What's in a name?

Let me preface that this will be one of my tech-ier/ish posts, so some of you (you know who you are) may go ahead and tune out right now.

What to do...
When I first started this blog I also had a website. The website and the blog were both called "Tenkely.Net", and things were pretty confusing. On a whim, I changed the name of the blog to Dolphin Free but left the mapping at the original domain. Eventually I decided I wanted to focus my effort on the blog (Google was killing Google Page Creator anyway) and I eventually took the website down.

Here is where I am at now, and why I am asking for some feedback. What is in a name? Should the name match the title here? If so which direction should I choose? There are a couple obvious choices, I could just leave things alone, keep the name and the domain as they are now, or I could match them, either with a dolphin free domain or by changing the blog name to Tenkely.Net. Heck, I could even change the name to ilovegiantassburritos.com (I checked, it's available). Decisions, decisions, decisions... I am sure this doesn't bother everyone and is pretty geeky, but it is bothering me and let's face it, I have enough BAPs to matter.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts and opinions below.

Comments

  1. Decisions, decisions... For what it's worth, my opinion is that it's the brand recognition that counts.

    Which is better known? Which is more appealing if they're about even? When you post, what name is displayed?

    You need to take these into account because it's how people know and recognise you. It's already hard enough to get your name known "out there" - doubly so if you dilute your effort by having two or three.

    So for my money, all else being equal, I'd go for a domain name of dolphin free, keep Tenkely name for your techy stuff on the Google Help forums if you have to, change your blog profile name to DolphinFree and always use that profile / name when posting in other, non-techy places.

    Only my thoughts!

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  2. I think it doesn't matter. You can leave the domain name to be tenkley.net and the blog title as 'Dolphin Free'
    I know some popular sites having a different domain name, not relevant to what they call the site.
    (I also had this confusion, and go for same name for title and domain. But this is because of small number of users I have, and I want them to remember the url)
    Let me see what you decide..

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  3. You should treat it like two companies merging. Get dolphinfree.net (.com, .biz, .whatever....) and have tenkely.net autodirect to dolphinfree.

    Dolphin Free, in my opinion has a nicer ring to it than tenkely.net. Plus, I think you have better branding opportunities with DF.

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  4. I tend to like names that suggest a somewhat obscure meaning (mine, "tins" is an acronym for "there is no spoon" from the Matrix) - but that said, I don't think it's anything useful as far as search optimization goes. (It's not like people are searching for "tins" expecting to find a geek's blog about blogging...)

    So... if your blog is intended to be a reflection of who you are and what you care about, I think the name is great. You already rank highly for your name, so I don't think you're being penalized by having a blog that's named differently.

    Not sure this sheds any additional light on the discussion, but since you asked... :)

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  5. My thoughts... When someone new stumbles across Dolphin Free, they may wonder "Why it is named Dolphin Free?". But since there is no indication or explanation of the blog name, a potential new follower may become angry or depressed at having been falsely lured to a Dolphin site where there are no Dolphins. On the other hand, going with Tenkely.net may limit the exposure of your blog, due to the fact that so many more folks know what a Dolphin is than what a Tenkely is. So, do what you feel.

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  6. What are you guys talking about?

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  7. Thanks for the feedback everyone! I still have no idea what, if anything, I am going to do but at least I know now that no one knows what I should do. I take comfort in that!
    Thanks again!

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