Website naming potential issue

EMA747

EMA747

Messages
2,070
Name
Andy
Edit My Images
Yes
So I think it's about time I got myself a proper website. I have agonised over names, then I thought I'd keep it simile and use "myname""photography" ie joeblogsphotography.
The issue I have just thought of is that my surname is Italian and a funny spelling. Is this something to be avoided in a website name, especially since people often misspell it
in everyday life?

I also cover both photo and video work so maybe "photography" in the title is misleading?

My main area is wildlife and natural history but I also do travel, sport and documentary work. Would I be better splitting my site and having two separate ones so as not to confuse
visitors?
 
I've always thought (forename)(surname)photography.co.uk is the best, even if you have a difficult name :p

If someone wants to find your photography work, they're probably going to search your name and add photography. Then if your site doesn't come to the top, there's something wrong! I say that and mine's the 9th result at the minute :LOL: Hopefully that's because it's not finished and there's barely any content! :wideyed:
 
boliston said:
Assuming (forename)(surname)photography.com is already taken?
Click to expand...

Nope, I personally prefer .co.uk :)
.com is supposably global, while obviously .co.uk is for the UK. I'd love people from all over the world to see my work, but if I'm ever going to get paid for it (as in doing shoots, not selling images), I see it best to advertise myself as a UK photographer by having a UK domain.

Have both if you can :p
 
Joshwain said:
I've always thought (forename)(surname)photography.co.uk is the best, even if you have a difficult name :p

If someone wants to find your photography work, they're probably going to search your name and add photography. Then if your site doesn't come to the top, there's something wrong! I say that and mine's the 9th result at the minute :LOL: Hopefully that's because it's not finished and there's barely any content! :wideyed:
Click to expand...
That's pretty much how I was thinking. It's easy to find and there is no ambiguity, especially with my name. There is only one person alive with my name and surname combination as far as I am aware
so finding a few domain name should be ok!

What do you think to the idea of splitting the websites? The wildlife side has sprung up alongside my job in conservation but I still wish to do other photo and video work outside of that area.
I was assuming that the two visitor/client bases would be totally separate so two websites might give a better impression that one that tries to cover it all?
 
EMA747 said:
That's pretty much how I was thinking. It's easy to find and there is no ambiguity, especially with my name. There is only one person alive with my name and surname combination as far as I am aware
so finding a few domain name should be ok!

What do you think to the idea of splitting the websites? The wildlife side has sprung up alongside my job in conservation but I still wish to do other photo and video work outside of that area.
I was assuming that the two visitor/client bases would be totally separate so two websites might give a better impression that one that tries to cover it all?
Click to expand...

Maybe you should just have (forename)(surname).co.uk if it's unique then and hope that it comes top in searches because of the content and the mentions of photography. If you have loads of work that you want to share for both wildlife and history and want to do a themed blog or something then I'd go for separate. If not, I'd try to have everything on one site so it can all be found easily. If you want to specialize and target individuals then have separate domains is what I'm trying to say :p

I'm thinking along similar lines to when wedding photographers have separate websites. Their clients don't really care if they're interested in landscapes, they just want to see their wedding portfolio and contact details. They aren't going to trawl through loads of photos that are irrelevant to them, especially when there's so many other wedding photographers around.
 
I don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it seemed like it to me. I use two domains.

photographerinessex.com is a descriptive url, that is where my site is hosted and where all my SEO efforts are directed. If anyone doesn't know me, that's hopefully where they will go looking.

I then have davidwalker-photography.co.uk which redirects to the above. The idea being anyone that knows me, or I have met anywhere and I made enough of an impression of for them to remember my name will be able to find my website easily. It is also the url that I use for my branding and emails.
 
If you hang on for a bit you can get (firstname)(Surname).photography as new domain extensions are being added this year
 
there is about 200 new domain extensions coming to fit the demand, saves use of hyphens and numbers in domains or making them so long for emails etc
 
EMA747 said:
So I think it's about time I got myself a proper website. I have agonised over names, then I thought I'd keep it simile and use "myname""photography" ie joeblogsphotography.
The issue I have just thought of is that my surname is Italian and a funny spelling. Is this something to be avoided in a website name, especially since people often misspell it
in everyday life?
?
Click to expand...

If you are worried about misspelling, have you considered using first name.first letter of surname instead?
 
Do you really need 'photography' on the end if your surname is that rare in this country? There are only seven other people with my surname in this country (all fairly close family) and I know none of the others are likely to want their own domain/web site so I just went with <surname>.co.uk and <surname>.me.uk. I think short domain names are better as they're easier to remember. My employer's domain name is the company name and it's 23 characters which is much too long.
 
Joshwain said:
Nope, I personally prefer .co.uk :)
.com is supposably global, while obviously .co.uk is for the UK. I'd love people from all over the world to see my work, but if I'm ever going to get paid for it (as in doing shoots, not selling images), I see it best to advertise myself as a UK photographer by having a UK domain.

Have both if you can :p
Click to expand...

Not true :)

It is your IP address that decides if you are UK/US :)
 
If it is too long why don't you make up something shorter? Not many people will type in long confusing-domain-names-photography.co.uk successfully. It is worth getting both .com and .co.uk and maybe .eu, all misspellings and variations (photo vs photos). You can totally have your name in website description which will be indexed by google

I am still thinking about .photography and .photos domains. They are more expensive, and they will not be popular for a start, and Joe Blogs may think you have left out .com and end up elsewhere. They could catch up in a few years so it still may be good investment.
 
