www.DOMINOS.QUICKORDER.com Why on Earth does Dominos not have the online ordering functionality on its domain? Who is going to remember this URL? And I hate that font and use of ALL CAPS. You can hardly tell the "Q" from the "O." This URL will be quickly forgotten.
Good URL Bad URL - 5/2/2008 9:17:00 PM
whymilk.com And why on Earth is Milk trying to get people to WhyMilk.com and using the Got Milk slogan? Too confusing. Pick one or the other. Methinks they're trying to milk this ad for everything it's worth. Or shall I say, have its slogan and URL it too?
Good URL Bad URL - 5/2/2008 9:01:00 PM
www.handi-craft.com Sorry for the infrequent posting. As you can imagine, spending time with my baby girl, Eliara, has been cutting into my URL-spotting. It has, however, introduced me to a whole new category of brands sporting Good and (mostly) Bad URLs. For example, check out the URL on this bottle. Now, I know that I'm in the minorty of parents that ...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/27/2008 3:56:00 PM
www.smoke-free.illinois.gov Here's another example of dubs, dashes and lower case rendering an URL unreadable. About the only thing they did right here was use a subdomain rather than an extension. What I don't understand is why they added the dash rather than use leading caps? Wouldn't SmokeFree.Illinois.gov have worked a lot better? As it stands, this URL's c...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/27/2008 1:44:00 PM
NBC5.COM Here's a fun one. The local Chicago NBC affiliate is running a commercial promoting its website featuring this guy who talks about how he used to be a "period" but now he's a "dot." Love how they humanize their URL and definitely appreciate that they dropped the leading dubs -- although I wish they would've had Bush lookalikes scramb...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/27/2008 1:40:00 PM
campbellsKITCHEN.com Here's another good one. Setting the second word off in CAPS helps it pop and reminds you not to fall back on CampbellsSoup.com which your stomach, er... gut might tell you to do. I also like the URL selection here. They're using this site to promote across all their brands (of which soup is just one) so using "kitchen" ties together...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/27/2008 1:22:00 PM
www.theautobarn.com Here's one of the few times I don't mind the use of dubs and all lower case. The layout and spacing just seem to work, framing the lisence plate nicely. Those little tabs at the top appear to have been made specifically to house dubs and coms. And the space between "the" and "autobarn" allows the separation needed so the words don't ...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/27/2008 1:13:00 PM
www.garveysop.com Yikes. This one violates just about every rule. It starts with the dubs, usesalllowercase and doesn't easily portray the brand name. Too often brands think they're doing their audience a favor by shortening their URLs. But what they gain in brevity, they lose in memory. It's not like OP is a common acronym for office products. The sh...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/17/2008 8:22:00 PM
hiexpess.com Here's another maddening shortened URL. I've never seen Holiday Inn try to brand itself as HI (nor would I recommend it -- although it seemed to work for Treasure Island in Vegas.) Nonetheless, when it comes to its URL, we're riding the HI Express. I wish they'd make this URL go byebye.
Good URL Bad URL - 4/17/2008 8:15:00 PM
SUPERIOR110.COM This one's just strange. That futuristic font makes all the letters and numbers run together -- especially the I that looks like a 1. And putting the numbers after the letters in a street address is not intuitive. This URL is inferior.
Good URL Bad URL - 4/17/2008 8:08:00 PM
www.perillobmw.com, www.perillobmw.com I had to do a double-take to make sure I wasn't missing anything but that's the exact same URL they've got on the last frame of this TV ad. Your guess is as good as mine. Your guess is as good as mine.
Good URL Bad URL - 4/14/2008 11:16:00 PM
infotapes.comSM OK, folks, after devoting 10 days to my beautiful baby girl, her blog, and her mommy, I'm ready to get back to URL'ing again. Here's one I've never seen before -- an URL with a service mark. I didn't realize you needed to trademark your URL to keep people from using it. I thought you could just buy it and that would be that. I wouldn...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/8/2008 12:05:00 PM
EliaraGoldman.com Well folks, I'll be taking a break from URL-spotting for the next few weeks as I spend time with my newly-expanded family. Yup, this pretty little thang is more than just a good URL... she's my daughter! Eliara Lily, born March 28th, and already blogging away. Needless to say, all the pictures I'll be taking for a while will be of h...
