Using the URL as a business name

[Sarah FBM]

I have a prospective client who wants his business name to be "hisname.com" where hisname is his actual name.

I recall having issues with this a few years ago, certain sites just gave me the ol error message, "No URLs allowed" was a common thing. I am trying to see if this is still an issue, or if it will be acceptable to go with it. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd appreciate the advice!

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Re: using the URL as a business name

Personally, I haven't met a business owner who wanted to brand their business as a URL. Usually you create a brand and then use the URL as an asset. The exception to this would be businesses like 1-800-Flowers who did this (used the URL as the business name).

The issue you run into there is that the brand becomes online-only focused. You are essentially making the main play as eCommerce or affiliate sales model, not brick and mortar. It could work, but would take some work.

Being that brands like this typically do not have brick and mortar locations, I would think directory sites have stayed in their own ways by not allowing businesses to list URLs as names. Could be a spam flag for them.

If the question is, "should they name their business this way" then I think you really need to ignore what directory sites will do and focus on the real branding strategy. If the question is, "can they use a name like this" then you should test it to see what sites will allow.

Put the branding strategy before the local tactics. Directory sites would be one part of the marketing strategy, but there is no marketing strategy without a solid brand & brand message.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I have a prospective client who wants his business name to be "hisname.com" where hisname is his actual name.

I recall having issues with this a few years ago, certain sites just gave me the ol error message, "No URLs allowed" was a common thing. I am trying to see if this is still an issue, or if it will be acceptable to go with it. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd appreciate the advice!

Interesting. I thought we may have had some clients ask to use a .com with our service in the name but I looked through our records and can't find any.

I'm guessing you're asking about business listings? My guess is it shouldn't be a big deal, that most would accept it. But I could be very, very wrong.

 

[Sarah FBM]

I appreciate the input. This is specifically about the listings, and I'm like fairly certain the ones that didn't work with me were sites I'm not interested in using at all anymore anyway.

 

[Patrick Leonard]

It's definitely not a common ask but you shouldn't have any issues with that. If it's a local business you'll just want to make sure you have consistent NAP info across all your listings like any other business.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

I have a prospective client who wants his business name to be "hisname.com" where hisname is his actual name.

I recall having issues with this a few years ago, certain sites just gave me the ol error message, "No URLs allowed" was a common thing. I am trying to see if this is still an issue, or if it will be acceptable to go with it. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd appreciate the advice!

Ill disagree with everyone and say go with your gut!
Quick answer is NO!

Like you said you will get flagged on citation sites, or they just wont let you register. Giving up Free juice is enough for me to say no.

You would be slowing down one of the big 3 ranking factors, Branded Search. If everyone's got his website they wont be googleing his name aka brand.

IF the name is anything close to spammy, Google could run an update and wipe him out completely. I have seen this happen to a site that was trying use full url as business name and they ended up devaluing the whole site back to eternity, and no it wasn't because of anything else, it was highly researched with many others and google involved.


Might work for a while but what about 2 years from now when its finally ranking and has 10's of k in it?

IF he really wants to do it tell him you will just rank 2 sites/gmb... not sure if its brick mortar but?

 

[GabrielNwatarali]

You can do it. Usually, if you have it phrased as hisname.com instead of wwwHisName, you'll be fine. Or you can even just remove the extension and just place HisName