Converting the letter s to z in domains

[dannyx]

I recently read a discussion on a forum related to the replacement of the letter s with the letter z in domains.

Opinions varied, most of them positive.
What do you think about this in gambling domains ?
E.g.

slotz.com
betsitez.com
betz.com

Of course these are just examples.

[universal4]

I think it can work for some, but it still feels like this is still down to branding.

If we take the slotz example, slot(s) is just slots but slot(z) could possibly lead to a brand that visitors could possibly remember.

Rick
Universal4

[chaumi]

I think Rick nailed it here. The potential benefits come from branding. If you can build Slotz into a brand that's instantly recognized as slots-related, then (with the right site structure + all other known signals) you can hope to gain traffic to inner pages with the correct naming - /best-slots, hold-and-win-slots, etc etc

Theoretically, the search engine algorithms won't automatically see 'Slotz' as meaning 'Slots' (in the same way as if you had slots .com), so building the brand would take considerable effort, time, and money. But you still get the potential that the partial match might play a small part, + the term is instantly recognizable by real eyeballs. And you get the benefit of a short name (if there are actually any available still).

Perhaps a reasonable working example is the gaming brand Skillz.

[Cash Bonus]

Without any doubt, slotz definitely sounds more memorable than only slots. Rick has made some very good points for you to follow and you should really take his advice.

[dannyx]

On that forum, several people also mentioned the possibility of branding these types of domains.
That is, domains more EMD type betsitez .com seem useless it is already domains like slotz .com , betz .com can be quite good to create a brand.

[orion]

betz .com sold for 240,000 USD at the end of 2024.
slotz .com sold for 40,149 USD in 2020.
sitez .com (not betsitez) sold for 2322 USD in 2023.

So, the right domain with a z instead of an s can definitely be valuable.