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Nine By Blue founder Vanessa Fox is author of the critically acclaimed Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business, which has been called the “search marketing bible” by technology leaders. Be sure to pick up your copy today.
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July 2, 2007
Neil Patel asked his readers what they thought of my blog and they resoundingly said my domain name is trouble. They said that it:
- Could be seen as offensive by some people
- Might make those on social networking sites, such as Digg, see the URL, assume it’s porn and mark it as spam without clicking through
- Trips up work filters
Huh.
In these days of naked conversations and naked blogging, I wouldn’t expect people to find my domain any more offensive than any of that, although it’s not for me to say what someone is offended by. I haven’t actually had anyone tell me that I’ve offended them, just that it’s possible. Which is fair.
As for people making assumptions about porn, also possible. I see that yet another story of mine was just submitted to Digg and then buried before getting any diggs at all. Was it because of the URL? No idea. All I know is that every story that’s ever been submitted has been buried. Although I did set up that experiment with vanessafox.org and that story was buried too, so maybe something else is going on. (Perhaps it’s the “vanessa fox” part rather than the “nude” part that makes the URL look suspect.)
Tripping work filters? Having most recently worked at a company where I often had to look at porn sites in the course of a regular day (porn site owners ask for help just like anyone else, after all), I hadn’t thought about that. A few people have also said that while it doesn’t trip filters, they don’t load the site at work just in case someone looking at logs assumes its porn.
So, I ask you. Do you think my domain name is a problem? Is the world missing the crazy ramblings about Buffy and mobile phones wisdom of the ages because they’re worried about the potential porn factor?
In addition to missing out on readers, I’m also probably getting visitors who go away pretty dissatisfied. The top search query that brings people to this blog is “nude”. In fact, that’s where 43% of my search traffic came from. The lessons? That those searching for porn are willing to next through much more than just the first ten results. And that if you want to get into the porn business, just get a domain name with “nude” in it. Any domain will do. anywordsplusnude.com. allthegoodporndomainsaretakennude.com. davenaylornude.com. Or you know. Whatever.
So, what’s a girl to do?
I admit that I’m partial to my current domain name, but I have some options. I don’t want to just resolve another domain to these pages. There’s that pesky duplicate content problem with search engines, for one thing. And I wouldn’t want to just block the mirrored version with robots.txt because people would likely start linking to the other URL and I wouldn’t get any PageRank credit for those links.
I could redirect another domain name to this one, which might work OK, except the people who are avoiding the domain because they don’t want it showing up on work logs wouldn’t be too happy to end up here at the end of the 301 hop.
I could also get myself a spiffy new domain name and redirect this domain to that one. That would solve some things (although I have no idea if it would solve the problem with being buried since I don’t know if it’s the domain name that’s causing it). However, I’d be a little sad to no longer be vanessa fox nude.
What’s your vote? If you think a new domain name is the way to go, what do you think it should be?
Yes, davenaylornude.com is available, but sadly, it would have all the same problems.
Screw ‘em – if they don’t want to take the time to realize what’s really going on here and are filtering you simply for a word in your domain name, they don’t deserve to get the great content and opinions you provide.
Unless you’re seriously considering earning revenue on the site and want the low quality page views, or are concerned that the “Vanessa” brand needs to get out there more with the social media crowd, I don’t think you need to change – they do.
Alternatively, it might help if you’re blog’s top header had a photo of you with a nice bold description of the site to the tune of:
Vanessa Fox
Formerly Head of Google’s Webmaster Central
Currently Director of *** at Zillow
Nude – Figuratively, not Literally
That might save you some heartache as well.
Besides… What’s wrong with getting lots of traffic for “nude”
I agree with Rand, screw-em. Jamie Oliver made a living off of being the “naked chef” and no one expected to see any nude cooking on the food network, specially when frying bacon. ouch.
Wiki also has this to say about nude, “”Nude” originally had a meaning of “plain, bare, unadorned” in a broader sense when introduced into English from Latin nudus, originally only as a legal term meaning “unsupported by proof”, since 1531; later used an artistic euphemism for physical nakedness in 1631″
So in reality you are just using the word as its original definition before these young hipsters made it something dirty. I’d blame those darn generation-A kids in the 1630s.
I think the problem stems more from your actual name ‘Vanessa Fox’ – it sounds stripperesque when paired with the word ‘nude’.
Nobody would mistake MargaretThatcherNude.com as being pornographic.
Or maybe they would?
of course it creates a problem. We live in a world where overly litigious lawyers have every company and manager terrified of a sexual harassment lawsuit, the only option is banal inoffensive political correctness, which is as exciting a lump of week old tofu.
It takes a brave person to fight an uphill battle, and choose the road less traveled. However since you aren’t working towards a commercially profitable/driven blog goal you have a bit of wiggle room.
You won’t lose any street cred by going the easy route in fact lots of sheeple will tell you it was the right thing to do. However if you stick to it and make the “nude” domain work you will have the respect of people who realize just how hard your journey was.