Good URL Bad URL - 4/1/2008 1:08:00 AM
www.leesfamousrecipechickenofcincyandky.com Fellow URL-snob, Matt Waller sent in this eyesore. This URL is truly a recipe for disaster... Throw in 1 part waytooooolooooong, 2 parts awkward abbreviations, and 1 part alllowercase and what do you get? A finger-lickin' Bad URL.
Good URL Bad URL - 3/21/2008 10:38:00 PM
wwwuspest.com Reader John Cade spotted this URL that's bad on 2 levels. First, the dot is missing after the dubs -- first time I've seen that one! Second, using alllowercase makes this look like upset.com. This URL decal needs to be exterminated.
Good URL Bad URL - 3/21/2008 10:30:00 PM
http://www.virtualpressoffice.com/presskit/index.jsp?showId=1181060944085&companyId=1190001700547 Here's another viewer-generated URL. This one comes courtesy of Aaron Bynum. He spotted it at the bottom of a press release that was mailed to him. Do they really expect people to type this in just to get a company press kit? And not just people -- we're talking about journalists who get flooded with press releases all the time. This...
Good URL Bad URL - 3/21/2008 10:21:00 PM
http://awineaweek.com/ Unfortunately, not all my co-workers are as URL-savvy as Bryson. Check out this post on our corporate blog. Jeff Campbell, our VP of Product Development (thankfully his role does not involve developing vanity URLs for our clients), was giving tips on publicizing blogs (oh, the irony!) when he including this link to his personal blog....
Good URL Bad URL - 3/14/2008 9:24:00 PM
splendid life .com Closet URL-aholic Bryson Meunier spotted this misft in the kitchen at our office. We've seen some bad spacing before, but this one takes the cake, er... sugar-free dessert. Putting each word in a box makes it most difficult to realize you're looking at an URL here. This URL is ex-splenda-ble.
Good URL Bad URL - 3/14/2008 9:05:00 PM
www.picctv.com/nw The Resolution Media connection continues with this submission from Jeremy Williams who is actually the brother in-law of my co-worker Grant Parker. Jeremey saw this stinker in Newsweek and did the right thing by sending it in so we can make an example out of it. Including the dubs, sticking everything in lowercase (especially when u...
Good URL Bad URL - 3/14/2008 8:58:00 PM
debthelpuk.com Avid reader Gary Gale spotted this ad on Facebook (yes, some people actually notice ads on Facebook!) and offered this eulogoy, er... observation -- " I know that what they're trying to say is DebtHelpUK.com but without any colouring or capitalisation I scan this as DebTheLPUK.com which is just meaningless.' Indeed, Gary. This URL sh...
Good URL Bad URL - 3/14/2008 8:47:00 PM
WWW.BARACKOBAMA.COM Looks like the Dem's are 0 for 2 this year. Not only did Obama GOALLCAPS but he included the dubs. With a name as hard to spell as Barack Obama, if you want to really to leave a lasting impression (like your slogan does) you need to make your URL easier to read. For all the polling these guys do, they could've taken a few minutes to ...
Good URL Bad URL - 3/7/2008 11:31:00 PM
HILLARYCLINTON.COM It's time to rate the candidates in Good URL Bad URL's Election '08 coverage. Let's start with Hillary...I give her props for dropping the dubyas (hmm... No More Dubyas -- that might make a good campaign slogan). And bolding her first name helps. But IHATEALLCAPS. Not only does it blur the letters together, it's a glaring reminder of...
Good URL Bad URL - 3/7/2008 11:15:00 PM
JohnMcCain.com ...we have a winner! Of URL-off '08 that is. Unfortunately, for McCain, it won't be this easy in November. I was going to dock some points here for use of dubs on the backdrop behind McCain and his trophy, er... lovely wife but he was the only candidate (on this night at least) to include his/her URL back there. And as for the podium...
Good URL Bad URL - 3/7/2008 10:42:00 PM
www.kaboomkaboom.com As if the product name wasn't memorable enough on its own, the commercial has them shouting it every couple a seconds before hitting you over the head with it twice in the URL. Not having brandname.com here is definitely grounds for picking a new brand name. I mean, it's a cleaning product for crying out loud. They could slap any ran...
Good URL Bad URL - 2/29/2008 8:50:00 PM
pwp.com Fellow URL-aholic, John Cronin, spotted this one in the UK and posted it to his blog. Nothing too fancy here but goes to show a small touch of detail can go a long way. While this may not be the ballsiest URL, it should net some good recognition.
