Domain Hacks

[Jason]

Domain hacks are interseting combos of the domain name and extension. For instance, rad.io. Note: interesting combos like boating.info are not domain hacks; I don't know what they are called.

Anyway, who has used domain hacks? What are some pros and cons of them? What are some pros and cons of that other thing I was describing?

 

[Arantor]

I once had a site called Floo Network (Harry Potter related), which was literally floo.network as a domain. Did get confusion from people who weren't as technical who assumed such things ought to end in a regular TLD.

I also own a .ly that is a word if the . is taken out, one of these days I might even finish building it, you never know.

The main con, I guess, is that people who aren't technical will be confused whether it's a real domain and you might end up losing out on people who won't touch them because they don't look like domains and/or think they're somehow scammy.

But the right domain hacks can be awesome.

As for just clever domain usage, such as boating.info, I give you the .museum TLD which has a directory of its own entries (museums only) and some of those are reasonably clever - http://index.museum/fullindex.php

 

[Tracy]

I did on one of my sites.... it was a recumbent site. They are referred to commonly amongst riders as bent bikes.
So, my site (when I was was riding recumbents) that I set up was thebent.bike. The only downfall with some of those TLD's is the expense of renewal. For what one year costs for them you can do almost 3 years on a regular domain extension.

 

[Jason]

I have coderl.ink and mathl.ink. I think they sound cute. Of course, they could rub the wrong way with people. I sort of wanted .coms but I was low in money and was yearning to get some stuff online. However, I was intrigued with these ideas I came up with for a name.

 

[Jordan]

Domain hacks can be fun. I have several. Most recent being freedoma.in

 

[Ravenfreak]

I currently have a site like this, and I used to have another one too. The one I used to have was called Freetobe.us, but I let the domain expire. My current community that is the combination of a few existing ones is called Thee.zone, I was wanting to call it "The.zone", but that was already taken.

 

[Tracy]

An "empty" domain that I have pointing at my site is https://dso.photos. Main reason... the niche I'm in pursues DSO (Deep Sky Object) photos... it ultimately resolves back to my main site.