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I am about to name a business that I have been working on and I want to leave room to expand but I don't want that to dampen the response for the initial location where I am starting the business. I am trying to decide if it would be better to have something like NYCawesomeproduct.com to make it seem more local or if it would be better to leave room for expansion and do something like awesomeproduct.com and then I can do awesomeproduct.com/nyc or /chicago and everything else.

Any input would be great. Do people respond much more favorably to location specific domains and company names like that?

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I'd go as far as locale subdomains, ny.awesomeproduct.com , but not in the primary domain... Too restrictive. – BrianAdkins Dec 28 '12 at 0:22
Google Algo has been change so there are no benefits to use the services name in domain name.. Google can penalized with according EMD. – NeotericUK Jan 31 at 12:57

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I would do whatever will yield the highest likelihood of success in your first location - if the first location doesn't work, then the whole rest of the story becomes moot.

It sounds like the product is highly localized - at least in terms of content, if not concept. If potential customers in that location would find it more appealing / compelling to see 'nyc' in the domain name - if that somehow triggers a higher level of interest - then you should do that. Period. If it is sufficient to have 'nyc' as a subdomain or a directory to achieve same engagement, then so be it.

If you are successful with first location, you buy yourself flexibility to handle the second and subsequent markets differently. You can also go back and rework the 'nyc' location later, if necessary, to make it fit a national scheme.

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The internet is only about "NYC" (or any other specific locale) if you're selling NYC goods. If you're a business and you run on the internet and you happen to be in New York and your products or services don't have anything to do with NYC -- why bother with adding "NYC" to your domain name?

Wendy's was founded in Columbus, OH. But it website isn't ColumbusWendys.com

Having a "/localeName" to your website is acceptable but in these days with geolocation all around us, why force people to enter their city name? you can get them started with their own locale automatically and let them manually choose something else should they feel like it. No need to shove a location name in a URL or worse, to your business name.

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If what shows on screen changes drastically with the locale the user is in, it makes sense to have those at different URLs for SEO reasons. We use IP addresses to guess which locale to send our users too – JeffS Dec 27 '12 at 19:48
well it is a very location specific business even if I expand it will still be specific to every location, basically we are reviewing some top food options in the city but I didn't want to restrict it. Your point is well taken though for redirecting based on IP and that may be the best solution – clifgray Dec 27 '12 at 20:06

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