URL-Y RISER

The headline on this paper sitting atop a trash can caught my eye. You know the web is mainstream when the news media are pronouncing URLs like me... as in the Duke of.

iPhone/Droid/.com

Peter Askew, of SkewURL fame, captured this oddity that shows up in the final frame of a Coldwell Banker TV ad. It looks like an URL, it's placed like an URL (briefly at the end of the spot) but it's a NotURL. While I applaud Coldwell Banker for promoting its iPhone and Android apps along with its website (thankfully they stopped short of including all the URLs for their social media profiles) this treatment of the layout slashes the effectiveness.

FYI, Peter started a new domaining blog, Searchbound, that GUBU fans will enjoy.

Britainthinks!com

It's time to put the women and children to bed and put on your URL-spotting hats. GUBU is back, baby! Thanks to all the faithful URL-aholics out there for your patience -- hopefully you haven't kicked the habit!

You'll be happy to know my book is in the hands of the publisher and scheduled for an August release. So now I can pour all my creative juices back into Good URL Bad URL... well, that and my other 20 blogs. (FYI, the book is now available for pre-order. If you're so inclined, check out GoogleyLessons.com -- that's what I ended up sticking with.)

This URL comes to us from Alan Charlesworth in the UK. He was one of a number of folks who kept URL'ing out while I was on hiatus -- rest assured I captured a few of my own over the past few months -- and helped fill the GUBU mailbag so I can jumpstart this blog back up. Over the next couple weeks, expect to see a flurry of posting.

As for this billboard, Alan points out that "as well as the ! issue, this use of the .com is also a bit of a nonsense in this URL. Effectively, it is a advert promoting Britain using and American domain name [think: Obama driving a Nissan]. Harrrrummmph."

I'm guessing the rest of Britain thinks this URL is rubbish too!

proStyle.shoes

Nate White sent this in via the Facebook GUBU page. Apparently, this was the logo on the box of a pair of Dockers he bought. Nate called it a NotURL and I like that tag so much I've created a new category for it. These shoes may do it all but they most certainly can't create new TLD's... yet!

ST.BALDRICK'S.ORG

Someone sure screwed up this URL display. Of course, the correct URL is StBaldricks.org. Now, we've seen erroneous apostrophes in URLs before never a false subdomain. Looks like someone snapped up Baldricks.org to capitalize here. That was quite the bald, er... bold move.

DIRK'SFISH.COM

Ummm, last time I checked you couldn't use apostrophes in URLs. They need to scale this one back.

Ask.cars

Peter Askew sent this one in, lamenting the use of a non-extistent top level domain. However, it's not so far fetched given the recent news that ICANN approved the use of any combination of letters and numbers for TLDs. This won't go into effect until 2009 so, for now, this remains a Bad URL but I'll have to remember to come back and change my rating once the new TLDs get rolled out (assuming cars.com jumps on this one). Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go out and get some more memory for my digital camera as the forecast calls for a hailstorm of Good and Bad URLs on the horizon.

UPDATE 7/3: My colleague, Dave McAnally, covers the implications of the ICANN ruling for search engine optimization on the Resolution Media blog. Got me thinking about what this means for marketers as it relates to promoting their URLs. Methinks the www will become all important again as we need to reinforce to people that strings of letters and numbers are web addresses. In a world of dot-com, the www became superfluous. In a world of dot-anything, we'll need the dubs to indicate that there is an URL at hand and not just a random dot.

www.jeffreybaumgartner

Now here's one I've never seen before -- a domain-less URL. And, no, the .com was not on that open window. I waited around til they closed it just to be sure (let that be a lesson to all you aspiring URL-spotters, a true URL-aholic will stop at nothing for proper URL-verification.) This is truly a bum, er... Baum URL.

www.mit.edu.parking

Office closed for President's Day today giving me a chance to catch up on my URL mail. Sean Fitzroy, of Pizza4UToGo.com fame, spotted this MIT shuttle bus and was surprised to learn there was a new TLD (top level domain). Brings new meaning to the phrase domain-parking.