Domain names ... ... Really?

Has anyone ever considered just how limiting the idea of assigning domain names is?

And you have a better idea?

Better than IP addresses.

I can remember most of the IP addresses that I use. I think of them like another telephone number. It seems restrictive that I can only build a site by the name I give it. What if i want to build a site with the same name as someone else about a completely different topic? What if I don't like the idea of being forced to pay thousands of dollars for a good domain name because some outside person has them all cataloged for sale?

Yes, now to get a domain name you have to go with a long mess of a name or a gobbledygook of a name since they all seem to be gone.  And of course everyone wants the .com because that has become the default tld for users.

Domain names were started as a short cut, and DNS servers can be hacked and have been hacked.  The thing is that users rarely type a domain name in, they use bookmarks or let the browser look it up and complete it for them.

One of the hardest part of creating a new site is finding a domain name.

I'm gonna try it. I'm going to build a small website and not assign it a domain name, instead, just publishing it with the IP address instead.

Sort of like a test to see if i can even get it noticed on the search engines....

Ummm I'm not sure about this theory!

Domain names are an important factor to SEO and being noticed by search engines and audience ...

search engines may indeed notice you and list you >> however unless your audience know the exact IP to the site when looking it up, it's not likely that it would show in results in the way you hope to see ...

I suspect many WHOIS listings would show instead!

Not really true. They are a part of the overall SEO picture but not really required to complete the task. Just for the hell of it, I just regged the name 'noipaddy.com'. Maybe a new type of search engine is required here and I might be the first!

The idea has merit. Think about it, the only thing a domain name is used for a human to easily remember a site. When I search, I always search by content (like, 'I need Prada Shoes") and am presented with a whole host of links to click. Those links could just as easily be an IP addy.

hmm.. here's a thought. Build a clandestine internet community that stays connected by using a mathematical equation to keep up with ever rotating IP addys! If you don't have the math, you can't find the site! LOLOL.

I can see a use for blocking all outside robotic (and otherwise) search attempts to log content

my personal thought is that unless your site is as strong in presence online as the many 'whois' sites >> your site will be lost among them and they would take lead positions in listings ....

Lucky you. I can't and as far as i know, most people can't. I find names easier to remember then numbers.

But you should be able to use a ip address.

But there is another reason for names. On big sites that need to be clustered, names are the only option. This is because there are hundreds of servers with different ip addresses. Round robin dns or cluster routers can map a name to hundreds of servers to distribute the load.

Books have names. Imagine this.

Librarian: Can i help you?
You: Yes, i would like book #One million three hundred and fifty two thousand.

The name Moby Dick would be much easier to remember.

Oh, and eventually everything will be switching to IPV6 numbers anyway. Do you really want to remember ip addresses that look like this. 2001:0db8:3c4d:0015:0000:0000:abcd:ef12

 damn ... no way my memory can be limited at the best of times rofl !

 LOL. Ok, here's a question right back at ya. Do you think there's enough 'names' to meet the need of all the different numbers IPV6 will represent?

In fact, at what point does the size of a name grow so large that the actual number would be easier?

www.Igottoefungussohowdoifixitocvernight.com ???

I call bullshit on the whole seo and garbage .. you can have the best seo and new hits every 2 minutes on a social network site,, point is if new people get there and no one is there they leave in less than a minute you need luck to make a site work... and far as names, think outside the box,, 9 years about "twitter" didnt mean a thing  ... today the domain name is worth hundreds of millions!

dont get me wrong seo will get you the kind of traffic you want,, but without a core the traffic wont amount to a fruitful social network

 
Sure. If you want a name like this one.

iregisteredwithgodaddyandalligotwasthishugeassdomainname.com

Hi sky,

In my opinion the idea is not very clever. You might be clever enough to remember all the IP's that you need, on the other hand I have difficulties to remember my own.

Now, let's say or imagine when you what to find a company e.g. "xy" which has IP 111.111.111.111. Can you explain us, how on earth one (who has same difficulties to remember numbers as I do) can find that company "xy" ?? Not to mention that that would be funeral for google and all other search engines.

Elaborating even further, how good are you in remembering IPv6 ...   ;)

that's one hell of a domain name right there!

 Don't get me wrong. I do see the value of a domain name. All I am saying is a lot of people use the internet for a lot of different things. A great many of those things don't have anything to do with the hit volume you generate or how many people you can get to join the site.

The idea is you can use IP addresses to make a site available on the internet and forego the cost and headache associated with obtaining and maintaining a name. I can see a lot of use for that.

