I've just registered it, so it can be the 'official' D site.

1) Why so long?

Because "D" is un-googlable, there needs to be a reasonably unique, recognizable phrase for it. Nothing works as well as "d programming language". There's no ambiguity about what it's about. Besides, most people will get to the web site via a click, rather than typing it in.


2) Why the embedded '-'?

In my experiments, google doesn't separate dprogramminglanguage into 3 words. But it will if there are embedded '-'s.


3) Why 'org' instead of 'com'?

Because the D language itself is not a company, nor is it a proprietary language. Hence, 'org' is the most appropriate for it.


4) When will it go live?

It'll take a couple days at least.

In article <e3osei$g90$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...
>
>I've just registered it, so it can be the 'official' D site.
>

In my opinion, typeability is as or more important than googleability. d-programming-language.org is difficult to type (both because of the length and because of the dashes)

Plus, google parses -'s as a word separator, so "d-programming-language" would match "d-programming langugae", "d programming-language", "d programming language", "D) Programming languages", etc, and more importantly, d-programming-language (no quotes) would match , "a b c d e f g ... programming is the act of writing data in a language suitable for a computer to interpret"

- Gregor Richards

On Mon, 08 May 2006 21:49:09 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound@digitalmars.com> wrote:

> I've just registered it, so it can be the 'official' D site.
>
> 1) Why so long?
>
> Because "D" is un-googlable, there needs to be a reasonably unique, recognizable phrase for it. Nothing works as well as "d programming language". There's no ambiguity about what it's about. Besides, most people will get to the web site via a click, rather than typing it in.

I got a cramp typing it, and aggrivated trying to tell my friend.  </joke>

>
> 2) Why the embedded '-'?
>
> In my experiments, google doesn't separate dprogramminglanguage into 3 words. But it will if there are embedded '-'s.

In my experiments, Google DOES separate DOMAINS.  </fact>

>
> 3) Why 'org' instead of 'com'?
>
> Because the D language itself is not a company, nor is it a proprietary language. Hence, 'org' is the most appropriate for it.

I guess that's fine.

>
> 4) When will it go live?
>
> It'll take a couple days at least.

I can't wait, or, I can...


Why not get d--the-programming-language-of-the-future-with-cool-features.organization instead? No chance of misunderstanding.  </sarcasm>

So, as you can gather, I think it's a terrible, terrible choice.

At the very least you could have 2 domains (or more); this one could be advertised, and the other could be the brief and pretty one for practical use.

- Chris

Sorry about that unfriendly post. I'll try to explain better.

Google and yahoo search both treat domains with '-' less because they're most likely spam domains. '-' does pretty much no good, and is harder to tell people the site vocally due to having to explain the dashes, and makes it overall sound less appealing.
Notice that when you google for `d programming` it bolds the whole, non-'.com' part of dprogramming.com because it does do substring searches on domains.

The other issue is that it's just too long, even without the dashes. I wouldn't be surprised if search engines give lower priority to domains that long as well.

digitalmars.com and dprogramming.com are fairly long, but they don't exactly go over that "too far" limit like d-programming-language.org does.

My suggestion is to get dlanguage.org, and also get dlanguage.com to redirect to dlanguage.org.
There are different reasons for also getting the .com version: many people try .com first; domain squatters watch for .org registrations and hurry up and grab the .com counterparts for spam sometimes; and .com hasn't completely meant 'commercial' for years now, some users even don't know it or assume it means 'computer'.

- Chris

Chris Miller wrote:
> Sorry about that unfriendly post. I'll try to explain better.
> 
> Google and yahoo search both treat domains with '-' less because they're most likely spam domains. '-' does pretty much no good, and is harder to tell people the site vocally due to having to explain the dashes, and makes it overall sound less appealing.
> Notice that when you google for `d programming` it bolds the whole, non-'.com' part of dprogramming.com because it does do substring searches on domains.
> 
> The other issue is that it's just too long, even without the dashes. I wouldn't be surprised if search engines give lower priority to domains that long as well.
> 
> digitalmars.com and dprogramming.com are fairly long, but they don't exactly go over that "too far" limit like d-programming-language.org does.
> 
> My suggestion is to get dlanguage.org, and also get dlanguage.com to redirect to dlanguage.org.
> There are different reasons for also getting the .com version: many people try .com first; domain squatters watch for .org registrations and hurry up and grab the .com counterparts for spam sometimes; and .com hasn't completely meant 'commercial' for years now, some users even don't know it or assume it means 'computer'.
> 
> - Chris


I agree with Chris and Gregor that the site name is awfully unwieldy. dlanguage.org (and com) would be a great choice... Yet I /do/ think the "org" post-fix is to be preferred; and I do think it makes a big difference to people visiting the site, although I agree that snapping up the same *.com address would be a good idea as well.  Whenever I visit *.com sites, I always assume a proprietary nature, even though it probably qualifies as a knee-jerk reaction.

