How Important is the dot Com?

Posted on 19. Feb, 2007 by Dave in Business

Darren got my neurons flowing earlier with his latest post on how important .com and .net domains are. Rather than just saying “.com is best” he posed some really thought-provoking questions, and I thought I’d give my personal responses to them here for everyone to read. I’d also like to hear what some of my readers think about them.

Are .com And .net The Best?

The .com extension is by far the king domain – if you are in any situation where you can choose between .com and any other extension it’s a no-brainer, go with the .com. Why you ask? I’ll explain with a sexy bulleted list:

  • People are used to .com’s. Try having a conversation with someone who’s not so web-savvy about what they think about domains. More often than not you’ll get a response similar to “you mean dot com’s?” People recognize .com as domains over anything else, .net, .org, .co.uk, and especially ccTLDs.
  • Usually .com is the first thing people try when they try to revisit a site they saw earlier. You know you’ve done it, we all have. You visit a site, you think you remember the name of it, so you type in “somename.com”. Then if it takes you to something you don’t remember THAT’s when you Google it.
  • .com’s get the most type-ins, period. For the reasons listed above more people are likely to type in “[keyword].com” over any other extension.

So there’s no doubt in my mind that .com is always the way to go. But what about .net? I would put .net on the same level as .org and possibly .co.uk (just because there’s so many UK-based web users and the stress they put on the .co.uk extension over there).

When is it OK not to go with Them?

I would say always go with .com when you get the chance. Even if you’re setting up a non-profit organization (which most people associate with .org) I would suggest getting the .com and simply redirecting it to the .org. If you absolutely have to have a keyword that has already been registered as a .com but is available in another extension you might can make it work. But I would always suggest branding your logo and site name with the extension included (if it’s not a .com). Just to make sure people know what the URL is.

Another time using a less desireable extension can work is if you’re doing a niche minisite or abitrage site. Domain extensions matter, but much less when doing these types of sites.

What’s More Important to You? SEO or Branding?

That’s an extremely tough question to answer. I’m a big fan of finding SEO-friendly domains, but I appreciate the brandability factor as well; after all, it’s an important part of domain valuation. Let’s take this site for example. When I was looking for a name for this blog I was actually going for brandability over SEO, but I was able to find something that landed somewhere in between. “Net Business” comes up a fair amount in searching and is starting to get me some targeted organic traffic. At the same time, what the hell does Shoemoney have to do with SEO or the business industry? Nothing, yet his content and blogging personality has built him an undeniable following.

At the end of the day it’s the content that makes the most difference. If you can grab an SEO-friendly domain, that’s good, but it’s not the end of the world.

I hope you guys didn’t mind my random domaining rant too much. I’d really like to hear what my readers have to say about these topics as well, so leave a comment if you have time. You can also sound off at Darren’s thread.

20 Comments

collis

19. Feb, 2007

The suggestion of branding with the extension included is an excellent one. When we started FlashDen.net we had trouble finding a brandable .com which had the word Flash in it, so to prevent mixups we’ve written ‘.net’ after it for so long that now the idea of FlashDen.com just sounds wrong to me!

Matt Coddington

19. Feb, 2007

I did the same thing when I made ForumRank.net, everytime I mentioned it I put the .net in to keep people from getting confused. Now thinking of ForumRank.com just seems odd to me :)

macgoo

19. Feb, 2007

I dont know what it is like in other non US countries but here in Australia I think that .com.au will actually do better then .com (if you are looking for australian readers). I know I always try .com.au first instictively. Although it does depend on what I am looking for. Sometimes I may try .com first. But I rarely try .net or .org before I hit up google.

Matt Coddington

19. Feb, 2007

That’s funny. I’ve noticed UK users tend to value the .co.uk a lot as well. In USA most people here don’t know .us exists, and if they do they don’t give a damn about it.

