Hi Tavis,
Small world! I was having a similar discussion earlier although on a
slightly smaller scale than an institutional change ;-)
Although it's not really a technical issue, I don't believe enough
thought is given to naming 'stuff'. There are so many considerations
these days; not least the ones you've touched on -
- whether anyone has already used a specific name
- searching
- whether or not a name is memorable
- whether or not a name is relevant
Adam Smith (if my failing memory serves me) was a big noise in Economics
- will the joined college be specialising in this? If not, what's the
relevance of the name? I would imagine trying to increase your rankings
/ relevance for the keywords 'adam' and 'smith' will be hard work
against a background of established economic / historic / biographical /
philosophical sites...
I note that fife.ac.uk already returns 1st for "adam smith college" on
google.com, so maybe the battle for rankings would not be that hard :-)
The feeling here at Strathclyde (although yet to be backed up by
research) is that geography IS important. A huge percentage of our
students do come from Strathclyde Region / Central Scotland.
I've recently been asked to improve our search rankings for the keyword
'glasgow'. I had to explain that the fact that as we aren't the
University of Glasgow, then there's only so much we can do...
To me, it's really a marketing question at heart. How is the newly
merged institution going to differentiate itself in the market? What are
its USPs? Why should people attend? etc...
Cheers,
Duncan
-----Original Message-----
From: Information Sharing List for Scottish Web Folk
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tavis Reddick
Sent: 02 February 2005 12:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Domain names for a college called after a person
Hi Scottish Web Folk
The resultant college emerging from Fife and Glenrothes colleges' ashes
will likely be called "The Adam Smith College, Fife".
Does anyone have an opinion on what would be a suitable domain,
considering:
1 First choice of management, tasc.ac.uk, is taken. I can't see anyone
searching on 'tasc', either.
2 Search engine results will likely be affected if 'fife' or 'college'
doesn't feature in it.
3 What are the likely affects of having a name as well-published as
"Adam Smith" on search engine results? I'm thinking of other
institutions like Reid Kerr, James Watt, Telford etc.
How strong a component is geography in student searches?
Tavis Reddick
Webmaster
Fife College
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