# how important is it to have .com



## km (May 12, 2008)

I'm wondering how Important it is for a site to use .com and not .net or .biz or .us or whatever else.

anybody have any ideas or information on this?

I tried googling for actual studies of it but I came up short.


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## EnMartian (Feb 14, 2008)

The .com extension is the most common so it is the one people will generally try first when they type a url. 

Here is some information on the subject that I found: 

URL Ending in com or net - which is best Webmasterworld forum discussion
Understanding World Wide Web Addresses and Your Web Browser
URL as UI (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Not sure if any of these will help, but I hope they will.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

.com is definitely important to have.

Yes, some companies have worked around not having the .com (like americanapparel.net), but in general, you want to get the .com (and preferrably the .net and .org) of your brand name.


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## km (May 12, 2008)

Rodney said:


> .com is definitely important to have.
> 
> Yes, some companies have worked around not having the .com (like americanapparel.net), but in general, you want to get the .com (and preferrably the .net and .org) of your brand name.


yeah thats what I figured. my head is going to explode thinking of names!

thanks for the replies


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## Girlzndollz (Oct 3, 2007)

I always think of .com first when I think of a business's website. It's an automatic thought for me, but am getting more and more used to .net as a common alternative, and am getting the hang of remembering who's a .com or .net bc it's getting that much more common in my world. 

I heard the .org is available for businesses, but I still think of "helpful organizations" and not commercial business when I hear the .org. Maybe that is bc when I first saw .orgs, it is sites like RedCross.org, or the American Lung Assoc - lungusa.org. Our local hospitals are .org. 

I guess in time, my perception of that will change as well, as I see the .org's out there more... especially if businesses buy the .com, .net, and .org.

I only have the .com, but can see how having the .net and .org can close the loop and keep your "name" yours, without someone else registering your name in a .net or .org version, and creating confusion for the customers.


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## km (May 12, 2008)

Girlzndollz said:


> I always think of .com first when I think of a business's website. It's an automatic thought for me, but am getting more and more used to .net as a common alternative, and am getting the hang of remembering who's a .com or .net bc it's getting that much more common in my world.
> 
> I heard the .org is available for businesses, but I still think of "helpful organizations" and not commercial business when I hear the .org. Maybe that is bc when I first saw .orgs, it is sites like RedCross.org, or the American Lung Assoc - lungusa.org. Our local hospitals are .org.
> 
> ...


yeah I don't know what I think exactly. the domain and business name I've thought of is only 5 letters long so having .net doesn't seem like quite as bad of a thing since the domain is already really short and easy to remember. but I'm hesitant to go with anything without a .com


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## loftgolf (Apr 17, 2008)

I tried to get loftgolf.com but it was taken. I purchased .net and .org when I realized that the bozos at .com wouldn't give up their inactive site. All of my marketing material says; For the greatest gear don't forget, it's not .com it's loftgolf.NET! I'm hoping the little rhyme will stick in people's head. I'll let you know.


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## km (May 12, 2008)

loftgolf said:


> I tried to get loftgolf.com but it was taken. I purchased .net and .org when I realized that the bozos at .com wouldn't give up their inactive site. All of my marketing material says; For the greatest gear don't forget, it's not .com it's loftgolf.NET! I'm hoping the little rhyme will stick in people's head. I'll let you know.


yeah thats part of the thing i try to avoid in names usually is having to say things like "dont forget there is an S on the end. or don't forget this is the tricky spelling. or dont forget there is a hyphen here. all that stuff that can lead to confusion. it seems hard to avoid anyways since over the phone you will almost always be very specific to avoid confusion anyways regardless of how simple it is.

so I don't know how much it really matters.

like if i say go to dog.net is somebody always going to confuse it with dog.com? if people find your site through advertising that directly links them it doesnt seem like a problem.

and I don't really think people actually think a site is ghetto because its .net and not .com. I think people are going to base their decisions on how the actual website looks and feels.

if a site looks pro i dont think somebody is going to have pause to deal with them because its .net

I think the real problems stem mostly from word of mouth visitors. when somebody is like hey did you check the dog shirts and somebody goes home later and is like oh yeah rebecca told me to go to dog shirts that person is never ever going to type in dogshirts.net to try to get there.

how much this matters I have no clue.

but why risk it, just pick another name is an argument I can't really find a logical counter for.


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## Girlzndollz (Oct 3, 2007)

km said:


> yeah I don't know what I think exactly. the domain and business name I've thought of is only 5 letters long so having .net doesn't seem like quite as bad of a thing since the domain is already really short and easy to remember. but I'm hesitant to go with anything without a .com


 
I'm with you. For me, it had to be .com. Everyone knows the .com, it's one less part of the website name for people to remember. If I only had "dog shirts" from someone to go on, I would automatically try the .com first. If it was a dog shirt site, wellll, I might not realize it's not you. This is very true. 

