Bad Idea To Use Swear Word in Domain Name and Content?

10 years ago

It might. But it also might form a deeper connection with people, depending on your audience.

If you want an example of somebody using it, Go Fire Yourself has it in her podcast tagline.

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Sarevok

10 years ago

Some of the coolest marketers on the planet cuss... But they do so sparingly.

My advice? I think it's okay now and then, but I wouldn't cuss for cussing sake.

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Ryan3

10 years ago

Domain name no. Content hell ya

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Ryan1793

10 years ago

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Looks like we have one vote already for not using "nobullshit___" as my domain name...

what about "www.nobs____.com"?

Will the "bullshit" part really hurt my SEO/backlinking/private advertising potential?

Thanks
1 reply

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Ryan3

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ryan1793

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Looks like we have one vote already for not using "nobullshit___" as my domain name...

what about "www.nobs____.com"?

Will the "bullshit" part really hurt my SEO/backlinking/advertising potential?

There's no way that would hurt your seo. It might hurt your conversion rate though especially if is a older audience

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Ryan1793

10 years ago

My audience is a general audience, with a focus on high income earners aged 22-35, or "yuppies" you might say.

My only plan (and desire) to make money is by selling private ads eventually, so I want to make sure companies won't be hesitant to advertise on a site with "nobullshit" in the domain name versus "nobs".

Thanks
3 replies

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Ariah 10 years ago

hi new poster long time reader of WF

using power language can work well to free up constrained minds, it needs to sound cool though.

Anyway, "hec" or HECK is as far as I've ever ventured to cross that line when doing copy work. Possibly just leave it at bull, rather than the sh*t part

Another consideration, will your conservative advertisers that you will use to monetize be offended? That's who I'd be concerned about.
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- oadvantage 10 years ago
  
  I steer clear of profanity. Especially if you are not sure who are talking too. I mean individually.
  
  To me, it is simply not professional.
  
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Tsnyder

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ryan1793

My audience is a general audience, with a focus on high income earners aged 22-35, or "yuppies" you might say.

My only plan (and desire) to make money is by selling private ads eventually, so I want to make sure companies won't be hesitant to advertise on a site with "nobullshit" in the domain name versus "nobs".

Of course established companies will shy away from associating their
brand with a website that is likely to offend a good share of their customers.

That seems like a no brainer to me.

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Eugen Prodan

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ryan1793

My audience is a general audience, with a focus on high income earners aged 22-35, or "yuppies" you might say.

My only plan (and desire) to make money is by selling private ads eventually, so I want to make sure companies won't be hesitant to advertise on a site with "nobullshit" in the domain name versus "nobs".

Either way, why place yourself at a disadvantage right off the bat? (if you know that you might lose visitors by including a vulgar word in your domain name).

Of course, it might give the impression that your site is cool, hipster, and all that. But you're putting your traffic (=> your success) at risk. So I say no.

Just my 2 cents.

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1 reply

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Ryan1793 10 years ago

Thanks for the replies guys!

So I've been convinced that having bullshi*t in the domain name can do me no good.

Now, for an informal poll, should I do either:

www.nobull__.com

or

www.nobs____.com

This is for a general audience, but focused more on the yuppie demographic, and I'm only going to be selling private ads, so selling nothing myself (cant explain here but trust me on that). So high traffic and high quality writing content is what I'm doing. Thanks!
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- Ben Scott Jr 10 years ago
  
  I would go with www.nobs____.com BS is hardly offensive and still gets the point across.
  
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madelyndon

10 years ago

Could you use BS instead? Especially, in the content since everyone knows what that means.

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madelyndon

10 years ago

the only thing about nobs___.com is it depends on the word after it. You could think of it as KNOBS. Now in the content it would be different and obvious with "no bs."

I actually like what was said above, nobull___.com When you say "no bull" you know what that means, without saying sh* part. Plus it shortens up your domain.

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seobro

10 years ago

I think no bull is better, and you can use a BULL as your icon. Do not use BS as your icon. Well, for many reasons. Made Lyndon is right, a shorter domain name is better for you. Also, it goes easy on your memory. Customers are visual thinkers and a BULL is a much more pleasant image.

For example, instead of DUMBERTHANDONKEYDIRT.com use DUMBERTHANADONKEY.com and use a donkey as your icon.

