Domain name starting with "get"

What do you think of domains that have the word "get" before the actual product name, just like getclicky.com or the domains used by 37 Signals products (basecamphq.com, campfirenow.com)?

Does it look good? what does it say to customers?

I think domains using "get" as a prefix lend themselves extremely well to software startups/companies or private alpha/beta tests. For example - Sponge, a new Q&A software startup uses getsponge.com as a landing page to gauge interest and allow people to sign-up to test their product. "Get" also lends itself well to online stores. It clearly tells the customer that they can get the product they want at your website.

The only real reason to purchase a get___.whatever domain is because you --- like everyone else -- is having a challenging time finding a domain name that can support a company name. Let's be honest, if you could afford/access click.com you wouldn't even be considering getclick.com.

In the article that Jesper linked to is this gem:

Mint, Patzer explained, is actually a
contraction of the company's original
name, "Money Intelligence." He'd
purchased the domain mymint.com for
about $3,000 of his own money prior to
raising any venture funding, and then
started pursuing Mint.com itself. The
buyer, an investment banker who had
run a fund called Mint Investments for
years, didn't want to sell--and due to
the success of the eponymous venture,
couldn't be convinced by any sum of
cash.

The Branding Process The challenge you are havinng now is probably with your name. And the domain is part of that. But there are in the overall branding of the company process. I appreciate this challenge, it is difficult and often very frustrating. I have found that when you step back and stop searching GoDaddy for prospective domain names and start doing the steps of good branding you will jump out of the box and find something that works.

Focus on the Prospective Customer The first thing to do is take the focus off of the domain name -- and take the focus back to the desired customer's desired experience of your company. The name of your company of product or service needs to resonate with the targeted prospective customer in some way. Knowing your customer and how they will get to your product/service is essential. Knowing the role the website plays in that process is critical.

In the context of your business The actual domain and company name need to be understood in the context of your overall business, market and business plan. Not all companies need unique names. Not all companies need Web 2.0 domains. Not all markets embrace funny names that require a back story. Not all companies marketing has SEM/SEO/PPC as a foundational strategy for their overall marketing plan.

Your branding -- and thus your website name -- should make sense for your business and the desired relationship you will have with your customers.

Make it work If in the end that conversation leads to mygreatwidget.com because greatwidget.com wasn't available -- then so be it and design a strategy around why part of your unique value proposition in the personalization of the great widget -- which is communicate through the use of "my" in the domain, and the website is designed to reinforce the personalizing nature of MY great widget.

I don't think it matters that much. As long as the domain name contains the name of the actual product, or service it will be good for SEO purposes. Having said that, SEO value means nothing to domain names used for web applications where your users usually don't know and don't care what the name of the domain name is - as long as they can access the tools you provide to them they'll be happy.

This is the case of 37Signals, basecamphq.com means nothing to their users, most of them (including myself) use a bookmark, a shortcut in their desktop or just go to 37signals launch pad where you can open any of the apps you are subscribed to, https://launchpad.37signals.com/signin Websites that target the consumer are the ones who should care about their domain name being something simple to spell, catchy, and short.

It's very unfortunate, but can be hard to avoid. Any kind of "get" prefix, or "hq" or "y" suffix is just uncool IMHO. If your name is "name", then I expect to find you at "name CTRL-ENTER" in the address bar (which yields http://www.name.com/ ). It is as simple as that. Any deviation takes away from your brand value. But it can be practically impossible to come up with a great name where the domain is available at a fair price, I know.

That's one of the reasons why I'm fond of artificial yet evocative names like "LinkedIn" or "Youtube". They are evocative, and the domain names are easier to get.

Aaron Patzer (founder of mint.com) gave this advice with regards to branding, which I think is spot on.

Like many of the other responses, I don't think there's anything wrong with prepending your domain name with "get" if you can't get the name you want. But I do think you should take a careful look at the website that's running at the domain you really wanted, for a couple of reasons:

• Your customers are likely to type in productname.com to try to get to your page. Are you comfortable with what they will see? You want it to be instantly recognizable as not your site, and at the same time non-offensive.
• Is the website at productname.com a competitor in any way? If so, I don't think you want to send them free traffic.
• Is the website at productname.com owned by a company with deep pockets? If so, you may find yourself fending off letters from their lawyers or offers to buy. You probably don't want that attention.

Get? why not.

GoTo works too quite successfully.
GoToMeeting
GoToMyPC

If your product is good, you're 80% there.

IMHO, a domain saying getclicky.com says me I'm going to download/purchase something called "clicky".

So maybe you want to own, www.click.com explaining what clicky is and also buy getclick.com for the sales activities.

You're just diluting your brand as well as losing some SEO.
37signals is brilliant at marketing, but they actually screwed up with all their different properties. Their SEO would be much better if they had everything on one site.

Just create a different page on your website and use that. And by the way, www.yourdomain.com/get is better from an SEO perspective than blog.yourdomain.com.

The one exception is when you want something like test.yourdomain.com be a testor beta server that's separate from your main site.