.com vs .net in 2017

Get more creative with your site name and do the .com it looks more professional.

If your content will be of a great value the choise of extension will not make any difference.

Regarding to SEO there is no difference.
But as others mentioned .com looks more professional and better.
Try to do deeply research about keywords and find another more suitable to your business, I believe you will find more

screw .net or .info
don't get fooled with the "great content makes no difference". We did A/B tests over years. An decent .com outranks a better .net anytime of the day.
The only thing would be a country extension if your target market is limited to one specific country outside US, which comes close and can beat .com

It depends on your goals. If you are trying to kiss Google's ass then you better do what the SEO experts around here say.

I have .net and .org domains that seem to work just fine.

But then, I don't care what G thinks.

The .com and .net domain extensions are well-known, but which one is the best for your needs? You've probably seen both and you may have even owned both at some time. Understanding the difference, can help you in many ways.

The .com domain extension is the most widely used domain extension on the internet. Most users are familiar with a .com domain extension and if you are going to use .Net domain, then it may affect your business, at least as far as direct traffic goes. A user may mistakenly type in a .com instead of a .net suffix when looking for your website. .Net domain extension is not ideal if you are developing small niche sites as niche sites need to rank better than commercial websites. If you are after better ranking, it will take more time to see results with .net websites because you have to build more incoming links. You are more likely to establish a stronger online presence with a .com website name because these domains rank better than most other domain extensions.

.com have been used mostly and also recognized good in internet world.
whether it is 2000 or 2017 or future, .com will always be good.

Forget about the SEO issues for now - what's the intention of your site/business?

If you're planning to enter the same field as the .com site, you're going to risk deflecting much of your own promotional work to one of your competitors. Or if you manage to build a brand name with your .net, what's to stop a competitor using the .com domain down the line and stealing your market share?

If I were you, I'd find a different domain name that you can brand - and protect.

It depends...If you're depending on branding and type-in traffic, where a high percentage of potential clients/customers will actually type in your domain name to get to your site, then anything but a .com could cost you a lot of money.

I have a .net domain name that I've had for a dozen years and I still accidently type in .com instead of .net after all these years out of habit.

Anyone that types in your domain name is a highly targeted person that's looking for you specifically. You don't want to lose these people, so in this case a .com is essential.

On the other hand, if people won't be looking for you specifically, it probably doesn't matter much if it's .net or .com.

Others have done a great job of covering the rest of your question, so I'm just going to look at this one.

From the beginning, there have been .com, .net and .org. .Com was for commercial sites. .Net meant a network (like a media outlet, community site, etc.). And .org meant a charity or other non-profit. If memory serves, at one point you even had to provide proof in order to register a .org domain.

Several million domain registrations later, you have a growing collection of domain extensions. While not having a .com may cost you some type-in traffic, having a .net that makes sense won't hurt you as far as being taken seriously, at least not like it would have a couple of decades ago. Other than the .com habit, I don't think a lot of people really pay that much attention to the extension anymore as far as judging the destination.

That's my opinion, and while it might be worth what it cost, I've been around for a long time online (registered my first .com in 1996) and seen a lot come and go.

In almost cases, .com is always better than .net. Unless your site is worthier than the original .com site, people tent to type .com on their browser. IMO

I have been in this dilemma. The main thing to do is don't complicate this too much. The fact is either one will do fine so get it done and move forward. Just my 3 cents


Robert Andrew

I don't ever buy a .net of an existing .com.

I would be concerned over trademark problem.

I would say .com is still a lot more common and familiar so .net would take a little getting used to for the customer maybe.

It makes little difference. I've got a pretty successful .net. I couldn't buy the .com but maybe I could have done a bit more brainstorming to come up with an even better name.

Or you could start a brand with a name that's not related to anything (Uber?).

its all depend upon your niche and which country people you wana target bu generally most of people familiar with .com then .net.

I promise it does not matter...

The reality is you'll always want to get a .com but a .net is fine as long as you are branding it. If I owned godaddy.net it will do nothing any different than godaddy.com. The only real difference is people find .com's more memorable. If somebody says go to godaddy, their initial thought is .com and truthfully some people don't even know there is a such thing as a .net believe it or not, especially our older generation.

The new generation does not care, they want their content and as long as you can deliver the content then you'll be fine. If you absolutely have to have a .com and it's not available just make sure in your marketing the .net's prevalent. Most marketers and smart people alike know if they land on the wrong page to type in .net . That's why I say you have to brand because you don't want a conflict of where the user is suppose to be.

If you don't have the money of influence to build your brand right now but you think the traffic will be heavy offline then definitely find a .com but a .net will do fine if it's just a link their clicking or an advertisement that makes it blatantly obvious that they are typing in .net.

Warm Regards,
-Daniel

Both are the top level domains but as many other suggested here that .COM looks more professional. There is no difference if you judge them according to SEO.

People tend to remember .com, but using .Net is just fine.
I've managed to rank both well.