But I don't think of .net as any less worthy or credible than .com. I am seeing .nets more and more, and it's just naturally working it's way into the the fiber. No alarm to me, now I just have to realize there are the two dots to keep straight.

I kept brainstorming until I found a name that *worked, *wasn't registered in my state already and * was available as a .com.

When you search to see if the name you would like is available, avoid using this site to search for availability - Network Solution. Here are a few links if you aren't familiar with their practices.

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t36741.html#post214672


http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t36915.html#post215765

Good luck choosing, I know it's not easy. I hope you find the right fit.


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

Most people will look for .com (or if regional eg Australia .com.au) For most .com is associated with a US business, hope that gives you a little insight in to how we look at it on the other side!

.net generally is seen as a "cheaper" alternative and here .org is as said before associated with an organisation that is helpful. Eg Red Cross etc

These of course are generalisations. I think the thing to remember is people abbreviate what they see to what they can remember so they drop the www and often don't pay a lot of attention to if it is a .dom, .net etc. They tend to just assume www.(business name).com(.au if Australia)

So you may very well miss out on people who are looking unless they are willing to start searching, but that also poses the risk of them finding a competitor before you or even just getting completly sidetracked and forget all about you.

Is there a reason you are looking at a .net (name not available etc)?

If possible I would stick with a .com (And don't make my mistake and pic a long name! IT IS A PAIN!)


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## LeeUK (May 16, 2008)

Sorry, not read all post but

depends what your marketing for

if you are going for a UK market (irrelevent of where you live) then go for a co.uk
french then a .fr etc etc

.com doesnt mean top spot or best web site

I designed a site recently where the client wanted a .com but was aiming their market at UK searches
I got the .com as requested and got a .co.uk domain and got them up and running, 8 months down the line the .co.uk is way ahead in searches, nice of them to thank me for doing that!


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

I agree I think making it regional (Targeted) is one of the most important things, people generally also will support a "local" business if they are competative.


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## SeasonEnds (Sep 9, 2007)

.COM is definitely the best, but today I think you can get away with other extensions. Worst case scenario, get all of them! .NET has always been popular. I have been seeing more companies in the US going with the .US extension. Good luck!


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## Heath (Oct 24, 2007)

From a Search Engine Optimization perspective, the search engines (Google especially) will give ranking preference to .COM over any other TLD. From my own testing, .ORG tends to come next in line to .COMs. This means that CoolWebsite.Com will usually rank higher than CoolWebsite.Org

This can be extremely beneficial to you if you choose a 'keyword rich', generic .COM domain. eg. 80sTees.Com, as apposed to something like MadClothingInc.Com. The reason for this is that Google is increasingly giving ranking preference to domain names that contain the searcher's keywords. For example, you could expect a good page 1 ranking for 80sTees.com when you search 'buy old 80s tees' in Google.

As previously mentioned by LeeUK, your countries domain name extension is a better alternative if you only sell to your particular country. Another reason for this is because Google will give preference to a .COM.AU when the search is made at Google.com.au.

A good way to find a generic domain name is to go to: Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker

You can use this free tool to find out how many searches are made each day for different keywords. You might find that 'funky vintage tees' gets a decent amount of searches per day, so FunkyVintageTees.Com would be a good one to register (it's available right now by the way!).

However, as with this example, FunkyVintageTees.Com does not get loads of traffic, but it is quite steady and you can be sure that those people finding you by searching for 'funky vintage tees' are particularly interested in funky vintage tees!

In some cases, it is much better (if you really want to go after brand awareness for your company name), to purchase CompanyName.Com. But there is no reason why you can't also have generic domains with specific content for the sole purpose of directing targeted traffic to your main website. (But that's another story all together...)

NOTE: I am not associated with 80sTees.Com in any way! It was used purely for the sake of an example.

Hope this helps!


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## tshirtn00b (May 23, 2008)

I came across this wikipedia page regarding top level domains. .biz is becoming pretty popular too from what I have seen.

List of Internet top-level domains - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

tshirtn00b said:


> I came across this wikipedia page regarding top level domains. .biz is becoming pretty popular too from what I have seen.
> 
> List of Internet top-level domains - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


.biz is definitely not a good extension to use for your legitimate business website.

.biz is mostly used by scammers and fly by night operations (or at least that's the way it is perceived to many people)

Here's a couple of posts about it:

MarketingProfs Knowledge Exchange : The success of using dot BIZ domains?

.biz extensions?


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## Heath (Oct 24, 2007)

I agree with you there, Rodney. Without having read any information about it, I get the impression that every .biz site I go to looks dodgy. It just doesn't seem to have a professional reputation, and if this is the case then the search engines (if they haven't already), will start to list them much lower down - just like all the .INFOs


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