best names for holiday cottages

[Martha]

Hi Jane Yes, definitely. I have the .com, the co.uk and the .net, as well as some variants and misspellings, some of which I'm not going to bother renewing. e.g. chaletleforet, chalet-la-foret and so on. They aren't expensive (a fiver) and it helps keep your name safe.

I didn't consider any names for the chalet where the .com domain had already gone, but someone else (e.g. one of the other Chalet la Forets) might well think - oh well, I'll be the .net or .co.uk then. Confusing for people looking for me, so I'm sitting on em


The biggie for us in terms of Google is "Chamonix Chalet". Useful variations of this are hard to come by! However MG cleverly noticed that chamonixchalet.info was available and I host our chalet blog on this. It's my "stalking horse" for the top page - it will take some spadework to get it there yet!

I'm a bit of a hoarder of domain names though and have a whole ton of them that I have grand plans for but are currently empty!

However it's worth noting that optimising pages properly within a well organised site is very effective even without a domain. I was thinking of buying chamonixforfamilies.com, but was surprised and pleased to find that number one result for that search is me anyway...
http://www.google.com/search?client=saf ... r+families

I did buy chamonix-summer.com as I think it might be useful. I intend to put genuinely handy info on these with a link to the chalet, as I have with
http://www.les-praz-de-chamonix.com/

The other thing about choosing domains is to see what gets brought up in those searches anyway, and make sure you aren't unwittingly choosing a name that has a lot of popular searches, making your life more difficult. e.g. Chalet Casino would be a bad choice.

not that you would, but you see what I mean.

[Margaret]

We bought bavarian-skiing-holidays.com and bavarian-walking-holidays.com really from the point of view of showing that the area is good for those particular interests. Both have single page sites linked to all the pages on our main site - and back again from the bar below the header on our main site. The walking site is still mainly getting clicks from the main site. But I have been amazed at how many people are searching for bavaria+skiing and variations on that. I thought you could count the number of Brits who knew you could ski in Bavaria on the fingers of one hand. This is encouraging me to develop the skiing page some more - would be nice to get more than just half term week booked by British skiers. So it can work both ways.

[Windy]

Harthope Burn Cottage

I wasn't sure about that - my first thought was to remove the Harthope but then it sounded like an invitation to anti-second home extremists I'm not sure why I'm not so keen on it - It sounds local which is I think a good thing, but its doesn't roll off the tongue and it's potentially confusing Hart Hope or Harth ope?

Library House

Makes me think of something on town, and sounds a bit bleak on its own to me - "The Old Library" ?- no maybe too twee,

Lowburn Hills

I quite like that

The Causeway

I neither like nor dislike that

I think it's quite hard to judge without actually SEEING the properties W - You know like peoples names sometimes suit them and sometimes seem quite incongruous.

Maybe it's like naming children - you worry for 9 months and nothing quite works until you see it and then there's Thomas or whoever and it was always right!

Best wishes

John

[Jenroy]

Well taking Martha's advice I managed to secure both .com and .co.uk for Calabriansun. The .com was the most expensive as it had been taken by network solutions and sold on - I suppose that is their speciality.

Martha - We will retain Villa Jenna as a 'house name'. As we have villajenna.co.uk as well. Whilst I am aware, but not yet able, to point one site to another, which way round would you recommend? Villajenna to Calabriansun or vice versa?

[Margaret]

We have Haus Sterr for the house name and Bavarian-Forest-Holidays.com for the website. All our guests know us as Haus Sterr because the apartments are numbered: Haus Sterr 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 - you wouldn't know that until you get well into choosing an apartment so I don't think it turns people off.
The website name is excellent for search engines and actually tells people where we are. The combination works well for us but may not for other people.
I might think about giving the apartments names but it would certainly confuse returning visitors of which there are now quite a lot. Also we use the name Haus Sterr-Peter for the 2nd house where the 2 new (5 star) apartments are, because we have to be careful not to give the impression that all our apartments are star rated or we get in trouble with the rating people. Sometimes we just advertise that house with the 5 stars and this gets round the problem. Haus Peter was the previous name of the house.
It sounds much more difficult to explain than it is in practice!

