Bad URL's? ~ Bad Product Names

Friday, March 28, 2008

Bad URL's?

Choose your URL's wisely! There are many cases of unintentionally offensive web addresses out there. The classic example of this is penisland.com (read: Pen Island).

Another crappy (pardon the pun!) URL:

publishit.com


Here's an interesting story involving a bad URL:

An employee at a software company was fired for visiting a particular website. Which site was it? Experts Exchange. But why? It seems like a legitimate site that one would go to in order to find help on various topics.

However, in the URL it was expertsexchange.com, which probably triggered some filter.

That issue's been corrected now and the site is now realized as experts-exchange.com.


231 comments:

Anonymous said...

lol I can believe that. It rarely happens, but it usually DOES happen at least once in your life. I remember I was on the computer @ school (this was when their filters were crappy) and I was showing my teacher something, and a porn site popped up when I hit the URL. I was like "OMG I swear I did'nt do that".

The librarian then.. SAVED MY ASS. She said that it has been doing that all day, and since it happend again they are now going to shut it down.

Anonymous said...

It's sounds like publish shit. Oh I can't believe that they didn't realize. What a bad name. LOL

LOUI$$ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I think it's better then penisland. lol

Anonymous said...

Goodness! That gave me a good laugh! It just goes to show that you should ALWAYS double check what you're doing to prevent slip ups like that!

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

I have got lucky every domain I put together has turned out to not have some weird wording when viewed another way. This can happen to anyone though.

Anonymous said...

Penisland and expectsexchange is great name.....lol
However, i believed this kind of URL can get more visitors

Anonymous said...

Waaah, I do agree.. you have to read your URL in all ways... It's good Expertsexchange.com is corrected ;0

Anonymous said...

The main problem w

Anonymous said...

The main problem while choosing domain name is that nearly all domain names are already been taken...so we are left with no other alternative

Anonymous said...

From other point of view a bad url is the one you a going to remember, while a simple one is easier to forget.

Anonymous said...

HI.. no update yet? Can't wait for your next entry.

Anonymous said...

penisland.... how funny... I think all of my domains are safe, but it makes me want to slow down and thing more about it in the future.

It's almost the same scenario as parents trying to make sure they pick a name for their kid that can't be easily made fun of.

Anonymous said...

HI... no updates yet? I can't wait for your new post as I love all your entries.

Anonymous said...

That PublishIt one is pretty funny. i have never really thought about this problem.

Anonymous said...

Really, who's going to shop at AmateurSexChange.com?

Not me.

Anonymous said...

Ha, too funny. But I can't help but think they knew what they were doing when they made penisland.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes when you are getting a site ready to go you think the name is perfect. It is hard to stop and step back and evaluate the name from all the potential angles.

The Raider said...

Publish shit?
LOL
yeah we do have to be careful with our urls..

Anonymous said...

Hey, great blog. I liked these last examples. Very funny.

Anonymous said...

hahaha, first time to realize that some of the URL's was a crapped one, lol

Anonymous said...

Haha man where do you find this stuff, thats gold! The exper exchange story will definately be talked about at dinner tonite haha will be back here for more soon!

Nick

Some Funny Things... But Not As Funny As This

Anonymous said...

thank you for a good laugh!

Anonymous said...

choosing a domain name can be a painful job

Anonymous said...

It is indeed a bad URL... I can't wait to read your upcoming posts. Why are you not updating this blog? It's fun visiting and reading your posts.

Anonymous said...

I've heard some bad names in my time, but this one takes the biscuit. Great find.

Anonymous said...

Very nice article, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Yes, i believe it.

Anonymous said...

I've seen the pinisland before but publishit was good too

Anonymous said...

Oppps, still no update? I often visit your blog to read what's new yet it seems you are too busy to post ;0 Maybe you will update soon and hope you'll feature 2008 Beijing Olympic Medals too.

Anonymous said...

I smell "sh it". lolol man, that was a funny 1! Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Every time I look at this one it makes me laugh again. I want to find out if this company has changed things yet. Didn't they see the shit when they made it????

Anonymous said...

For PenIsland, I think it's intentional and that it's just a joke. PublishIt.com looks legit but maybe it's still intentional ?

Anonymous said...

The site for Who Represents is a good one:

http:/www.whorepresents.com

Anonymous said...

You've got to be kidding me! Seriously? Man, poo in the pool? lol

Anonymous said...

In some languages your domain name could define not same you think.

Anonymous said...

What a vulgar name! lol I bet they were blind when they made this one huh?

Anonymous said...

Looks like an example of a really good idea gone bad. I'm sure they had to have realized the "shit" issue here. lol

Anonymous said...