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Randall Magwood

10 years ago

Jeff Paul used to do it. He made millions.

Rich Jerk did it. He made millions.

I used to do it.... still waiting on the results. Haha

Honestly i wouldn't do it... you don't have to if you want a simple sale.

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Shane12

10 years ago

I wouldn't even consider it in a domain name. Even in the content, it's likely to have a negative impact with some advertisers, who don't want to be associated with what could be perceived as vulgar content. That said, I remember when F--edcompany was a big deal, and it did wonders for Pud, perhaps in part because of the name, though he has taken a much cleaner approach in the time since that went downhill.

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RobinInTexas

10 years ago

I would not, not use it in the domain name. If it turns out that it is hurting you, there's no fixing it. You can use it in content and test things and make changes on the fly.

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Steve B

10 years ago

What's the point?

Why is it important to use language that could be offensive to some? Has swearing been shown to increase conversions? Does it help with sales?

What I'm getting at is this . . . I have seen absolutely zero credible evidence that swearing will help your sales. We know that it turns some people off.

So if there is no evidence that it helps you, and plenty of evidence that it will hurt you in some degree . . . I say, why do it? Why turn off a portion of your potential audience?

Here's another thought: do you know how the search engines treat swearing? Do their terms of service not allow vulgar language? I really don't know but is it worth that gamble?

Steve

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Highway55

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve B

Here's another thought: do you know how the search engines treat swearing? Do their terms of service not allow vulgar language? I really don't know but is it worth that gamble?

Steve

^^TRUE. ... AND... what about your advertisers? Will some of them decide not to do business with you because of your domain name?

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alvinhy

10 years ago

See if you can get no.bs <-- domain

but yeh, you can use strong branding with this idea.
Looking forward to war you can come up with

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AmericanMuscleTA

10 years ago

Buy multiple domains and test them.

You'll definitely offend some people by swearing, but if you have a great product or service then it shouldn't really matter.

Look at GoDaddy... they have hot chicks on all their advertising. I'm sure there are plenty of people who think it's disgusting (probably mostly women), but sex sells, and it's worked out great for them.

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Edwin Torres

10 years ago

Yeah I probably wouldn't put bad language in a domain. First it'll make the people who are super "pure" (lol) to get mad at you before they even visit your site, plus Google might make your site harder to rank cause of the profanity.

Instead of b*llsh*t why not cut it to "bs" so a possible domain could be: nobsmarketing.com or whatever.

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cborgrx 10 years ago

You know the age old adage.....when in doubt do without!
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Samuel Adams

10 years ago

I can see where you're going with this. And, sometimes controversy works. Just look at any of the big name internet marketers and you'll see they don't mind getting a little down in the dirt. But, can you afford to do that, with being new, no reputation established online? You have to make that choice for yourself.

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rwyp

10 years ago

One of my fav marketing case studies is about Big A$$ Fans Company (notice I had to use $ signs).

Using a curse word in there domain and company name got them tons of new customers, but also alienated them from churches, religious centres, just about anyone that didn’t want to see there catalogue on there desk. Still are one of the largest fan companies in the country.

HVLS Fans | Industrial & Commercial Ceiling Fans | Big Ass Fans

a quote from there about us page "Big A$$ means quality..." nuff said

It's risky to use a curse word in your name, but if you have a great product that people will talk about it really doesn’t matter what its called.

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dana67

10 years ago

Swear words work wonders in XXX / Adult sites. It really depends. Sometimes bad words can attract good attention and sometimes they can drive away good traffic.

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Shane12

10 years ago

The first site that came to my mind was Cheap Ass Gamer. This mildly dirty word may offend some, but it's the type of word that, for example, network TV would not censor. Ditto for Google. They do not seem to mind.

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Kikrly

10 years ago

I think it is a bad idea, at least for your domain name.

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AndreaBlom

10 years ago

I believe it would hurt you because you are not targeting a specific audience. The general public can include anyone from any background, any religion and any age. It could be offensive to some and bad word of mouth travels faster than positive word of mouth.

While it may be comical to others, if you are going to use that name and that language, I would target it more specifically so that you are not getting bad reviews.