[Martha]

Sorry Jenroy, I only just noticed this

I'd go for Calabriansun myself, because it tells you instantly where it is, but I don't think there's a right answer really, a lot depends on what you want to do with the name

The main thing is to be consistent so there's no confusion, it's surprisingly easy to muddle people up.

[Moon Dog]

I only considered naming the house when registering with listing sites so that clients had a a handle to hang on amoungst the sea of competition. Our house is a terrace so many names could seem pretentious. In the end I opted for L'Avenir (The Future) for a bundle of reasons, not least because I was amused that the local bar has the same name.

I have a guilty pleasure in daft names for houses, especialy if carved in marble or accompanied by gnomes. Some relis in Kent have a chalet / beach shack called INAMINIT and when they progressed to a Spanish villa couldn't resist UNAMOMENTO. My personal favourite has to be TUKSUMDUIN, which is only understandable if pronounced with a gutteral Sheffield accent.

[e-richard]

Great thread creep: fun names.

When growing up, my parents always had loads of house guests, so named our home McCompton Gate.

A virtual bottle of bubbly to anyone who can work that out.

(hint: a knowledge of Yiddish might help)

[cottageguru]

We've had a lot of fun naming our properties as it is not usual to do so here. Most people have their own names on boards outside their cottages, and on the 'sign trees' which are usually on cottage road junctions and are just a jumble of signs nailed to a tree. Some can have 30 or 40 signs, but mostly leading to "The Browns', 'Gus and Marg's Place', 'The Roberts Family' or similar. We seemed to buck this trend with our 'peculiar Brit' habits and named our cottages:
Beaver Creek Cottage (lots of beavers in this lake)
The River House (you guessed it...on a river)
Tamarack Lodge (Tamarack is a deciduous pine tree common to the area)
Porth Ridge Cottage (this was a vague reference to many happy holidays in Cornwall)
Osprey Cottage (lots of ospreys around)
Wychwood House

Some I have seen recently: A Whisper in Time; Cedarwood; Willow Bank; Moosewood; The Bear's Shadow; River Haven Retreat

[Big Sis..]

Not quite so inspiring .

we went to a Restaurant last night, and Hubby said there used to be a fish and chip shop here somewhere, but Im not sure where.
[A row of new houses had been built].
I said I reckon it was there.......
and the New owners had named their house, Chippie 1

Doesnt quite roll off the tongue does it??

[Moliere]

Well, because over the months (years?) we always called our new-build "The French House", we decided to stick with it - we're ok with the trade descriptions act at least!

Mols

(What's your new avatar, Ros? It looks like a cast-off from Doctor Who.)

[Austria]

Location specific so the search engines can find you

[Tizfata]

I am thrilled I found this old thread!

Villa Jenna...is it a villa? then I think that's a good start...a Casa or Casetta brings up VERY different images in my mind than a Villa - so use whatever describes it the best!)

As non-English person and person with no English-speaking people to rely on except you, could someone tell me the feeling you have for villa, casa and casetta and what you would expect to find related to them.
I think the reason why Villa Jenna sounds so goods is that both have "consonant vowel consonant consonant vowel". Could it be?
Thinking about renaming my apartments (now 1, 2.... there are also 4A and 4B ). What about "consonant vowel consonant vowel consonant vowel" something like: salice, rovere...?

[Windy]

For me


Villa is pretty much an all purpose word word a holiday home. It could be a small 2 bedroom place or a mansion

Casa would have to be in Spain

Casetta would have to fit into an 80s' hifi.

3 syllable name or two - equallly good to me

[Moliere]

Yeah, dead right Windy, who gives a toss?
If it sounds right, just do it, don't analyse it.

Mols