This one made me laugh till I drop. I think they should think of a better URL name....Well It really makes me laugh, I cant believe why the push through with that URL they should have think twice before they PUBLISH IT!.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like something Bart Simpson might create...haha

Bags said...

Ha ha ha ha ha, priceless!

Anonymous said...

lol!
oh my goodness this is hilarious!


Great post,
Cheers,
Lacey

Anonymous said...

HA! Pen Island, great!
In my case, my URL is bad because I am the worlds worst speller!
I thought Sneak was spelled sneek; so now I'm stuck with http://www.hideNsneek.com

I feel dumb

Anonymous said...

There is one photography site which they use well hung in their name. I know they mean hung well on the wall, but that is not what everyone thinks.

Anonymous said...

Our local paper's website is news examiner dot com. it always gives me a double take.

Anonymous said...

Lovely! Really unusual funny URLs.LOL

Anonymous said...

lol ! Lovely! Really funny url's. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

One trick I have learned is to write it on paper and look at it. The url may seem logical but once it is front of you then you can see these little problems.

Anonymous said...

funny and interesting

Anonymous said...

that's funny url, how about misshit dot com?

Anonymous said...

my cousin was fired for whorepresents.com = who represents. They're an agency she heard about. I thought it was hilarious, minus the part where she got fired.

Cheers,
Jenny

Anonymous said...

It is hard to sometimes see these little things in your name, you should always run it by a friend first.

Anonymous said...

Publishit.com is such an ugly URL for the site, it is so gross! Of course it is understandable that it is PUBLISH IT, but when you join publish and it that's another story. Did they not consult each other before they finalized that URL for their site? This URL goes the same with the penisland, but I'd rather choose penisland over the publishit one.

Anonymous said...

When I saw the logo for Publish It, the irony didn't sink in at first. Then I started laughing out loud when I spelled it out as a regular domain name. I can't imagine anyone getting a business off the ground with a domain like that...

Anonymous said...

Cool. I really wouldn't have thought to check if there were words inadvertently appearing. In fact I had to read the post a few times before I figured out what you were on about.

Well spotted

Anonymous said...

It would be really interesting to get a insight into the mind of somebody who did not notice such a error :D

Anonymous said...

still giggling from PenIsland.. wonder what those folks were thinking when they named it!

Anonymous said...

is true, a lot of domains are already been taken, however, i think, could have been more careful with theri choice..
I can´t believe the case of publishit! althought change the color of the letter, all the people can realize that say shit

Unknown said...

I ran into a problem similar to that at school. When trying to pull info on a recent news story that was on a local TV station.

Who knew there would be such a difference between .com and .com.au?

... Teacher was not amused..


Adam
WoW Fail Blog

Anonymous said...

¡Hi!
Hola, saludos desde Guayaquil - Ecuador - Sudamerica en:
http://www.laplegariadeunpagano.com
Un abrazo…

Victor.

Pd: Thanks to use “dofollow”, please visit my blog and commenting too.

Anonymous said...

Wow a lot of people fall for this kind of thing, in fact I will just fire myself, as now I discovered my blogger url prefix is very offensive:

undocumentedspot

though I still can't figure out what is "enteds". could be some French "ente" and ds is acronym? or could be "en teds" teds plural of teddy bears? and en is "in" in Spanish?

Anonymous said...

This has become a serious problem for me. You see, I own http://www.MyAuntIsHot.com and well ... because my aunt is hot. However, people think that I'm a murderer ... because that's somewhat less taboo than incest apparently... and read it MyAuntIshot.com I didn't shoot my aunt.

But she is hot.

Cheers, Nice blog.

Josh

Anonymous said...

HA! that was a good post, I bet things like that do happen all the time with web site names :P

Anonymous said...

The company's probably run by Mike Hunt.

Anonymous said...

lol at publishit and penisland are gold. I'm sure the people that did that are kicking themselves for not reading it through. Guess that's why good domain names are so competitive.

Anonymous said...

Oh man, ther is nothing you can do to help those business with this type of errors but laugh!

Anonymous said...

thank you for a good laugh! :D

Anonymous said...

For PenIsland, I think it's intentional and that it's just a joke. PublishIt.com looks legit but maybe it's still intentional ?

Anonymous said...

That's so funny. I wonder if the people who choose the names come to realize it says that?

Anonymous said...

Oh my! the next time we think of a domain name we better read through it or we might experience the same thing. It's really not good to look at. Especially when you SEO the keyword and your domain show on the results of words like "pen**" hahaha!

Anonymous said...

