news Kain Automotive changed KainAutomotive.com into kain.auto

[ithinkso]

Kain Automotive changed domain of official site these days, from KainAutomotive.com to Kain.Auto.
do you think Kain.Auto more brandable,memorable?
what do you think about this news?

 

[Keith]

it's short: Kain.Automotive (9 characters) and catchy!

It's catchy but as the internet goes, people will naturally type .com

 

[Canadian]

It's catchy but as the internet goes, people will naturally type .com

did you hear about 301 redirect ?

 

[RU]

people will naturally type .com

oh, come on!

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Nice. I like it . Even .xyz is getting some heat

 

[Recons.Com]

I did not check who owns KainAuto.com but yeah, really smart leaving it with GD placeholder, instead of simple redirect.

 

[Keith]

oh, come on!

I didn't make it up, it's a fact. I have a keywordorg.com that gets over 10,000 uniques a month from people trying to reach keyword.org.

This type of misguided traffic is well documented and will only get worse with more extensions and confusion.

 

[Canadian]

I did not check who owns KainAuto.com but yeah

Well you should have checked who owned KainAuto.com before you made your comments.

really smart leaving it with GD placeholder, instead of simple redirect.

So you know what a simple 301 redirect is...? I guess your comment #3 didn't make any sense either.

3. They'll get a little benefit of PR stunt with untargeted traffic, but will lose targeted one from the search engines if the previous domain had any backlinks, PR etc.

**I'll drop Kain a quick email and advise them to redirect KainAuto.com to Kain.Auto

 

[Recons.Com]

Could not have expected somebody to be that dumb... But, yes, should've, could've, would've...

And, yes, please do write to Kain regarding redirect. And also give them some tips how to market themselves before they take on mission to market auto companies, as having almost zero traffic to their website is as embarrassing as a shoemaker without shoes.

 

[David Kain]

I enjoy all the back and forth regarding our switch to Kain.Auto. We were approached by the domain name provider to make the switch as we are a boutique digital marketing consultant in the automotive industry. We had a large event with our clients and we made the change overnight Monday and now after 3 days out of the office I am now able to update our redirects including KainAuto.com. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

 

[RU]

I enjoy all the back and forth regarding our switch to Kain.Auto. We were approached by the domain name provider to make the switch as we are a boutique digital marketing consultant in the automotive industry. We had a large event with our clients and we made the change overnight Monday and now after 3 days out of the office I am now able to update our redirects including KainAuto.com. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

Welcome to NamePros

 

[Kate]

I enjoy all the back and forth regarding our switch to Kain.Auto. We were approached by the domain name provider to make the switch as we are a boutique digital marketing consultant in the automotive industry.

Hello and welcome to the forum. Thank for taking the time to chime in. I am wondering what kind of spin your domain name provider played in front of you in order to convince you to jeopardize your branding and SEO

 

[disaac81]

The point of all this is, they will ALWAYS have to keep the dot com version.

You cannot compare dot com with gtlds, gtlds are often used as a protective asset as well as for PR.

 

[Recons.Com]

Welcome, David.
It is always good to get feedback first hand.

 

[Keith]

What's happened here is exactly what these knock off registries want. The established .com feels that they need the .garbage. Meanwhile all the traffic will come from the .com anyways, rendering the .garbage useless.

Now if it's the other way around I'm sure kainauto.com will get dropped. But seriously, once you figure out the traffic pattern, quit funding these obscure dots.

 

[Canadian]

Welcome, David.
It is always good to get feedback first hand.
My questions are above, but in short, if you are in promoting auto industry, why your website has no visitors?

Come-on @Recons.Com
You're embarrassing yourself like a ... quote "shoemaker without shoes"

 

[Recons.Com]

Canadian, you are typical example of very aggressive breed of new gtld investors attacking anybody who might want to caution domain investment newbies.
Good luck with that. I understand that you are heavily vested in those and you desperately need the stories like above.
I am out of the topic.

