Not terribly long ago, we stopped letting people use someone else’s trademark or company/plugin name as the first term in their submitted plugin.
Example:
“Girl Scout Cookie Tracker by Mika” would no longer be accepted.
However “Mika’s Girl Scout Cookie Tracker” would be just fine.
The point we try to make here is that your name, your product name, should be first.
Of course, that second name is pretty poor, and I’d be more inclined to name it “Cookie Order Hunter” with the description of “Hunting down Girl Scouts to buy your next hit of Thin Mints has never been easier!” Yes, I know you can buy them online, not the issue here.
This new name is sort of neat. It’s got a kick to it and it has a distinct name. Suddenly I have a sort of branding all my own and this is good! I am now unique and I will stand apart from the other similar plugins.
Of course there are times when you don’t want to do this. I wrote a plugin called “EDD – Prevent EU Checkout” and I submitted it as “EDD Prevent EU Checkout” because it was a “Prevent EU Checkout” plugin only for Easy Digital Downloads. If I was doing my normal thing, where I pick a fun name, then I would have used the dev name: “EDD – Sucks to be EU.”
Here, though, I started the plugin with EDD – a search term often used – and ended with a description of what the plugin was. The fact that I keep the name as I do just means I haven’t finished the new version. I will soon be rebranding it to “Prevent EU Checkout with Easy Digital Downloads” because that’s a better SEO friendly name.
But here I’ve pointed out two things. The display name and the submission name are two different things for a reason. The display name is what people see, and the submission name is what sets your URL in the repository. Had I used “Prevent EU Checkout with Easy Digital Downloads” then my URL would be https://wordpress.org/plugins/prevent-eu-checkout-with-easy-digital-downloads and that’s not a friendly URL to anyone.
Submit a plugin with the ‘name’ you want for your URL.
Let’s take an example just for fun. Commoji – A plugin that lets you reply to comments with emoji reactions. No it’s not real. Yet. I would submit this as ‘commoji’ (all lowercase) and in the description I would put only the short description, leaving the readme to be read on it’s own. Remember: The readme is vital, so every pertinent piece of information that a user should have must be in that readme.
Within my plugin code, and that readme, the plugin’s display name would be “Commoji – Reply to comments with Emoji” (and if I’m feeling puckish, I’d add ? at the end).
Now I have my cake and Edith too! A short plugin slug, a descriptive plugin name, and a unique name that people will remember. I’m not stomping on Emoji’s trademark, such as it is, and I’m demonstrating my own individuality.
