Are domain names getting less important?

[bensd]

Interesting article by Evan Williams (co-founder of twitter):

http://evhead.com/2011/06/five-reasons-domains-are-less-important.html

 

[domainseller200]

awaits Edwin............

 

[cc976a]

Interesting read - I have to say I work with quite a few less technically advanced - and never ceases to amaze me when people type in Yahoo.co.uk in the Google search box to find Yahoo (they simply didn't know about the address bar)

As technology makes things more simple people don't have to bother learning and take the trusted approach (I.e they learnt their way around the net using Google)

I also know a lot of people that remember what website sold the product they're coming back to buy by where it was on Googles search results (i.e. about half way down)

Domain buying and selling will be round for a while yet - and I still feel despite Panda the exact match domain to keyword has benefits - but would be interesting to see if this does / or has already impacted sales levels

(...and Frank beat me to the cue Edwin comment )

 

[Skinner]

People = Creatures of Habit.

 

[Blossom]

Interesting, I never actually read this article.

Just the bastardised version by someone from an SEO site (possibly SEL), where the writer completely misunderstood all the points and kept changing his mind about whether he was referring to .com domain names being less important or domain names in general. Grrr.

 

[websaway]

Domain names are maybe becoming less important to a percentage of the growing number of net users, but the situations where domains are important are not reducing and will still grow from where they are now and have been in the past.

Were less umbrellas being sold after the invention of the car ? No of course not, because it was still a growing market, and as the population increased and more people became more affluent more people could buy umbrellas and just because you own a car doesn't mean you don't own an umbrella anyway.
What would seriously damage the volume of sales for umbrellas would be, if it never rained.

 

[domainseller200]

Domain names are maybe becoming less important to a percentage of the growing number of net users, but the situations where domains are important are not reducing and will still grow from where they are now and have been in the past.

Were less umbrellas being sold after the invention of the car ? No of course not, because it was still a growing market, and as the population increased and more people became more affluent more people could buy umbrellas and just because you own a car doesn't mean you don't own an umbrella anyway.
What would seriously damage the volume of sales for umbrellas would be, if it never rained.

Excellent post !

 

[Bailey]

Domains will be around as long as the internet continues. Talk about their demise reminds me of some of the future-tech talk of the sixties. Including we would all be called by our designated Number because that was the only way future systems would be able to ID match. Come to think of it it's not a bad idea.

 

[vizzo]

I'm sure domain names are here to stay. I don't think the original article is saying domains will fizzle out - rather that getting "the perfect domain name" is becoming less important.

 

[octopus]

Yes, I believe they are getting less important. The marketing dollars drive domains as we all know, and to me anyway, the marketing dollars are going into 'apps', not names. Apps obviously are shipped/sold on app stores and not the world wide web. Combine that with new tlds, and we might see a gradual decline in name values.