indeed interested in your new site, it could be fantastic, but that is certainly not a reasonable expectation of a domain at any age, it is mostly unrelated to the backlink count, which is a standard metric for the value of traffic in the domain industry, and is extremely difficult to assess for several reasons like:

What needs to be assessed Value of traffic has a lot to do with the demographics and preferences of the actual visitors related to the new application of the domain, and that information we cannot possibly know, since it has to do with a possible future application of the name, and is often expensive and time consuming to obtain because it is not readily available.

Link quality Value of traffic also has to do with the backlink quality as it relates to the credibility and prominence of the source, and the relative exclusivity of the backlink at the source. A site with 3 good backlinks could be a great purchase, but even those might be unrelated (causing SEO issues), and are unreliable at best, because they will likely be lost once the source realizes the link destination has changed.

Backlinks often do not bring traffic Backlink count on its own is very misleading, as many old SEO tactics involved high volumes of garbage links, and even good SEO tactics that are relevant today create backlinks whose benefit expires as they are buried by new content over time. A domain sold with 10,000 backlinks could have well over 9,000 of them offering zero value.

One of the issues that search engines face is the proliferation of spammers. As quickly as they are banned from results, they migrate much of their content to a new domain and circumvent the ban for another brief period until they are banned again. They are always operating on new domains, so search engines often penalize new domains.

But when a domain has years of being registered and has not been used in a manner that would get it banned, search engines will tend to rank the domain higher because it is less likely to be a problematic site.

When people within your customer base have become aware of your product and it’s unique benefits, branding it clearly with a fun, differentiated name will make it so they instantly recognize your offering among your competitors, increasing the chances they purchase your product.

When a brand is established, consumer perception is that the product delivers the brand promise, and other products are somewhat of a gamble. They may work well, but probably not. Products labelled with the brand can command a higher price than competitors offering a similar product, and people will be glad to pay it, and be proud of their purchase.

Interesting Fact:

In the early 2000s, Volkswagen launched a super sedan called the Phaeton, with specs that rivaled the Bentley Continental at half the price. It was the very best VW could offer. But sales fell very short of expectations... You would think that an established brand like VW, at a far lower price, would take away Bentley’s business. But Bentley’s sales were relatively unaffected. The reason is because Bentley is a very strong brand in the segment of luxury cars, where VW is not.

Strong brands develop a following. Customers who have become believers in the brand, fall in love with it, and return to purchase more products consistently. Even friends of the believers have more openness to try the product their friend loves so much. Customer loyalty to brands can be very intense, even to the point where customers can demand a say in the product and development of new products and become angry if they are excluded. It seems like a problem, but it is the contrary. That type of following makes a company extremely stable and allows it to be very profitable.

Interesting Fact:

Kraft Foods was sued over the trans-fat content of their Oreo brand cookies. They agreed to change their recipe to remove the health-risk in their product, only to find an enormous outcry from their loyal customer following, who did not want any alteration whatsoever to the product they loved so much.

When new competitors come into a market, they often are very loud and seem to advertise everywhere, and often try to entice people to try their product and gain new customers by offering lower prices than the established suppliers. Those who built their business based on the argument of price are now vulnerable to the new competitor. Those who developed strong brands will lose the least customers.

When a brand is strong, customers are more likely to remember the product and name, and when they speak with friends who are looking for a similar solution, they share their positive experience with the brand, which translates into greater sales.

When brands take root and become strong, competitors often try to take advantage and impersonate the leader with similar graphics and names. Imitations come out of the woodwork. A brand can receive trade protection from the Patent and Trademark Office, and beneficial rulings in courts of law, including injunctions for those encroaching on the brand and settlement proceeds for damages.

Strong brands are short and memorable, so when they are advertised, people have a greater tendency to remember and share the advertising message with others. Short strong brands also take up less space in ads, which is actually very important. Cluttered ads are less effective.

Studies of Recruitment officers around the world have shown that the brand recognition of the employer has great, favorable influence in the application process. The reputation of a brand that delivers on its promise to the consumer, conveys status upon the employees. The best candidates want to work with the strong brands.

