Good URLs vs. bad

[Phil Steinmeyer]

For my last game, I was able to get the 'right' URL (www.bonniesbookstore.com)

It's a long enough domain that nobody had registered it - I paid the standard $9/year.

For my next game, my working name is shorter (2 words, 9 letters total), and the 'right' URL (www.gamename.com) is taken by a resort hotel that certainly wouldn't part with it cheaply. www.gamename.net is held by a squatter, who wants at least $888 (that's the minimum on their website, though it may be more).

Having the 'right' URL for Bonnie's Bookstore has been useful. I'm not sure if it's decisive, but I've floated between the #1 and #2 spot on Google for "Bonnie's Bookstore", and I believe I get some direct visitors who just type www.bonniesbookstore.com into their address bar (rather than using a search engine)

The question is - should I sacrifice a shorter, more memorable name, in favor of one that's a bit longer/more obscure, but that I can get the main URL for?

Failing that, is there any SEO mojo to be had by getting 'weak' alternates like, i.e. www.bonniesbookstoregame.com, if I couldn't get www.bonniesbookstore.com?

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Also, when I have about 20 domains, all either pointing to my home page or to my Bonnie's Bookstore sub-page, how can I count/track usage of those domains (i.e. how can I tell that an alternate domain, which was redirected to my main page, was used).

I don't want to have one of those "You will be redirected in 5 seconds" things for each of the alternate pages.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

The question is - should I sacrifice a shorter, more memorable name, in favor of one that's a bit longer/more obscure, but that I can get the main URL for?
Actually, post-pending "game" or "movie" to URL names has been pretty common for a while, and used in the mass market. (Especially "movie".)

I'm not one to comment on how much actual effect it would have either way, but I can comment that i've seen it done plenty of times before in recent years.

[Ryan Clark]

When I Google "Bonnie's Bookstore", your site www.newcrayon.com comes up, not your www.bonniesbookstore.com URL. And I'm not sure if your redirect from bonniesbookstore.com has much of an impact on your newcrayon subpage's Google rank.

Our strategy is to increase the ranking of GrubbyGames.com as much as possible, so that all of our future games will therefore benefit from that higher rank. We registered www.professorfizzwizzle.com mainly as a defense against anyone who might try to use that URL to outrank us for "Professor Fizzwizzle" searches.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

When I Google "Bonnie's Bookstore", your site www.newcrayon.com comes up, not your www.bonniesbookstore.com URL. And I'm not sure if your redirect from bonniesbookstore.com has much of an impact on your newcrayon subpage's Google rank.

www.bonniesbookstore.com redirects to http://www.newcrayon.com/BonniesBookstore.htm, which is #2 on google under "Bonnie's Bookstore". But I don't know how much impact having the redirecting URL makes.

[Ryan Clark]

www.bonniesbookstore.com redirects to http://www.newcrayon.com/BonniesBookstore.htm, which is #2 on google under "Bonnie's Bookstore". But I don't know how much impact having the redirecting URL makes.
Right. I wouldn't count on it having much of an impact (though it certainly could have some)... for the longest time we were nowhere near the top of the "Professor Fizzwizzle" search charts; it didn't seem to matter that we had professorfizzwizzle.com/.net/.org all redirecting to the Professor Fizzwizzle page on grubbygames.com.

It wasn't until the PageRank of grubbygames.com started to increase that we moved up the result listings.

Also, if the redirect does have an impact on your rank, wouldn't a redirect from bonniesbookstoregame.com have almost the same result? It still has the keywords in there, though diluted slightly by "game". I'm just suggesting that getting your new game's domain as GAMENAMEgame.com shouldn't be too big of a disadvantage, in terms of rank. In terms of "people just typing the URL into their browser," yes, it's a disadvantage, but it doesn't sound like you can get GAMENAME.com anyway, so there doesn't appear to be much choice.

[Tom Gilleland]

For major products, I think it is pretty important to select a game name that you can get the domain. I also think it is good to put up a site and get it Googling up in rank for awhile before the product is even released. Then once it does come out you have a better chance to stay high on the Google list. Selling direct makes you at least three times as much money per unit sold.

I'm sure those guys at the bay want some big bucks for that domain! ;)

Tom

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I'm sure those guys at the bay want some big bucks for that domain! ;)Tom

You've seen my stealth link :) (Designed to do exactly as you suggest - make sure I'm on the search engines long before my product releases).

[Backov]

Also, when I have about 20 domains, all either pointing to my home page or to my Bonnie's Bookstore sub-page, how can I count/track usage of those domains (i.e. how can I tell that an alternate domain, which was redirected to my main page, was used).

I don't want to have one of those "You will be redirected in 5 seconds" things for each of the alternate pages.

Just have a php script that does a redirect.. The redirect in PHP is quite simple:

header("Location: wheretogo.com");

That won't do the stupid meta-refresh redirect that people like, it'll just do a straight 302 redirect.

Log the hit somewhere before that, in mysql or a text file or whatever.

Then just set your htaccess for that domain to have all 404s or what have you go to that redirect page. You can even have a single redirect script that takes arguments that you can supply in the individual domains htaccess scripts.

As for the domain, if it's expensive, don't bother. Use a subdomain or a subdirectory under some master domain. You're going to have a bitch of a time coming up with domain names if you insist on having the first order ones. Something like tetrisclone.philsgames.com, or philsgames.com/tetrisclone/ - or both.

Based on my very high traffic web experience - type ins mean just about nothing. The traffic you'll get from them is so insignificant that you'll never notice it. Now, having a bad google result for someone searching for your game - that's bad. And you don't need the domain to get a good result. In fact, searching for one of my sites by the name (for example, "tamedtornado" - it's not that one, but another) - yields the site in question as the 2nd or 3rd result, and my designers site with it in his portfolio first.