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TomVa

10 years ago

There are a few sites like I ******* love science is a killer website gfy is another kool one etc.. it will all depend on what your content will be used for! *shrugs*

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KeyboardHustler

10 years ago

Really depends on your audience.. Another success is Go****Yourself.com

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DavidTile

10 years ago

I think swearing works better if people understand why you're doing it and there's a good reason for it. 'No Bullshit' is kind of a general statement and to be honest its so overused these days -- it hardly come across as shocking.

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propanther 10 years ago

From the moment I see a site with a curse word, I immediately close it. Sorry but that's who I am.
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Tim3

10 years ago

You might want to have a rethink.

Have a look at the Fortune 500 and the Alexa 500 list and see how many domains with swear words appear in either of them, even the big p*rn sites avoid it.

One you might see is kickass.to, but that's a torrent site which won't even load on my ISP.

Another thing to take into account is that such words, wherever they appear on a site can trip content filters on other sites, which may hinder what you are trying to achieve.

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Jeffery Moss

10 years ago

Maybe this is not related to your domain question, but I would caution against having a generic site as it will not attract people from all over. That's not how it works. The more generic your site is, the more competition you will get and the less traffic you will get. If you want to narrow it down to one category and then a subtopic or subcategory, that's going to do wonders for your chances of getting click throughs. As for your question, I would stick to the PG version and say BS and not the other.

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sagittarius

10 years ago

If you're not targeting a specific niche and caters a wide (general) audience, then you might want to think twice about using *that word.

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master reseller

10 years ago

If you can get away with using this word in your domain name, and you really want it, then do it. Domain name is one of the smallest concerns you have when starting a new site. Think of this. When someone sees your link on a marketing forum, will they mouse over? Or, will they just read the text that is linking to your site? Your anchor text that you use to link to a site is what's going to get people to click through. And, those words in the domain name are just there to describe your site. If it's controversial, nothing wrong with that.

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Sam Mann

10 years ago

I wouldn't do that if i were you. LOL, the first three parn sites that come to mind doesn't use them in their domain... so there got to be a pretty good reason right?

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JensSteyaert

10 years ago

I don't think yu'll be targeting an audience that's about to spend a lot of money with a domain name like that.

Better use a brandable domain name if you want to build a business or a domain name that has meaning.

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Imfactsandsecrets

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ryan1793

Hi All,

I'm hoping to launch a website next month that I intend for a wide audience, so I'm not really targeting a specific niche.

So I need all the traffic I can get, since my monetization plan is to sell private ads once I get enough traffic.

Is it going to be an issue if my domain name is www. nobullshit_____.com?

I also use the word "bullshit" in some of my articles, since "no bullshit __" is a theme.

Will that domain name and the word "bullshit" in my content hurt me in building traffic and possibly future advertisers?

Thanks!!

You mentioned you are looking for broad traffic - nothing specific I mean. If that's the case using swear words might not be a good idea. It would have been different for targeted traffic though. You have to know how to establish a better relationship with your reader base and those swear words could be a tool...but use it only if you know its going to bring you a positive outcome - not because you think its cool to swear all the time.

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wtatlas 10 years ago

Some people have quoted websites that are hugely popular and have swear words in their domain names and content as proof that using swear words has not prevented those sites from being successful.

That may be true but it doesn't prove that using them (swear words) is good or bad. Those websites might well have been just as popular if they had used the most innocuous words going. They might even have become more popular and successful if they had ditched the swear words - who knows how many "fans" they might have lost because of the swearing?
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Dave Espino

10 years ago

It's not worth the gamble - don't do it. At the very least it's unprofessional, but worse than that is that it's offensive to a significant block of higher-paying customers.

You might get lots of lower-dollar sales but you will turn off a significant segment of potentially higher-end clients.

Dave

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Ryan1793 10 years ago

Thanks for the replies guys but I already agreed after seeing so many people in agreement not to use bullshit in the domain name. Here's my post from yesterday incase you didnt see it:

So I've been convinced that having bullshi*t in the domain name can do me no good.

Now, for an informal poll, should I do either:

www.nobull__.com

or

www.nobs____.com

This is for a general audience, but focused more on the yuppie demographic, and I'm only going to be selling private ads, so selling nothing myself (cant explain here but trust me on that). So high traffic and high quality writing content is what I'm doing. Thanks!
- Thanks
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WilliamVillagran

10 years ago

Sometimes it might be better not to use profanity because some of the people that you are trying to market to might take it the wrong way

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Bad Idea To Use Swear Word in Domain Name and Content?

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