marketing, intellectual-property, business-registration, trademark, domain-nameIn a dilemma, the singular version of my website name is taken, i.e. CoolBag.com is taken, mine is CoolBags.com. Would you change the name or continue without owning both versions?
I create a physical product that is both a line of items, but also individual pieces.
It doesn’t matter so much provided that yours is more natural to speak and write.
Domain name related problems will occur if:
Is your product very similar to the singular version? If the singular is trademarked you may be infringing and they could potentially sue you, have your site shut down, and have a legal judgement transferring the ownership of the plural name to their company.
If you are distinctly different or operate in separate jurisdictions, then it may only confuse a small group of customers for both companies and not have any other implications.
now there are also a whole bunch of additional tld (top level domains). It is no longer just .com .net .org. You can now register over 300+ other tlds. Everything from .law to .software to .biz.
Again, be careful with trademarks. As if you use someone’s already registered trademark they can shut you down very quickly.
Generally, however, with domain names unless you really expect people to actually type in your domain name in the address bar; it really doesn’t matter. Most people are directed to domains via search engines anyway.
Best of luck,
Generally the plural relates to products and a singular, a brandable.
Do you receive an exact match keyword search?
Likely the better name will leak to the lesser name, if at all. On a com
EMD new gTLDs can rank well and are worth considering if it fits, but might require more marketing.
First of all, don’t change your domain name if that is your trademark/brand. Most likely, you have already built up a reputation among your customers and if you lose that you’ll also lose searches online.
An option available to you is to get in contact with the owner of the singular.com. You can check that through a WHOIS lookup.
Next, give them a fair price for the domain name. This will make them more open to negotiations and more likely to sell the domain to you.
If that doesn’t work out, then you can also try using a .us domain name instead since you seem to be based there. Having a .us extension has a few benefits, particularly if you are targeting the local US market.
These include:
Company names are the most important part of your branding. Don’t change it. Your domain name being close as possible helps. It would be a good investment to own a couple variations of your domain. Just make sure your business cards, apps or other promotional items get your clients to your website. Many businesses small and large use more than one domain. It gives the flexibility to start other sites should you decide to at a later date.
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