What should our non-profit's domain name be?

May 12, 2005 2:57 PM

Our non-profit group is setting it's first web site, and we're having some trouble deciding on a domain name.

Our group's name is fairly long, e.g. Some Generic Organization Name, so somegenericorganizationname.org is a bit unwieldy. Since sgon.org is already taken, we were thinking of getting sgonblah.org (where blah is a word related to what we do).

We want to get both domains, and have sgonblah.org redirect to somegenericorganizationname.org, our "official" address. But that got me to thinking: if I want to put our email addresses on the site, things like [e-mail] are pretty long. But then people might wonder why [e-mail] has a different domain than the address in their browser's location box.

Or, are we going about this backwards? Should sgonblah.org be the official address, then redirect the long one to it in case someone assumes that’s it? We're all brand spanking new to this web hosting and domain stuff, so I thought I'd ask the experts what the etiquette is. Thank you!

posted by DakotaPaul to computers & internet (11 comments total)

I think you ought to pick one domain and stick to it... visiting a website that bandies about two of them gives me an icky feeling. Also consider that no one says your domain name must equal your organization name... one creative method is to use a two-word phrase that succinctly describes what you do. For example, use "www.feedllamas.org" for the Llama Feeding Society), then put "Feeding Llamas" as a catchphrase on the pages.
posted by rolypolyman at 3:11 PM on May 12, 2005

sgonblah.info


that way people know to come to your site for INFO on your organization.
posted by stevejensen at 3:25 PM on May 12, 2005

Would it make sense to abbreviate/eliminate some of the words in your organization's name, but not others, to create a domain name? I can't say without knowing the actual name, but if it's something like "Basketweaving Association of America," try basketweavingaa.org or even basketweaving.org.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:47 PM on May 12, 2005

I would advise against a .info domain. People would likely type in blah.info.com or something else and not understand that info is a replacement for com. People know what com means, info not so much.
posted by null terminated at 4:11 PM on May 12, 2005

Thanks to all for the replies.

I agree that a .info TLD probably isn't a good idea. Generally non-profits use .org, and (no offense to the citizens in our community) most people would give us a blank expression if we told them sgon.info. as our address.

We've tried to eliminate some of words in the organization name, but it really hasn't worked out to anybody's liking.
posted by DakotaPaul at 4:47 PM on May 12, 2005

I would suggest using the short url as your primary one, and the longer one as a redirect to the primary (ie if someone types the long url, it doesn't seemlessly bring up the website, it brings up a page saying "redirecting you to www.sgonblah.org" for a few seconds while it redirects the browser. That way it's clear what the website is, but anyone typing in the full name will find the site.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:33 PM on May 12, 2005

It is inconvenient to type long email addresses, so it's a good question. Other top level domains, i.e., not .com, .net, .org or .edu have poor acceptance. Pull together a focus group, maybe even email the responders to this thread, and try to find a better name. Register .com, .net, .org as available, and have them redirect to one url. On preview, harlequin's idea makes sense, but if you can't do it, it's not a crisis.

I think having sgonblah.org redirect to somegenericorganizationname.org and using sgonblah.org for email is an okay resolution, but not ideal.
posted by theora55 at 7:26 PM on May 12, 2005

We had the same problem, and we used as short and catchy a domain name as we could find. We did finally get our full name as a domain name, too, which redirects to the short name with no stops. I doubt anyone ever types it in.
posted by atchafalaya at 8:11 PM on May 12, 2005

Thanks for responses! It's sounding like using the short URL would be the best bet, then redirecting the long one to it.

-harlequin-: How does one redirect to another site with a message saying, "Redirecting to..."? If I tell my host to redirect, it'll just do it without a message, correct?
posted by DakotaPaul at 10:46 AM on May 13, 2005

DakotaPaul:

It's been ages since I did any HTML, so I forget the command, but you put a webpage at the other address, and that webpage says "redirecting too www.sgonblah.org" and has the redirect command in it (which has a time delay in seconds, so it can show the message for a couple of seconds before sending the person on). You could also make the "www.sgonblah.org" part of the text a clickable link so the person doesn't have to wait the 2 seconds, but can go right there.
posted by -harlequin- at 1:24 AM on May 14, 2005

Cool, will look into that. Thanks -harlequin-!
posted by DakotaPaul at 2:17 PM on May 17, 2005