Is it bad luck to rename a website?

[Melooon]

I grew up in a seaside town and as people do in seaside towns I was part of a sailing club when I was little! It was a chaotic and mostly working class club, and most of the kids there were from families who had been sailors for hundreds of years and they took it extremely seriously!

After a while I had the good fortune to acquire my own small boat, a Mirror dinghy made in the 1970s with more rotten wood and patches than than a slum landlords whole portfolio, but it was mine! My own tiny world to sail around the bay!

The boats name was Pirate, not a bad name, but a bit obvious. Being a big geek I wanted to rename it Laputa ~ however that idea was met with the sternest and most intense disagreement from the other sailors at the club "You must not rename a boat, its bad luck" - that was that, the boat stayed as Pirate, and Im still inclined to believe what they said.

In a lot of ways a website is a lot like a boat, its a personal craft that sails the seas of ethernet and electrons, and I wonder if perhaps the same could be true of a website, perhaps they should not be renamed, perhaps there is a cursed nature to a renamed site, a shadow life and a personality it possess that becomes lost; I certainly feel that when I think of Twitter.

Do you think its bad luck to rename a website? 

[nobo]

 
I don't really believe in luck.

   

It can be impractical if you expect your users and visitors to continue to be able to find you.
It can also disrupt every link back to your site if you abandon your old domain.
However I think some people want to start over.
Things that are put on the web can't easily be undone,
but connections can be broken.
Sometimes a name itself is associated with bad memories,
which are more tangible than curses.

[Aarix]

I like the boat comparison. I think of my website as being a little bit like a spacestation, which is a little similar--a self-contained vessel on a big dark sea which someone might chance upon... but I digress!

Names carry memories and associations, good and bad... I think bad memories are a kind of curse. I think renaming an entity is something which cannot be taken lightly, but sometimes should be done as a kind of cleansing thing if the situation really calls for it. The biggest problem with renaming anything at all is that both the people who are used to calling it that, and the thing itself, may get confused :( In that regard, renaming a website is somewhat more like renaming a dog--it can be done, but it does require work, and should not be done frivolously. I don't think it's bad or good luck necessarily...

Unlike a website, where the stakes are relatively low, I really do think maritime superstition is not something to be messed with--it's hard for me not to lend gravitas to something so storied and frequently-lethal as The Water, and I really do think sailors of yore know better than me when it comes to luck in that context :0 But the concept of websites is so young that we're still building the lore and luck around them... I believe this kind of thing needs time--many generations worth of time. Who knows what digital superstitions may have arisen in 500 years! (as an aside, I think digi-superstitions are already a noticeable practice, albeit most noticeably (and unhappily) in the context of trying to Appease The Algorithm)

...Of course, in all contexts, luck is exactly as real as you believe it to be ;)

[bingus_baby]

To me, a name doesn't hold weight in that sense. If needed, a rename should be allowed for most items, though I think my own system can calmly coexist with the aforementioned superstitions!! The way I name plushies, for instance, is that it simply comes to me. If I force a name onto it, that isn't genuine and not its true name. I got a squishmallow, and its name was something weird, like Beatrice. Not a bad name, but how is that fitting for a rainbow dog? When I held it, stared into its eyes, Marsha felt like the right name. It just popped into my mind and felt right! I do the same with most plushies. The only exception is Beanie Babies, since those names clearly are thought through and fitting. This system feels almost spiritual, in a way? Holding the item, channeling its feelings, and whatever the most natural name is comes to you! That's why my throw-around pillow squishmallow is named Marsha, and my beloved baby baby love you so much car is still "The *model of car*". A name never came to me for the car, and thus that is its destiny. A name never came to my site, so that must be how it's supposed to be. My own username with a .net at the end. I suppose it doesn't need a name!! And neither did my car? If I forced a name, like I've tried to, it doesn't stick and feels hollow. Tbh, if I kept that name, it would be more bad luck than the action of having renamed it, or not having a name to begin with. That being said, renaming sites (or anything) shouldn't be taken lightly. It should always be from the heart!! Is that rename going to be more you? Will it feel more natural? Or does it just look cool? Think about it!!

[candycanearter07]

Oh, absolutely. I always try to keep my names of stuff relatively consistent because I hate having a ton of different names for myself. Of course, being indecisive anyways, I ended up with a ton of accounts with SLIGHTLY different usernames (candycane, cca, candycanearter, candycanearter07, etc). And for my neocities, I  guess I had a stroke or something when I picked the account name but I'm too far in now to change it.

[aroceu]

i think a name has a lot of weight, but i don't think changing it is bad luck i've changed my internet name and websites a few times, mostly because my internal associations with them were vastly negative, and i didn't want to be that person anymore. for me it felt less like changing or getting rid of something, and more about the excitement of starting something new!

a name is an identity, a label, a world in one word. and i think we're always changing - as people, and therefore the internet - and when we change things about ourselves, it can feel like starting over. with websites it can feel like starting a new world; i don't like elon musk or anything he's done with x/itter, but i also think the name change will have a lasting legacy in the history of the site. there's a lot of meaning in a name, and in the same way there's a lot of meaning in replacing it with a new one.

[patchworkghoul]

I don't think it's bad luck but given your analogy it's more like repainting the boat than getting a new one. I mean I know you have to like register your boat at some docks and then you would have to fill out new paperwork so then the analogy kind of breaks down for me... but I do think it's a huge thing to think about if you change your URL. I've changed URLs in the past and lost half of my readers due to that, if they weren't regular readers they didn't know where to find me after I moved. in the old days you would have to keep your site up for a couple months pointing to the new one but I was so impulsive I would change it and delete the old one. I think now it's a little easier because people can search for you if they know your name or any identifying info about you on your site.

to me, updating your URL is like getting a new boat. especially if you were on one site and then you left for a different one, like moving from NeoCities to Nekoweb. not that you can't do it, just that a lot of your fan base from NeoCities might not follow you.

but I'm also a person with weird identity issues and I've never held any weight in names. I've had a thousand nicknames in my life until I found my actual correct name and legally changed it. names can change, links are forever. 😅

PS I didn't know that about boats, that's very cool lore thank you for sharing