How Important is the dot Com?

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.