Leftblank

20. Feb, 2007

I suppose they don’t quite give a damn because it’s barely used ;)

I personally dislike those ‘pseudo-TLD’s’ such as .co.uk, .com.au, .com.cn etc, on the first sight it looks as if you’re using one of those free redirection services if you ask me, like ‘.co.nr’ or ‘.co.cc’, but this might just be something to get used to.

The thing I’m currently considering is to get a .eu domain, as the .com domain I was looking for has already been taken, I’m a bit scared it might scare non-Europeans a bit though -if they even know what .eu stands for- but right now I’m also receiving 30% traffic from the USA on my (English) .nl blog, so it doesn’t have to be a problem I suppose.

Daniel

20. Feb, 2007

I agree with all the points, in fact I would even say that people should consider get another domain name if the choosen one is not available under a .com extension.

Florchakh

20. Feb, 2007

Well, but I’m afraid that now SEO is more important than branding. There is a total lack of free .com domains with smart names, don’t you think so?

Branding? I would like to buy .pro domain!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.pro

What? Okay, I will choose other one…

John Chow

20. Feb, 2007

I only go with .com domains. There’s really no other choice. :)

Darwin Hall

20. Feb, 2007

Dot com is very important if you can get it. Very nice article. Maybe one day we will be using some other TLD.

Jane

20. Feb, 2007

You mean John Chow dot net wouldn’t be a better name for your blog John???

Yeah, it doesn’t roll off the tounge as it should :)

collis

20. Feb, 2007

I must admit I also think ‘.net’ just sounds kinda cool, ‘.biz’ and ‘.info’ just never had that coolness, but maybe thats just because I associate them with spammers now :-(

I keep hoping some new domain types will be released which people can quickly make cool by using for awesome websites.

collis

20. Feb, 2007

I didn’t know .us existed until del.icio.us came along and i was like what the heck is that!

Matt Coddington

21. Feb, 2007

What collis, you don’t like all of the “go to 47biz.biz to find out more about how to make $1m a day!”? Spammers are cool!

Raghu

25. Feb, 2007

Well I always thought that domains other can be .com can be interesting I know a friend of mine who has the domain plugDD.in or for that matter the latest one i came across this weekend bla.st looks cool too…

Ajith

25. Feb, 2007

One thing about .com is that when you press ctrl+entr you get a .comsuffix. SO i would prefer a .com coz most of the people have .com as default

Raghu

26. Feb, 2007

Same here …

Building a Big Agloco Network Online Part II » Agloco News

06. Mar, 2007

[...] post is choosing a blog platform. The second post talks about extensions (if you register a name) How is important is the dot com? This blog is hosted at Powweb(aff) which has a great deal of 300 GB Disk space, 3000 GB/Month [...]

Agloco™ | Own the Internet » Building a Big Agloco Network Online Part II

07. Mar, 2007

[...] In Part 1 we talked about how to create a blog. If you haven’t finished the steps in Part 1 please go do so now. In Part 2 we are going to talk about getting the word out about your website. Before I go on I want to mention 2 posts that talk about points I touched on in Part 1. The first post is choosing a blog platform. The second post talks about extensions (if you register a name) How is important is the dot com?  [...]

CajenTutorials

01. Jun, 2008

I’ve decided to go with .com instead of other domains. This article is a very helpful guide in establishing pointers on why .com is probably the best choice specially if you are striking a balance between branding AND seo-friendliness.
Thanks!

Tom

08. Mar, 2009

I would have to agree with John Chow about only using a .com extension. In the past I used a .us extension because I couldn’t find a .com that was available.

After my sight had been up a while, users started talking about it in a few of the forums on the net and A LOT of them were complaining that they couldn’t find my site. Almost all of the posters admitted to typing .com instead of .us to get to my site. The amazing thing to me was that most of them had NO IDEA that other TLDs existed. The more experienced users always needed to explain the difference. It was very frustrating for me because I felt as though I was missing out on all that extra traffic.

Today, I had another opportunity to get a domain and I cannot believe that all of the good names are taken. I literally spent over 10 hours looking for a domain that I was happy with. Something that was SEO friendly and yet conveyed my product.

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