Reglikedomain industry desk

Doritos.com to its Facebook page — Frito-Lay forwards

Is forwarding your brand’s .com domain to Facebook a good idea?

A reader just notified me that Doritos.com is no longer a standalone web site. Frito-Lay has simply forwarded it to its Facebook page.

This appears to have happened a few months ago, so it’s not “news”. But it’s the first I’ve heard of it.

I’m not a fan of firms turning over their web presences to Facebook. Or even advertising their Facebook page in a commercial instead of their own domain name. Doing so puts you at the whim of Facebook and its frequent changes to terms of service.

But in this case Frito-Lay is retaining the domain it tells people to go to — Doritos.com — instead of promoting a Facebook URL.

That’s a little different. By branding Doritos.com as the destination, it can always change course later.

Yet it still makes me a little queasy, like the time I puked up a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

What do you think? Is this a good use for a brand’s .com domain name?

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