Nevertheless, I applaud Walter on this step.  I am very happy to see he's working towards publicizing D in this way.  It's an important move, I think.

-JJR

Chris Miller wrote:
> Sorry about that unfriendly post. I'll try to explain better.
> 
> Google and yahoo search both treat domains with '-' less because they're most likely spam domains. '-' does pretty much no good, and is harder to tell people the site vocally due to having to explain the dashes, and makes it overall sound less appealing.
> Notice that when you google for `d programming` it bolds the whole, non-'.com' part of dprogramming.com because it does do substring searches on domains.
> 
> The other issue is that it's just too long, even without the dashes. I wouldn't be surprised if search engines give lower priority to domains that long as well.
> 
> digitalmars.com and dprogramming.com are fairly long, but they don't exactly go over that "too far" limit like d-programming-language.org does.
> 
> My suggestion is to get dlanguage.org, and also get dlanguage.com to redirect to dlanguage.org.
> There are different reasons for also getting the .com version: many people try .com first; domain squatters watch for .org registrations and hurry up and grab the .com counterparts for spam sometimes; and .com hasn't completely meant 'commercial' for years now, some users even don't know it or assume it means 'computer'.
> 
> - Chris

I am of the same mind with the previous posters. I am extremely excited however with the direction you are going, Walter. Perhaps if the domain hasn't been registered yet, we can discuss this further. If not, I'm still very excited with this decision.

-- 
Kyle Furlong // Physics Undergrad, UCSB

"D is going wherever the D community wants it to go." - Walter Bright

Gregor Richards wrote:
> In article <e3osei$g90$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...
>> I've just registered it, so it can be the 'official' D site.
>>
> 
> In my opinion, typeability is as or more important than googleability.
> d-programming-language.org is difficult to type (both because of the length and
> because of the dashes)

Which is why I agonized over this for quite a while. But the usage statistics from the web log show that the overwhelming amount of traffic comes to the digitalmars site via clicking on links, usually from google. Heck, even I click to get to digitalmars.com rather than typing it in!


> Plus, google parses -'s as a word separator, so "d-programming-language" would
> match "d-programming langugae", "d programming-language", "d programming
> language", "D) Programming languages", etc,

Yes, and most importantly, it will match "d programming language" which is what we should be building brand around, and that match will place high (if not first) in the search results for that phrase.

> and more importantly,
> d-programming-language (no quotes) would match , "a b c d e f g ... programming
> is the act of writing data in a language suitable for a computer to interpret"

It'd probably be down in the results for that.

Chris Miller wrote:
> At the very least you could have 2 domains (or more); this one could be advertised, and the other could be the brief and pretty one for practical use.

There are no brief, pretty, available, and relevant names that I can find.

Walter Bright wrote:
> I've just registered it, so it can be the 'official' D site.
> 
> 1) Why so long?
> 
> Because "D" is un-googlable, there needs to be a reasonably unique, recognizable phrase for it. Nothing works as well as "d programming language". There's no ambiguity about what it's about. Besides, most people will get to the web site via a click, rather than typing it in.
> 
> 
> 2) Why the embedded '-'?
> 
> In my experiments, google doesn't separate dprogramminglanguage into 3 words. But it will if there are embedded '-'s.
> 
> 
> 3) Why 'org' instead of 'com'?
> 
> Because the D language itself is not a company, nor is it a proprietary language. Hence, 'org' is the most appropriate for it.
> 
> 
> 4) When will it go live?
> 
> It'll take a couple days at least.

This is a great step forward, I'm looking forward for the site to go live!

But, I have to agree with the others who posted before me. The domain name choice is not very good.
I would prefer something along the lines of dlangauge.org or dlang.org

Walter Bright wrote:
> Gregor Richards wrote:
> 
[snip]
> 
>> and more importantly,
>> d-programming-language (no quotes) would match , "a b c d e f g ... programming
>> is the act of writing data in a language suitable for a computer to interpret"
> 
> 
> It'd probably be down in the results for that.
> 

Maybe msn search would put that on the top :lol: