Ok, so I think I found the worst company name ever combined with the worst choice for domain names ever. This one is so bad, it might even make Aaron from good URL bad URL cry. It is so bad that I had to stop and take a picture of it (check out the picture below). My wife and I were driving to a restaurant when I noticed a sign with a company name - ΤranD0tCom. I said “Hey, that’s a pretty good domain name, Τran.com.” My wife said, “Yeah, but why did they spell out the dot, instead of just using the symbol?”

I quickly pulled out my iPhone and entered “Τran.com” and sure enough, they do not own it. I said, “you don’t think…” and then entered “ΤranD0tCom.com” which not only worked, but made the story even better. ΤranD0tCom.com actually redirects to their company site at “www.TranD0tCom.info.” Yep, that’s right, their company website is officially ΤranD0tCom.info. I’m sure they are a great company, but I wonder how much time they waste just explaining their website address to people.

Can you imagine working for that company and talking to a customer on the phone.

Employee: Hello and thank you for calling TranD0tCom.
Customer: Hi, I visited Tran.com and I could not find out anything about your company.
Employee: What website did you visit?
Customer: Tran.com
Employee: Oh, our website is actually TranD0tCom.info.
Customer: Well, I just entered Tran.com.info and nothing happened.
Employee: Would you prefer to just send us an email?
Customer: Sure, what is your email addres?
Employee: Our email address is info@trand0tcom.info
Customer: Ok, got it. info@tran.com.info

Actually, I think that they probably had a few too many conversations like that because after reviewing their website, it appears that for email they are using tdcemail.com.

Bonus Picture: Employee of the month parking spot

Understandably, the employee in charge of domain name selection has never parked there.

Today’s UUOPD (Unusual Usage of Premium Domains) website is Mix.com. Mix is not just a three letter domain, it is also a word with several uses. Apparently though, the owner thinks the best use is to put a picture of a girl in a bunny suit with a couple of fire extinguishers, next to a picture of a daffy duck jack-in-the-box Christmas ornament. I am starting to think that in order to get these images, the owner just went to Google image search, clicked the “I’m feeling lucky” button, and then did not get lucky.

Moving on, we see a couple of links that say “What we do” and link to Barnes and Noble. The link shows results for a search on Barnes and Noble for the search term “Bill Youdleman.” According to whois, Bill is the owner of this site. According to the Barnes and Noble website, he is an engineer on these CDs, which I guess explains why he registered this domain name.

Seriously though, congrats to Bill for having the foresight to register such a great name seventeen years ago, in 1991.