Oh, my God! The guy that came up with penisland probably didn't even realize what he did until his site was all hooked up and running. LOL

What a maroon.

Anonymous said...

Just ran into your website. Cool concept! Keep 'em coming :D

Anonymous said...

How unfortunate! I think this demonstrates why companies spend so much money on marketing to avoid things like this.

Anonymous said...

HAHA!

I guess it can happen to anyone...

Anonymous said...

That is WAY to funny :P I can't imagine how awful it must have been for the sites that had made that huge error, but it is still hilarious none the less :P

Anonymous said...

Haha, these are hilarious. Glad none of my domains came out having second meanings to them!

Anonymous said...

this was really awesome...never paid attention to all this bad url's so much before

vicky
www.vickyadvani.blog.co.in

Anonymous said...

It would be really funny if someone could compile a list of these to read for a funny like they make for license plates and billboards.

Anonymous said...

O my God ,
I am really surprised on expertsexchange.com, which is actually ExpertExchange.com.Well,Sorry for that employee who was fired without any sin.I enjoyed this post.

Anonymous said...

Really a funny fact,
Its not easy to believe but thanks for this funny post.I am still laughing.No doubt that its an interesting blog .

Anonymous said...

There are a hundred or a thousand such names actually which can tickle your senses. And the worst part is in over-enthusiasm one does not realise when booking the domain name. By the time the domain is marketed well enough it is too late to unwind leaving you with buttered fingers

Anonymous said...

Wonder where you find those bad URLs. Expertsexchange. LoL.
Really surprised. Seems that good URL not hard to find but hard to get.

Anonymous said...

Goodness you would have thought someone along with way would have picked it up!

Anonymous said...

OMG!! This is way to funny as much as I have been working online and playing on the internet I had never even noticed sites like this but that is so great crappy and crazy silly to some but way yo great for those truely needing a truely good laugh.Bingo

Anonymous said...

rofl, publishit is a great example

Anonymous said...

Thats too funny! :)

Anonymous said...

very nice post here! great advice to all of us who are blogging especially to those who are just starting to.

i had problems deciding about my blog's URL before. i guess i changed it twice or thrice.. can't remember exactly.

anyway, hope you can visit my site, too or perhaps... we can exchange links!

Anonymous said...

You must think it pretty well when you want to pick the domain of your site. It's funny

Anonymous said...

Goodness! That gave me a good laugh! It just goes to show that you should ALWAYS double check what you're doing to prevent slip ups like that!

Anonymous said...

Oh..man the first one sounds terribly bad.Love to see more of these funny domains.

Anonymous said...

jajaja

That is quite funny.

Anyway... firing someone just for that without checking the URL seems just non sense.

Anonymous said...

Bad really bad... feel sorry for the domain owner.

Anonymous said...

Oh Sh@#t, what were they thinking?

Anonymous said...

jaja it´s a fantastic name,
what kind of people can name his company in that way?

Anonymous said...

Haha. This is pretty funny. You wonder if people think about their choice of URL for more than two seconds.

Anonymous said...

I agree you should always check your URL carefully.

Anonymous said...

hehe..very funny...hhmm...you posted very interesting topic...nice post!!!

Anonymous said...

Nice Post!!!

Lilian said...

hehehhehe if you really dont mind the spelling and pronunciation and the meaning of it you wont really know it its bad....but its a great tip kidding aside!

Anonymous said...

Too funny. My favorite is Experts Exchange because I use it all the time for my job. Or, I thought was for my job...maybe I subliminally saw that SEX was a part of it :)

Anonymous said...

hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....

Anonymous said...

How about Therapistfinder.com? One of my favorites

Anonymous said...

What a list! I love these names and the other ones from the comments. Great post.

Anonymous said...

That is too funny. I wonder if they have noticed. There are so many of these and I'll bet a lot of the business owners don't realize it.

Anonymous said...

Great post. I hadn't even noticed that about publiSHIT but now that you point it out I will not forget it :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the laugh!

Anonymous said...

You know, I have used expert-exchange.com quite a bit. I never knew until now why most everyone was from Thailand and why they all worked at a show bar. Now I know.

Anonymous said...

Could be the name of a pub? ;-)
You know... Pub Li Shit

cotton candy kyle said...

lol how great. too bad for that guy. i don't blame the site. how hard would that be to catch?

AnimeTip said...

Hahaha, great domain ;D This and Watching Anime Online at AnimeTip sure gives an awesome saturday evening :D

Evgeny S said...

Let's see. All of us are doing that we know to do. And all of us are just human.
I think, that webmasters of these sites simply did not figured out their funny url choosing. And when they've understood - it was very late...