Dale_tem said:
Not true :)

It is your IP address that decides if you are UK/US :)
Click to expand...

I said that .com is global, not for the US ;)

I'm not a global photographer, so why would I have a .com domain to advertise myself as one? Similarly, I wouldn't have a .fr domain unless I want to target people from France. I'm from the UK, I want to target people from the UK, so .co.uk it is :)
 
Which is wrong :)

It is your IP address of your server and it's location that has a more of an effect on which country you appear in. So buying a .co.uk from a US company hosted in the US via a US DNS server will not appear in the UK searches.

A .com in the UK with everything UK will appear in the UK :)

A .com in the UK has the same chance of appearing in the US or France as a .co.uk (unless you are rather clever)
 
Last edited:
It's not about searches. it's about being sensible and adhering to the established principle that .com is global, .co.uk is uk etc. I doubt that the registrant you but a domain name from has much difference in SEO
 
Dale_tem said:
It is your IP address of your server and it's location that has a more of an effect on which country you appear in. So buying a .co.uk from a US company hosted in the US via a US DNS server will not appear in the UK searches.

A .com in the UK with everything UK will appear in the UK :)

A .com in the UK has the same chance of appearing in the US or France as a .co.uk (unless you are rather clever)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I understand that :)

Al I'm saying is photographer.co.uk is more than likely going to be a UK photographer while photographer.fr is probably a French photographer. I don't want clients to think I'm a French photographer because I'm not, nor do I want them to think I'm a global photographer because I'm only going to accept work in the UK. Having a .co.uk domain makes it 100% clear that I'm a UK photographer.

Of course, I could have a .com domain and appear in UK searches but that's not what I was getting at. I know what you mean though, hopefully I've made sense this time :LOL:
 
I normally buy .com and .co.uk when buying domains, stops any issues later on
 
Joshwain said:
Yeah, I understand that :)

Al I'm saying is photographer.co.uk is more than likely going to be a UK photographer while photographer.fr is probably a French photographer. I don't want clients to think I'm a French photographer because I'm not, nor do I want them to think I'm a global photographer because I'm only going to accept work in the UK. Having a .co.uk domain makes it 100% clear that I'm a UK photographer.

Of course, I could have a .com domain and appear in UK searches but that's not what I was getting at. I know what you mean though, hopefully I've made sense this time :LOL:
Click to expand...

All is good until another guy sets up yourname.com and all hell breaks loose. It is even worse if the competitor is from the same country. There is no reason not to get .com even if you prefer .co.uk or whatever.

P.S. In google webmaster tools you can specify which country to optimise search results for. Your meta description will also play a part. ie. if you say british, UK, London then it is not likely to be positioned for US market.
 
Worse still if cometitor is from usa and you have the .com as they get preference in dispute due to not having a specific tld.
 
Dale_tem said:
Which is wrong :)

It is your IP address of your server and it's location that has a more of an effect on which country you appear in. So buying a .co.uk from a US company hosted in the US via a US DNS server will not appear in the UK searches.

A .com in the UK with everything UK will appear in the UK :)

A .com in the UK has the same chance of appearing in the US or France as a .co.uk (unless you are rather clever)
Click to expand...

Google (other search engines are available) are sensible enough to realise that the physical location of a webserver or of a domain registrar tells them nothing of value about the location of a business. Further, any such scheme would fall over massively with round robin DNS.

Having hosted our main company website on servers located in datacentres on different continents over the years, we have some experience of this.
 
Having a number of servers in multiple countries serving multiple countries tells me otherwise :)
 
A .co.xx will always be linked to the country, but a .com,.org,.net etc rely on the IP address of the server etc. to identify the country.
 
I normally buy .com and .co.uk when buying domains, stops any issues later on
Click to expand...
I have bought two .net domains, what issues should I expect to experience later on?
 
It isn't that, what happens when you set up a website called bobs photography.co.uk then another photographer called bob sets up bobs photography.com ? He can operate in the uk, will appear in uk searches (if the server is in the Uk). Customers who google bobs photography will find both, which will they click?
 
Customer from uk likely click the co.uk if they are looking for a uk photographer. That seems to be where the difference of opinion here is centred, assume you think the .com?
 
B1ts said:
Customer from uk likely click the co.uk if they are looking for a uk photographer. That seems to be where the difference of opinion here is centred, assume you think the .com?
Click to expand...
no i think dale means they then have a 50/50 choice and you could lose potential customers cheers mike.
 
Yep :)

So buy both to protect yourself from this happening.

.com only means international/us in books. In practice it can mean anywhere.
 
dinorock said:
no i think dale means they then have a 50/50 choice and you could lose potential customers cheers mike.
Click to expand...

I was going by his prev posts regarding tld and country thereof, if dilution of market is an issue obv buy both but his earlier posts were in relation to the assertion that .com would/not be equally found in uk searches, this would lead to my interpretation of his point being that he feels if both are found people would more likely go for the .com variant over the .co.uk
Hey I am probably wrong but he asks which would get clicked not asked the effect of that selection.
 
Ultimately good search engine optimisation and content is what is going to generate your search engine rankings.

A lot of portfolios that I have done work for have opted to use just (firstname)(surname).tld

The other way to look at is that the likely people who will visit your website will have been directed to it by your business cards and other marketing materials. You could also opt for forwarding domains as well such as weddingphotographer(county).tld which you could use if you had to direct someone to your website vocally.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top