The domain Bundle price for each domain is listed next to the domain name, and is payable to EmpireURL via Escrow.com. This is our compensation for releasing the ownership of the domain, and delivering domain bundle items for the domain, which include:

• Release of the domain(s) owner­ship to buyer.
• Purchase Protection Warranty. If you do not receive the domain, you pay nothing.
• Logo in .eps format (Sca­lable Vector).
• Website logo icon set in a vari­ety of sizes in .png format.
• Square and horizontal logo images (without slogan) in high reso­lution with .png format over clear, light, dark, and color back­grounds.
• Business card template image.
• List of the brand colors used in both RGB (dig­ital disp­lays) and CMYK (prin­ting).
• Some domains include bonus items which are specified in their listing.

Note: The Domain Bundle price does not include custom alterations to the marketing materials.
Please refer to terms and conditions and our privacy policy that govern the release and delivery of the bundle items.

When you purchase your domain, it needs to be transferred to a registrar account in your name. Empire URL covers any expenses that may arise in the release side with our registrar, however, you are responsible for whatever fees your registrar of choice imposes on the transfer. Some registrars charge a fee to transfer in a domain, but usually registrars only charge a one year extension to the domain registration upon transferring a domain into a customer’s account. It is unfair to consider the registration fee as a transaction fee since it is due as a regular expense of owning a domain.

We offer 10% off to first response employees, professional educators, and senior citizens. First response who qualify for a discount are namely, military personnel, paramedics/EMTs, fire rescue, and law-enforcement. If you indeed qualify, we thank you for your service and hereby pay our respects to your contributions. Hopefully we give a little back with your success with one of our domains.

Any purchase of 3 or more similarly priced domains can be evaluated for an additional discount, within reason. 10 or more similarly priced domains will result in approximately an additional 10% off.

We increase the price of domains based on a number of factors, including market shifts that may produce opportunities, partnerships that may increase our expenses, and the devaluation of the US dollar. If you were intending to purchase a domain and we recently increased the price before you were able to finalize the decision to buy, let us know to consider holding the price increase for you.

We know that we could get four or five times the bundle price for any of our domains, so we do not accept low ball offers for our domains. We invest rather extensively into each domain and feel confident in the value that our domains will bring our customers.

As a rule of thumb, our price is lower than what we feel the monthly marketing budget should be for a venture. With that in mind, over the first 5 years, the price of the name is less than 1.7% of the marketing budget, which is nothing in comparison to the benefits it could bring. The reason our pricing is so far below what we feel is attainable, is because our mission is to help new business ventures succeed in today's challenging market conditions. Discounts will not be considered unless there is a reasonable and fair cause to take the time to consider a discount.

Assessing return on investment is the responsibility of the entrepreneur / investor. If you agree that the return for the price of a domain will be great, then there is no valid price objection.

Making financial arrangements to cover business expenses and cashflows is another important job of every entrepreneur. If any of our domains is truly unaffordable to any entity, then the chances that entity will be successful using the domain are minimal, simply because the entity lacks the financial resources to be successful. They will not be able to afford employees, essential services, inventories, R&D, startup costs, overhead up to the breakeven point, or any of the myriad of unexpected expenses that are sure to arise in the course of business. There is no valid affordability objection.

Google did not appreciate that when their users typed in common keyword phrases, they had to endure sifting through lower quality websites in the first page whose domains contained the exact keyword phrase. So Google implemented their renown (infamous in some circles) EMD (exact match domain) update to fix their issue. Crudely summarizing the update, websites with a domain name that is an exact match to the keyword phrase will no longer appear at the top of search results, unless they are worthy sites.

Today, when businesses are named after high volume keywords, and people Google the exact business name, they may not be able to even find it, unless it is a good website and/or has an unusual name mixed in with the keywords. The weight of search results is now placed on the relevance of the total site, and the merit it has. So if you called your business “Best(Product_Category).com”, hoping that Google would send you traffic because monthly searches for the keyword phrase “Best(Product_Category).com” has 30,000 searches a month, you will probably be disappointed. Not just because Google will not give you traffic, but also because what customers you develop through your own marketing, and who remember your company name and search for it, will only to find your competitors when they search for you.

Short domains are considered better (assuming all other metrics are the same), for better performance in marketing and memorability. Keywords can make the name cumbersome to work with in marketing campaigns. For instance “Best(Product_Category)in(City_Serviced).com” makes for an extremely long name that is impractical.

Generic names tend to be less interesting and do not develop equity as readily as more unique, fun, witty, interesting names. Trying to keep a name short while packing keywords tends to make a name very unappealing. It is doubtful that “LocalCoffeeShop.com” would have had the same success as “Starbucks.com”.