 

[David Kain]

The presentation made to me by the domain provider was pretty straightforward...that the .Auto name will allow for a shorter presentation to our clients and prospective clients and may provide a better SEO ranking. As a digital marketing consultant to the Automotive Industry, and minimally dependent on our website for business, I felt it was worth giving a try especially with the safety net of the KainAutomotive and KainAuto domains still active.

 

[JB Lions]

"may provide a better SEO ranking"

How can you get better than 1? You're already #1 for your own name, which is one of the easiest things to do. Are you talking about some other keywords you're targetting? And if so, why would it give you a boost?

"minimally dependent on our website for business"

This is what goes for news in the new gltd forum. I guess there wasn't a press release to pass off as news today.

 

[disaac81]

These providers keep using seo as a benefit of new gtlds, they are scamming their clients.

It's such a shame that in the year 2015 these seo scams still exist.

 

[Kate]

...
that the .Auto name will allow for a shorter presentation to our clients and prospective clients

It makes sense, but this is a branding issue. My personal fear would be that the perceived branding benefit be nullified by confusion. People are not familiar with oddball extensions.

and may provide a better SEO ranking.

If they used the word 'may', then it is a half-lie. Had they used "will", it would be a full lie. Google have stated they don't give preferential treatment to new TLDs - even if they did one has to prove it, and this would raise serious competition issues.

 

[David Kain]

We shall see. I am not reading anything that sways me either way. We are known in our Niche market as Kain Automotive and will remain that way. When someone types KainAutomotive.com, KainAuto.com or Kain.Auto it will bring them to our site. The broader conversation is not about us, it is whether automobile dealers will benefit from the .cars, .car and .auto domains. I have clients that have huge urls and can now shorten them to a .cars, .car and .auto domain.

 

[Kate]

What I mean is, your provider is not a neutral adviser. They want to sell extensions so they have a vested interest here, and for this they also need 'guinea pigs' that they can showcase to demonstrate "adoption" of new extensions by end users. I have a real problem with this. You know, it's like expecting sound investment advice from the banks but all they do really is dump their products on you and reap their percentage...
Do keep in mind it's your brand that is at stake, they are not risking anything by taking your money (except their credibility maybe).

I can understand the rationale for a new extension when you're building a new site, or starting a new business from scratch but in your case you already had a domain name, so in my view they are trying to fix what ain't broken. I am more than skeptical, because I'm not seeing a lot of added value for your business even from a SEO point of view (as said above).
Anyway, you definitely want to have all bases covered.

This is a daring branding experiment, but I think it can be a problem when everybody else around you still uses .com. You certainly stand out from the crowd but is this good or odd... ?

 

[Canadian]

When someone types KainAutomotive.com, KainAuto.com or Kain.Auto it will bring them to our site.

Great move David ! and as your Company minimally dependents on your website for business...You're in an ideal situation to test the .auto gtld for your all your Clients. (so when you advise your Automotive clients about .cars or .auto You know exactly what you're talking about..... instead of the opinion of some online gtld lover/hater)

The broader conversation is not about us, it is whether automobile dealers will benefit from the .cars, .car and .auto domains. I have clients that have huge urls and can now shorten them to a .cars, .car and .auto domain.

 

[asset.domains]

people that are speaking about traffic concerns should attend some google webmaster seminars.

 

[iAchilles]

The presentation made to me by the domain provider was pretty straightforward...that the .Auto name will allow for a shorter presentation to our clients and prospective clients and may provide a better SEO ranking. As a digital marketing consultant to the Automotive Industry, and minimally dependent on our website for business, I felt it was worth giving a try especially with the safety net of the KainAutomotive and KainAuto domains still active.

If anything it will have a short term negative effect on your SEO, when you 301 redirect to a new domain you always lose a bit of link juice, nobody knows exactly how much, but it's thought to be anywhere from 1-10%, this is especially problematic with Bing and Yahoo. in most case studies traffic eventually recovers and returns to normal levels. From what I gather traffic and ranking isn't that important for your business model, so I don't see how this is even relevant.

I don't disagree with the logic that you can now present a shorter url to clients and prospective clients but why not use it for printed and radio advertising etc and simply forward it to your existing .com domain?