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Ask HN: How much would you pay for a hyphen (domain name)?
8 points by phugoid on Oct 15, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 12 comments
I'm planning to start a business called, let's say, Icarus Systems (it's in the aviation sector). I've already bought icarussystems.com, but I really wanted icarus-systems.com as it's prettier and more legible, if more difficult to remember.

It turns out that icarus-systems.com is owned by a medium-sized company who just redirects it to their main site, say paperclips.com. I got in touch with their CEO, and it turns out they acquired a small company called Icarus and that's how they ended up with the name.

Long story short - they're asking 5000 US$ for the domain name I want. That's a month or two of runway for me. I've tried haggling the price down to no avail. Would you pay that much for a hyphen?

I'm not worried about their icarus-systems.com getting more Google rank because in the long run the term Icarus doesn't even appear on paperclips.com. It's more of a cosmetic issue in my mind....



Sounds to me like they're trying to get some easy money from you. Truthfully, you already have the far more important domain name. I'd offer something like $250 and simply walk away if they don't take it.

Honestly, that name is in no way critical to your business; you should be more than willing to let it go.


Not worth it; not for $250 and certainly not for $5k. I'm not sure why you think the one with the hyphen is better than the one without, but I think it's harder to remember and using both will probably confuse users.

I'd dump the "systems" and come up with a name that you can buy a one-word domain for, if at all possible (nothing too cutesie), and it's not too late or too expensive. Better to get a company name that's unique enough you can own all domain variants of it, including the one that's just [name].com.


> they're asking 5000 US$ for the domain name I want. That's a month or two of runway for me

I'd say forget it. You can find a better name without "systems" altogether. Think about what defines your product or service uniquely. The name will come to you.


I wouldn't buy a hyphenated domain at any price.

That said, $5k is not a lot of money. If you've got the cash and you want it, just buy it and move on with your life. If its not worth $5k to you just move on - its not going to make or break your business.


Possibly useful personal experience: I had sell-out.com registered for about 10 years. For the past five years it pointed to a stale blog.

I was contacted about a month ago by a company that wanted it, and they offered $1000 US, which I rapidly agreed to.

I wasn't intentionally squatting it, it was one of those domains I registered on a whim for a personal project that I grew moderately attached to over time, but never did anything with.

The company I work for spent a bit of money protecting the namespace around our most recent product, and based on our CTO's experience buying unused and squatted domains, I say: walk away. Leave off with an email "If you ever want to get rid of it for $x, I will pay you that afternoon." Either they're willing to sell and will take you up on it, or are more interested in a cash grab and won't.


make up your own, for $8 or so you can't go wrong.

A domain name is important but not that important, try to make it short and pronounceable.

hyphens don't help, if I can't get the name with and without the hyphen I normally don't bother anyway.


Domain names aren't case sensitive. You can write your domain as IcarusSystems.com without breaking anything.

This technique seems to be underused on the web, and I don't know why this is - perhaps no-one knows you can do this?


Make sure they don't own some registered trademark, as part of the same prior acquisition, that could cause you troubles.

Assuming they don't, you could get started without the hyphenated form. Your trademark would eventually make their hyphenated version unusable by anyone else, and then you might be able to get it more cheaply.


Thanks for the heads-up. The trademark issue should be OK as they are not using icarus, plus they're in another country (USA vs. Canada).


I lost a spelling bee in grade school for hyphenating "counter-clockwise". I thought I was the only one haunted by that punctuation mark.


No way. Hyphenated domains are generally not a good idea since people forget them easily and have to turn to google to find your site.


Thank you both for the quick thumbs-down.




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