I just checked. My phone number is available as a domain name. 413#######.com

And my birth date mmddyy.com is also available.

So if you want to use numbers. You can try stuff like that

 
Hacker, warez and porn sites do it all the time. They are mostly mailing the links tho. Not sure if search engines index them.

This post is taking on a life of it's own. It's almost a useless topic but I find it interesting.

Here's the question of the day. How would you promote a site that has no domain name association?

reminds me of the guy who wanted personal plate for his car but could not afford them,, so he just changed his name to 06y-j62   .. if you want your site to ever be a business you need a name.. and if you are gonna take the time to do something right,, why not just break out the couple grand and get the name you need/want/are expected to have

 It is the way it is, due to the history of development....

In your IP option serving more then one domain on one IP would be impossible....

domain names are a major part of branding!

 tussery,

I've took a look, and FYI you are missing this language keys on join page:

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_FieldCaption_FavoriteMusic_Join:

ty xxx

Gradually I start noticing diminishing importance of SEO in general, let alone domain name SEO. Optimising your site may be beneficial for some small-scale initial promotion, but it is generally not even worth the effort. User Experience Optimisation (UXO?), however, is incredibly important and powerful. And one way to make sure people remember your sleek site is to have a catchy brand/domain name. 

Case in point, our own top generic key-phrase brings about 20 times less traffic than the word "boonex". Go figure.

I think there should be some sort of URL law where you have to show you are using the domain name within a certain amount of time, otherwise you can only keep it for so long. 

Try to at least get some of them back on market that are sitting in someones dormant account...

Having said that, you could easily just place something on the site to hold it still...

It is frustrating how so many of the good names are bought up but not used. 

Would be nice if there was some sort of solution

Therein lies the problem. Sometimes capitalism is it's own worst enemy. I know it's not really possible but all domain names should be the same price and the businesses with established names that can prove their existence (like Sears or AOL) should have right to the matching domain names as a matter of course..

They do, in America at least... if someone registers a trademarked company name there are a couple of different laws the company can use. The main one being:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act

But you're 100% about all the good non-trademarked names being taken by squatters/spammers... and they all pull up that generic page full of spam ads. 

LOL, I constantly get people trying to sell me the .net versions of my .com names. Usually starts at about $175. I send them back a reply telling them I'll give them $10 bucks and they reply with $30. Then I buy it from them for $25 just to make sure they didn't make squat.

 Yeah I get those too. I've gotten offers repeatedly from this one company and I googled them and people claim they sometimes try and sell names they haven't ever registered yet, lol.

I kinda like your idea about the IP only site that changes. I know people LOVE feeling like they are part of something very exclusive. A friend told me once she wasn't supposed to let non-members see what Linkedin looked like on the inside.. it gave me a good laugh.

In Australia you can only register .com.au domain if you own a company with matching name or registered brand. Works like a charm.

like i said page rank means nothing now days,, i opened my site with a new name 5 days ago,, and just looked today and i have a page rank of a 3 lolllll see what i mean!

OK - so let me see if i can add a lil complexity to this scenario. I am running a dedicated server and I have a domain with a dedicated ip address. So in theory., if i type in the ip address, it should go to my site and the ip address should still remain in the url? Correct? In my case it actually changes the url to the domain name. is it supposed to do that when a dedicated ip address has been assigned to a domain?

Yes, it will resolve to a domain name if one is assigned to it.

I'm gonna toss up a 7.1 site with a domain name only and see what happens. Don't even know if I can get past the install without one.

Just as soon as I figure out what IP addys I own in Plesk... (lol)

Google say PageRank does not matter much BUT actually I think it does matter A LOT ... All sites with good PageRank have good SERP position!

in Aug 2012 Matt Cutts himself said: "the drop in Toolbar PageRank is an indicator of the decrease in our trust of the site."  you can see what I'm talking about here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/why-did-my-pagerank-go-down/

This tells me Pagerank still matters a lot!

I am not saying you cannot have good keyword listings and traffic without good PR (my own site is living proof of that) but when Matt Cutts himself tells me that PageRank is about 'trust' then this is a BIG thing and Google has been/ is right now very busy making this point by stripping away listings and traffic from sites they don't trust ...

PageRank is really about fresh and high quality content and your reach across the web from quality links / endorsements (not paid links but from people sharing your quality content). Content is King and ultimately sites with good unique content and many endorsements will always be listed better and take all the traffic across search engines compared to sites with poor content and few endorsements and, or have paid links.