Americhem Carpet Cleaning said...

haha this reminds me of celebrity jeoporady with sean connery. penisisland hahah. Funny stuff and people wouldn't believe how often this sort of stuff happens and no one catches it.

Best Portable GPS said...

I like sex in experts exchange! It's much more interesting than the technical articles that I find there!

Jacksonville Realtor said...

Now this was funny!

beauty news said...

As funny as publishit was penisland was the one that cracked me up...

Word Search Game said...

This is great! Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

How To Videos said...

Great post. I think publishit is a great name because most people just publish s*it anyway :)

bluetooth home phones said...

penis land. that's got to be fake. stranger than fiction.

I Need Money said...

There's gotta be tons more of these out there :)

bluetooth home phones said...

d00d... i can't stop laughing.

Jim said...

penisland, now thats funny! I have never really thought about the url and how they could be broke up to mean something totally different.

Song Guitar Chords Lyrics Tablatures said...

yeah it's truly, we have to choose wisely names for domain regarding service or business that we build :)

excellent post anyway ;)

Anonymous said...

This site is intelligent and gives me the feeling that the folks here really care about the public.

In addition, I wanted to test to see if this site will honor my input.

Once I have that information, I'd like to be an active contributor and supporter of what you are doing.

Dr. Moore

Chandor said...

Nice mistakes by fatal error. ***lol****

keyboardcat said...

oh man that's funny.

Deals on Airline Tickets said...

lol awesome blog. thanks for the laughs.

DLB said...

Oh man, I would be embarrassed if I had that domain.

oche said...

ha..ha.. it's verry funny & strange name :D
your blog is very unique bro, love it ! :-)
keep up the good work

spar said...

Thats funny man..never thought a innocent domain name could turn out to be offensivly funny lol

Krakow Tours said...

I have my own website and one of the things that is really becoming apparent to me is that in I.T 'attention to detail' is everything. But very funny. Thank for the post.

Gafas Graduadas said...

With Publishit at least you can play ironical but Penisland...

Travel Sites said...

lol

Gonna have to say a hyphen would look nice in this domain name.

Manny Rivas said...

That's great. I always appreciate a good URL, although penisland definitely is honed in on a specific demographic. Arguably it has potential to be a very successful targeted domain. Haha

pfisterfarm said...

I seem to remember a commercial Mac program long ago called Publish It!... not sure what happened to it. Apparently, they developed the whole thing and brought it to market without saying the products name out loud. I think I remember hearing the penisland.com name being registered as a joke.

How To Talk To Women said...

that is funny. My urls dont do that I wonder if people that on purpose

Pregnancy said...

At first I saw it as it was intended and then had to take a second look. Thanks for the tip.

HTC said...

How could they fire you without giving you a chance to explain yourself. Seems like they would believe you about that.

Drew said...

LOL!!! Oh my God. This guy must have been an alcoholic and been drinking not to realize what this might lead to.

MBGolfDog said...

I think they are all funny but maybe a little too over the top. I do agree with some posts in that URLS like these are somewhat "catchy" and will stay with people longer.

Best Christmas Gifts for 2009 said...

My favorite in this list is PublishIT.

How could they not have seen that?

I just lol'd said...

WOW :D
Penisland is indeed real.
I once saw this building which said

Kids Exchange.
figure it out :p

chris said...

note to self, penisland.com is for pens. must find new site to visit...

awesome post.

Kirk said...

i wonder how's the bounce rate on pen island, there should be a good number of people visiting the site looking for 'things' other than pens... :)

smart said...

publishIT: In a way the name is good. It gives shit bublicity. Thats why we are talking now,

Anonymous said...

Probably everyone of you guessed what these two cracks are and what should a real gentleman do about them iа their mistress would suddenly be in need of! Anyway, this lady doesn’t seem to be in woe about this question and assisting herself quite properly with a palm.
http://adulthd-video.com/category/solo-girls-videos/
A desperate MILF fingering herself with no male or kooky to help her!

Camisetas said...

I never think about that. It just goes to show that you should always double check what you're doing.
First time here. Great blog and posts, keep up the good work!

The Man The Myth The Legend said...

LOL

That is hilarious - I have a friend who has a domain that has a plural and then exchange. I better warn him about that.

heaven is so real said...

I have a friend who has a domain that has a plural and then exchange. I better warn him about that.

Yuba City Photographer said...

That Sucks but I can see y it would trigger the filter. You have a lot of funny stories and such.

Parenting Advice said...

I never really thought about it this way. Thats pretty funny about penisland.com, but I didn't get the publishit.com one.

College Dating said...

Thank you for the information. Great help.

