Every once in a while, you come across a business name that just leaves your head shaking. Whether the name chosen is a really poor play on words, really hard to spell and thusly, find, or infringes on someone else’s trademarked name, bad decisions are made all the time when naming businesses.
This all took on new meaning in the 90′s when domain names started to pick up popularity and you had another issue to worry about, how well your business name translates online. Take for example, a local Chicago favorite, George’s Hot Dogs. They are celebrating 60 years this year, so they have definitely done something right, but with their new website, George’s Hot Dogs (www.georgeshotdogs.com) looks a lot like George Shot Dogs when you look at the domain name!
Obviously this one is tough to plan ahead for when you’ve been in business that long, but without a doubt something you want to keep in mind for future business endeavors.
What types of business names have you seen lately that have made you laugh or think twice?
Taylor Cimala is the Strategic Director at Digital Third Coast, a Search Engine Marketing company based in Chicago. You can find Taylor on Twitter and Google+. Connect with Digital Third Coast on Google+.
[...] Over the years I had found capitalization to work well with some domains (look at our blog post on George Shot Dogs for an example), while leaving the display URL as all lowercase to work better in [...]