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 – TranDotCom. I said “Hey, that’s a pretty good domain name, Tran.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 “Tran.com” and sure enough, they do not own it. I said, “you don’t think…” and then entered “TranDotCom.com” which not only worked, but made the story even better. TranDotCom.com actually redirects to their company site at “www.TranDotCom.info.” Yep, that’s right, their company website is officially TranDotCom.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 TranDotCom.
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 TranDotCom.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 address?
Employee: Our email address is info@TranDotCom.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.

23 years ago today, the domain name Think.com was registered. Some of you might think you registered your first name a long time ago, but think about this; Think.com probably preceded your first registration by a decade or more. Some of you might think you started registering domains too late, but think about this; 23 years from now, someone will be registering their first domain name.

In 1985, the year Think.com was registered:

• The Web browser had not yet been invented
• Windows 1.0 was released, and Microsoft was a privately held company
• Ronald Reagan was president of the United States
• Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader
• New Coke was released. Anyone remember that?
• Back to the Future was the top grossing film
• The Berlin Wall was still up

So, what were you thinking about in 1985?

The oldest continually registered .com domain name turns 23 today. Symbolics.com was first registered on March 15, 1985 by Symbolics, Inc., a public company that produced computer systems for running and developing object-oriented programs in Lisp. It designed and built workstations and created an object-oriented operating system and development environment called “Genera” to run on those computer systems. What does all that mean? I am not really sure, but the domain name symbolics.com has never expired or dropped and it is now owned by a privately held company which got the domain name when it acquired the assets and intellectual property of Symbolics, Inc.

Bonus Trivia: Although Symbolics.com is the oldest publicly registered domain, nordu.net was created several months earlier by the registry to be used as the first root server (registered January 1, 1985). 💡