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.
June 29th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
ewwww, for a company, that takes the cake. I got a headache just from thinking about the problems of communicating that name…
What were they thinking???
John
http://unplain.com
June 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
LMAO! This is hilarious. Sometimes it is a challenge to direct people to our website.
TranDotCom is a great company and a super place to work. We have a very strong position in our industry and long standing relationships with clients and vendors. The domain name and company name are amusing but don’t really cause us any issues.
The founders tell some funny stories about seeking financing circa 2000 for a company named TranDotCom.
FYI 10 years ago it was seen as ‘Tran’ as in ‘transactions’ and ‘dot com’ as in bringing Internet technology to our industry.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I like that it’s “TranDotCom Solutions”. They couldn’t get the URL they needed, but they had a Solution!
July 1st, 2008 at 8:35 pm
David – I really appreciate the comment and background. Perhaps the uniqueness of the name makes it more memorable. About 10 years ago, I thought it would be funny to register an even more difficult name – http://www.wwwdotcom.com, but that name had already been registered by someone a few years earlier.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
That’s one great post.
never laughed so much reading about domain names.
I’ll gladly give them thebestSOLUTIONSintheworld.com
nice one Ryan.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Funny..I work for the company! It cannot be any worse the people who put an S after tran and call us with questions about their transdot.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:59 am
That’s great that the Trandotcominfo people got back to you!
Chalk up one for the domaining masked crusader