Google that Name, Buster!
Think about the children!
When many people think of a great product name or domain name, they quickly check to see if the domain name is available. If it is, they quickly purchase it and they’re in business. Think that’s enough? So, did the UK government. According to The Register, the UK government’s Directgov website named the children’s section of their site “Buster’s World” after the sheriff’s badge wearing dog that guides kids around the site.
Unfortunately, they didn’t do a basic web search. If they had, they would have seen that for multiple search engines, including Google, the number one web result was for a gay porn fetish site, that for some reason involves balloons. Don’t ask. I don’t know because I didn’t look. I took The Register at its word. As far as I can see, the UK government has taken the poorly researched name off their site, but the damage has been done because Buster’s World has already been marketed to the kids and people are searching for it on the web.
That’s why, when you’re looking for a name for anything these days, be it a product, service, website or even a child, you need to do a web search to see what comes up. And do it on multiple search engines. While you’re at it, do a search on trademarks using the United States Patent and Trademark Office. While it would be bad to have a name that takes people to a porn site when they search for it, it would be almost as bad if someone else owned the rights to the trademark and sued you to stop using the name after you started investing time and money into building your brand around it. So, take the time to do your research whenever you’re naming anything and you’ll be much better off.
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It is always a good idea to search your product’s name in a variety of places or you can get yourself into a lot of problems.