Will Google Search replace domain names?

They're absolutely right. Why would you type www.rolex.com when you can simply enter "Rolex" and be there before you blink?

But where they are seriously wrong is that, when you enter anything like "Interlink", "Pronet", "National Trust", "Premier Traders" or "United Manufacturing", uncontrollable citations will gush out from every corners of the world.

Lack of understanding

This debate originates from a lack of understanding of corporate nomenclature; usability of a name in relation to 'precise-search-ability' vs 'open-search-ability.'

Often corporations mistakenly believe that their name is the only 'one powerful name identity'.

An example: the United Manufacturing & Distribution Chicago Limited is convinced that it is 'United Manufacturing' while customers refer to them as UMDC to avoid a long descriptive name. Often it is called UMDC Chicago to differentiate itself from other city locations in Atlanta, Kansas and Baltimore; its domain is www.unitedmfgdistributionchicago.com, as 'united manufacturing' was already gone; and its stock symbol is UMAND.

Now try to find the company on e-commerce, as every name combination buries it in thousands of citations...

Common scenario

Across the world among the established business communities, such clusters of multiple names are a common scenario. None of these names show up on the top of a search page. After all, a very miniscule number of businesses in the world have a single, globally workable, distinct name identity.

If businesses around the world are already spending US$400 billion annually to keep their name identities afloat, why are the largest majority of names still lost in the fathoms?

Google's algorithms and AdWords trawl at the bottom but good names pop up and work well with ad words and other pay per click (PPC) models. The rest stay at the bottom.

Three types of searching

Let's examine the three types of searching:

• First, someone enters "footwear". Thousands of citations pop up nicely stacked to choose from in this type of search; advanced knowledge of a domain name is not required.
  
• Second, someone enters a specific name of a footwear brand, such as, "Moda Shoes", "Quality footwear", "Footsie", "Star" or "Babe"'. Thousands of citations pop up and further sub searches may eventually provide that sought-after answer.
  
• Lastly, one enters Nike, Reebok, Adidas or Bata and the right site pops up instantly.

There is nothing wrong in any of the above search procedures - they all work - but the last one is the most desirable from the marketing and image expansion point of view.

Saving splits of seconds so that the potential customers do not get distracted by hundreds of other options are the hidden secrets of cyber name identity domination.

Bigger question

The bigger question is: why is this obvious hindrance to sales not corrected immediately? Who are the real beneficiaries of these lingering name disfunctionalities?

Now back to the argument. The owners with confusing and diluted origins resort to being discovered by random guesswork searching and prefer a search-engine approach. This group often finds refuge under scrambled search engine optimisation (SEO) options and prayers for direct hits. This group always wants to justify that Google is a better way to randomly check then to type a specific URL in the browser. Without search engines and SEO, they would be literally doomed.

The facts remain that, despite such heavy costs of customer acquisition, dysfunctional names still constitute the largest majority.

ICANN's new gTLD

ICANN's new gTLD programme of global cyber name identities is neither for diluted, conflicting or dysfunctional names, nor for names that are not worthy of such expensive and exclusively undertakings.

However, the spotlight has shifted to 'naming' and hard-core corporate nomenclature issues. In response, a White Paper entitled "The World's Largest Branding Revolution Starts January 2012". A free downloadable PDF version is available at www.aarm.org/monster-marketing-trends-2012.html.

The big question of today? At the end of any major branding, if there isn't a distinctively exclusive and memorable name capable of withstanding global scrutiny, why haven't such branding projects been erased yet? Is there any link between continuous higher burn rates on duplicated and generic-type name brands which never make it to the top?

Like a full-blown colourful magazine

No matter what, Google Search results, very soon, will appear like a full-blown colourful magazine - the end user's richer experience will tickle the fancy, with accompanying picturesque designs, photography, videos blended with textual columns and collages of social media to mesmerize and monitor all responses. A kind of cyber-immersion into 'GoogleMatrix', where a new world of highly affordable, measurable 'selective pay-per-click advertising' will emerge.

These digitally intertwined, globally scalable and overhead-expenditure-free services will create further shock waves to current marketing and branding models.

In conclusion, using the search engine as nets, rightfully, work wonders; like huge drift nets and bottom trawlers, they overflow the decks. But when you are looking for a special guppy fish distinctively called "Nemo", the game gets sophisticated for all parties; the search engines, the searchers and the 'searchees'.

Google Search will not replace domain names but the search results will become clear indicators of shining stars and lost souls creating a wider divide among winners and losers of the name identity game.