So the question is do you want to be remembered for doing something that was right, or doing something that was hard …
Welcome to our world of pain, Vanessa! How many times have clients asked to change their domain name for a valid branding reason, but I have to tell them, “Avoid doing that, or you’ll lose your rankings for (a long time).”
Maybe you can get hold of Somebody at Google Wemaster Central and convince them to implement Trusted Webmasters. It could work something like this:
Hello, I’m a trusted webmaster. I’ve been good and haven’t spammed your index. I’d like to change my domain name from A to B for a perfectly legitimate business reason. Please change up all my listings, but don’t torch my rankings just because I have a new brand.
rockin-penguins.com is available. This would be a great domain for announcements and informed discussion about penguins that rock. Which would be AWESOME.
You have convinced me. I’m chucking it all to become a rockin’ penguin blogger.
Hmmm… I must confess that I don’t load this site from work, only because I work for lunatics (who shall remain nameless) that check every site that I visit without having a clue as to knowing why – it just has a ‘bad’ word in it so it must be a ‘bad’ site…
However, I look forward to coming home and freely checking out everything that you have to say – you are truly a great writer and a joy to read.
Don’t ever change!
That said, I bought a very short domain name recently and have had nothing but grief about it ever since… Go figure…
If you’re going to change, I second rockin-penguins.com — however, I don’t think you need to change. As so many sites are trying to come up with catchy names that generally mean nothing, there’s something so simple and memorable about Vanessa Fox Nude. It’s a little naughty, but as soon as you hit the site, you immediately know it’s not a porn site.
And it’s certainly not in competition with the 10 Worst Domain Names…
One of the top search phrases for us is consistently “busty.” I seriously wonder how many less hits we’d get each month if we didn’t do the Busty series of articles. Apparently, we should start throwing “nude” into more pieces.
No way you should change!! The creative aspect of your blog is the exact reason i/we continue to read your every word (gospel according to naked chick).
Don’t ever follow the herd (patel readers) or you will just be another blog lemming running off the cliff – most of your readers follow your work because you stand out.. in all your naked glory =)
Seriously if you change the kitten here is going to get it.. dont make me do it
http://www.ntua.gr/posdep/logos/Kitten Gun.jpg
toodles
I think you captured it when you said “However, I’d be a little sad to no longer be vanessa fox nude”
)
This is your personal domain – you make it what you want it to be and damn the world!
Would you move from Apartment #4 because people said 4 is unlucky, when you loved the apartment?
(4 is the unlucky one in classical Chinese, right? Because I’d feel silly if it were actually something else
Might be different if this were a commercial site that wasn’t selling porn – but that isn’t the case
And the Digg thing? I’m afraid you are forever tarred by your past of working for that Evil company. You know the one I mean. Wait, they’re Not Evil. I get mixed up so easily.
:ducks:
I’d continue the link building process using the vanessafoxnude domain – and then, in a few years, turn it into a highly profitable porn site.
Get outta town!! You’ve actually had people complain about it? Wow – if I want to call my site ‘BustyMattBloggsInBacklessBriefsWithDiamontes.com’ that’s my prerogative
I like it – it is cheeky and fresh – and gave us all a lesson in buzz generation from an expert..
If people get disappointed – meh – but as I’ve said before, you could add a featherless chook torso under the seagull head just to satisfy those people that come here expecting nudity
What about busty-rockin-penguins.com?
Stay nude. It brightens our day.
And please don’t let DaveN do anything with davenaylornude.com. For the love of all that is good.
If you stopped using this domain as your blog then you’d have to use it as your porn site.
No, I’m with everyone else here – don’t change just cause you think it will make some feel better.
People need to relax. My company blocks random sites. I can’t get to LaneBryant.com and the Miss American site (don’t ask!) but MySpace and YouTube work.
I love the URL. It’s fun to tell it to people and watch their faces try to figure out if I am serious or not. Heh. I think it fits you perfectly. And I am also hoping eventually, you will post nudie picks.
Oh I must be getting old, I’m afraid I think you should give in to the norms. My experience was that I dragged your URL onto my bookmark bar to make a note to go back and read it later. Someone wanted to jump onto my computer for a quick check of something and there were a couple of strange glances. I’d completely forgotten the first button on my bookmark bar was “Vanessa Fox Nude”. No big deal but I’d prefer if it wasn’t.
Cheers,
Joe
While it seems a bit disingenuous, given your last job, to say that you are surprised by this kind of discussion about your domain name, I think that if you had a guy’s name it wouldn’t provoke the same kind of reaction at all (which really sucks). I also suspect that the Digg issues are because you are a relatively prominent technical woman. (I won’t get started on the misogyny rampant against technical women online, except to say that I get very different reactions in online forums etc. depending upon what kind of name I use).
[As to whether you should keep using the domain-- I only wish I were smart enough to answer that question! I expect it's a hindrance in some contexts, an advantage in others...]
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