I’m Calling It: No One Cares About Your Exxy Domain
I remember back in 2013, Rolling Stone’s Aussie team were set on creating a local website to accompany their print mag.
The rollingstone.com.au domain as of December 2024. Utter garbage.
They hit a snag because some dingbat (my words, not theirs) had parked the rollingstone.com.au domain and was holding it ransom. The negotiations got so ridiculous that it included paying for some of said dingbat's home renovations. If memory serves, he wanted them to cover the costs of redoing the tiles around his pool, along with a hefty sum. With costs escalating rapidly, they pulled the plug on using the rollingstone.com.au domain and instead used the au.rollingstone.com subdomain. Easy solve. The rollingstone.com.au domain is still parked (see pic) and I take some small glee in knowing the domain flipper has probably paid a decent amount to hold onto the domain for over a decade now for no reason.
Those were the times when people really cared about domains. Having the right domain meant prestige, legitimacy and—hopefully—business. Short domains that made sense were also critical as consumers mostly used websites for key information, pulling these from product packaging and marketing materials.
Fast forward to 2025, and the landscape is very different:
The number of small to medium businesses over the past decade has skyrocketed. There are only so many words to pick brand names from, and businesses are competing globally for their most relevant short domain. This means that there are many businesses with slightly longer domains and consumers feel comfortable with it. The introduction of more fun top level domains (like .agency or .melbourne instead of .com) have helped, although sometimes consumers don’t realise they’re looking at a URL so it defeats the purpose anyway.
One of the major draw cards to a short URL was to prevent user error while typing a super long web address into the address bar. However most browsers now switch to search engine results if a website is written incorrectly anyway.
SEO has gotten much better at figuring out what you are looking for. Google knows I’m always looking for the amazing Kiwi coffee brand Supreme and not the American streetwear brand. This is only going to get better with AI.
Gen Z and millennial consumers also use social media first for brand research, especially TikTok and Instagram. I’ve noticed people tend to use Instagram to share brands with friends, TikTok and YouTube for video instructions (e.g. L’Oréal True Match Serum honest review) and Pinterest to see how things can fit into their lives (e.g. mesh ballet flat outfit, although honestly there’s no way to style them well).
In addition, brands lean into user-generated reviews as a way to drive legitimacy, not URLs. Whether it’s Google Business Reviews, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Reddit or Trustpilot, the savvy consumer of 2025 knows how to figure out if you’re selling snake oil. I have bought heaps of items online from brands that were new to me, purely because they had rock solid Google Reviews.
COVID really got us comfortable with using QR codes and NFC points, so again no need to type a URL.
Many legitimate businesses also partner with other businesses for key parts of their consumer flow, all of which sit on the third party partners website anyway (and not theirs). Think Mr Yum for ordering a beer at the pub, Square to book a pilates class, Audience Republic to enter a Beyond The Valley competition or Laylo to sign up for the Laneway presales.
For those queries that do warrant a quick search on Google, consumers are also asking questions differently. Us early internet adopters were taught to search things with very concise and precise search terms (boolean terms, anyone?!). But all major search engines now do their best work with detailed long tail keywords, like “Best coffee grounds for Bialetti moka pot” or “Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter Dupe Australia”. Users want to find deep links in websites with the exact info that they want.
(Or better yet - Gemini AI now provides a bespoke answer from across the web, no URLs in sight. The ethical considerations for that better left for another day.)
So if you’re reading this and currently tossing up whether you want to be a chump for a domain flipper, consider this. Domains are definitely needed, but your website URL is just one of many ways your customers will try to find you. And it isn’t even the best avenue for brand discovery. Get a nice domain that makes sense, but save money on the one-word domain that some IT nerd is trying to make bank with.
It doesn’t really matter. BRB changing my website URL to dahd10ahi-wlew_f9ghc.net.