John said...

Thanks for the post

Christopher Jackson said...

publish it, sound like someone just pick the name and didn't spend any time analysing it. Not only terrible but also just plain ignorant.

My Biggest Regret Ever said...

Haha ... hilarious. You wonder what people are thinking when they register some of these domain names. It's as if they just impulsively register and fail to think twice about what they are doing.

cursos madrid said...

lol how can that happen?

mail programı said...

Oh I can't believe that they didn't realize

Joseph Mancia said...

There is no reason to choose such a bad domain name. You have so many options to choose from, but I can see how it was overlooked

vize said...

That gave me a good laugh! It just goes to show that you should ALWAYS double check

ApxAlarm said...

I remember this! This is a classic. An oldie but a goodie for sure.

Burglar Alarms126 said...

I knew that this is one of the best blog and about this post just say Ha ha ha..................

vps hosting said...

Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you! The post on comment posting was a very good read and I will be putting it to use. Thanks.

Burglar Alarms101 said...

You should feel sad for the url owner.Really its one of the nice post which having nice tips and informations for me which helps me a lot.so Keep up blogging and stay tune with us.Thanks a lot

bojan said...

This can happen to anyone

coches said...

Its not easy to believe but thanks for this funny post

restaurantes valencia said...

Thanks for the tip.

programas said...

oh its incredible

descenso sella said...

funny thing

otel said...

ı think it's better then penisland

Solo Life said...

Looks like publish shit than it...:)
great domain name.

Extra Long Ties said...

It's sounds like publish shit. Oh I can't believe that they didn't realize. What a bad name. LOL

Will said...

How embarrassing to be the IT guy that reserved the name.

marka tescili said...

when their filters were crappy) and I was showing my teacher something, and a porn site popped up when I hit the URL. I was like "OMG I swear I did'nt do that

marka tescili said...

were crappy) and I was showing my teacher something, and a porn site popped up when I hit the URL. I was like "OMG I swear I did'nt do that".

ecommerce159 said...

I very much think that word is not enough to appreciate this article i come across very interesting, may God Bless you. Some great information to be absorbed in this post. Thanks a lot for sharing.

marka tescili said...

happen at least once in your life. I remember I was on the computer @ school (this was when their filters were

athlon24 said...

a good research was involved here that resulted in a very funny post... Keep it up..

parti malzemeleri said...

people wouldn't believe how often this sort of stuff happens and no one catches it.

Matthijs said...

Old ones but still funny.

hotel guide said...

I can believe that they did realize

steve private jet charter said...

Some newspapers should be trading under this name....

alaska travel deals said...

Almost as good as PenIsland.com...almost.

Anonymous said...

Nice blog do you have and care to exchange link

Humor blog said...

Nice blog do you have care to exchange link?

Astroboy said...

Wow, they did not think about the domain, eh? a single hyphen could have changed everything!

That url is shitty. Pun intended.

Cypress Wood said...

That is great. I can totally see that happening to someone. Sometimes you have to watch out what your are typing at work. Thanks for making me smile.

Anonymous said...

Ha! brilliant, I wonder if the company knows how stupid they look, I do wonder what goes on in there heads when they think up of names, the one called poolife lol, how retarded can you get

willbill said...

hahaha... this is what you get if people do not spend much time in thinking their name...

Cottages to Rent said...

Very funny...shows that just change of letters can change the whole meaning.

zito said...

That was a good post, imagine the owner of penisland... ops pen island.

Funny news, images and videos.

david said...

This is a great post thanks for sharing this,happy new year.I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post.

The What Is said...

This is as old as the internet...

Motef Design said...

this is not only true with names, Logos sometimes are really funny and weird looking, actually, Logos which are supposed to be the single most important image for any company, are often overlooked by the business owners, and they often request a logo but they want to pay pennies for the time and design ideas...
so for the entrepreneur that is looking for a logo, keep this in mind, there are plenty of bad examples online, it is better to hire a company that is going to charge you a decent price, but that will deliver a quality product.
This is true for every single company or business anywhere.

Ancala Lot for Sale said...

LOL! This really is nuts! :D

informacion seguros said...

hahahaah, nice FAIL

Life Insurance Training said...

Ever see the one for Kids Exchange - a daycare where you drop off your little ones with others so they can play nicely? Yeah...

london plumber said...

it happened to me the other week

andisuro said...

Choose a URL name is very painful indeed. That's a nice post. Wish you all the best.

matt said...

This is great where are the more recent posts I can't imagine that people have stopped making these kind of errors

Canada said...

Ha, ha. I'm sure the author of publishit didn't realize it.