Fabian Pattberg

This is the second post of the new series on domain names. Domain names have been my hobby for a long time now and the purpose of this series is to explain what I find important about domain names.

The topic of this post will be about the key uses of a domain name across the internet. The so called domain different classes.

People, organisations and governments now make different use of domain names. Here are so called domain names classes I have identified when looking at uses of domain names.

Class 1 – Personal Names
These are domain names that derive from the person’s name. Like my blog. FabianPattberg.com. mostly used for blogs and personal websites. I have only come across one different usage. Check out MaxGladwell.com. Max is not a person but only a blog brand, very clever Max.

Class 2 – Generic names
A generic domain name features a word or words that can not usually be trademarked on their own. That is why generic domain names are so popular. They are not nonsense names (class 3) that do not make sense. An example would be OrganicFood.com or MobilePhone.com these generic names are sometimes referred to as the “Real Estate of the Internet”. Some of them can be very valuable. Parked.com (Domain Parking Service) is an example.

Class 3 – Brandable and Nonsense Names
Brandable and nonsense names do not usually have an inherent meaning or obvious use on their own and are usually combinations of words. Because there are so many combinations possible with brandable / nonsense names the value usually is not more then the registration costs if undeveloped. But if you intend to develop this domain name into a website and you have pronounceable name, then you are in a good position to create your own nice brand. Examples are: Yahoo.com or Google.com

Class 4 – Acronyms
These are interesting when you have a longer company or a phrase that you would like to use as a domain name. An example is the writers network I run. The name of the network is “The Sustainability Writers Network” and the domain name I use is TSWN.org. In this way you are making the domain names a lot more user friendly when it comes to communicating with your visitor on the web. Instead of writing the full name he/she just needs to type in the acronym.

Class 5 – Numbers
Numbers are good to remember but usually do not serve as a good and useful domain name. I have seen some websites with number domains but these tend to be trendy and web designer websites. The only examples not fitting in this is 888.com but we all know that 888 is a lucky number in some cultures.

Class 6 – Letter and Number Combinations
This is the last domain name class that is really a mix of good and bad. You can have really useful names such as F1.com but these combinations are in most cases branded and trade mark protected. The important thing here is to have a short and pronounceable domain name. If you have that then you are in luck. Other wise are these domain names useless in my opinion.

One last point is that these domain name classes can be blurred sometimes. Different cultures across the globe have different words and expressions. These then used sometimes are great domain names. But also means something else: Always check the meaning of a domain name in different cultures to make sure you are not developing a brand with multiple meaning across cultures.

Next weeks domain series will be on the different domain extensions such as .com., .org, etc.  So stay tuned.

Picture Credit: Daniel Broche