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Buying a .com domain - should we bother with any extension if .com is not available?

by kelsa
16 replies
I would like to hear others views on this one please. I've heard mention that if the .com is already taken; we should avoid buying any of the extensions to that domain? I have a number of domains and their respective extensions such as .info, .net etc etc, that I have purchased to keep my collection 'safe' So, should we avoid if the .com is taken ..or hyphenate to change it slightly ..or what?

Thanks in advance
#bother #buying #domain #domains #extension #extensions
  • Profile picture of the author Edk
    The word seems to be that if .com is taken, go for .org or .net or forget it.
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  • Profile picture of the author ErnieB
    I think the general consensus is that the order of preference is .com, .net, .org and then a 1 or 2 hyphen .com. All the rest i would ignore.

    However if you are talking more about an "official" business site and not just an IM type site then i would not get unless i could have the .com ( personal opinion )
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    • Profile picture of the author kelsa
      Originally Posted by ErnieB View Post

      I think the general consensus is that the order of preference is .com, .net, .org and then a 1 or 2 hyphen .com. All the rest i would ignore.

      However if you are talking more about an "official" business site and not just an IM type site then i would not get unless i could have the .com ( personal opinion )
      It's a mixture really. I have been looking for exact match domain names to keywords and they are not so easy to find with the .com still available!
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      • Profile picture of the author rich_henderson
        I am a bit OCD when it comes to testing and every test over the last year has shown that .com .org and .net are the only options worth using, especially long term.

        Personally I don't register domains with dashes either, I know there are gurus out there who recommend it but none of my sites that had dashes have ever performed as well as ones without.

        Also to buck the trend a bit I've actually seen .org outperforming .com in a lot of cases, but you still have to take into account the trust factor involved with the general public and the .com extension

        Basically if there is not a .com, .org, .net available then I move on and find another keyword, it works for me
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  • Profile picture of the author Vogin
    I think that if you have .net, you are just fine. Those .info, .me etc somehow give away the wrong impression. And I hope that by "changing it" you didn't mean e.g. Lltter instead of Litter... those are unprofessional.
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    • Profile picture of the author kelsa
      Originally Posted by Vogin View Post

      I think that if you have .net, you are just fine. Those .info, .me etc somehow give away the wrong impression. And I hope that by "changing it" you didn't mean e.g. Lltter instead of Litter... those are unprofessional.
      Hi, no, I didn't mean changing it in that way, I know that is silly. I meant for example 'buythebestwidget' hyphenated to buythebest-widget' or whatever - just with the hyphen.

      Just not sure how it affects traffic that's all
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    It's .com, .org, .net for me. There are plenty of people who include .info also. I don't but that doesn't mean that they don't work. I hate hyphens. Never buy them, but that's my preference. Whenever I register a domain, I'm also looking at flipping the site somewhere down the road so I want a domain name that is more valuable, such as the .com, .org, .net domains.
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  • Profile picture of the author DrGUID
    I'm very happy with my .info.
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  • Profile picture of the author LynnM
    If it's a keyword phrase domain name, then yes get a dotnet or dotorg. Many of the dotcoms are undeveloped sites/parked pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author kelsa
    Originally Posted by londonwarrior View Post

    Apart from maybe a few specific reasons, why wouldn't you want to buy a domain that's not a .com? Many of the top sites are not .com. In the UK bbc.co.uk is very popular. Just Google some keywords and you will see that lots of sites on page 1 aren't .com. Would you seriously not buy money.net just because money.com was gone?
    Well, so far yes! But, that's only because of the guidance I've had from a so called SEO expert! So, hence my question here
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  • Profile picture of the author jacksonlin
    .org's apparently give the best link boost. They beat .com's!

    Check this out:

    SEOmoz | Google vs. Bing: Correlation Analysis of Ranking Elements
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  • Profile picture of the author link8
    Banned
    I always buy hypernated .com domains.. Works great with Search engines
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  • Profile picture of the author humbledmarket
    Banned
    I personally only go with .coms because imo most of the values are in .com it looks more business like, trusted, and known than other. It has less misconception and less obligations.

    However if you're looking to flip the domains if .com is not available depending on the value of the domain itself to the end user or other criteria .org is supposedly the next choice imo followed by .net Your country code can also be of value and even .info if the name is very valuable but it won't carry as much value.

    All the Best,
    Benjamin

    Personally I find domain flipping very enjoyable and uses your creative and analytical skills. Kind of a fun part time hobby to all the webmaster and internet marketing. The part not so enjoyable is cold emailing or calling potential end users Always have a fear of being spam reported but as I've learnt staying within the guidelines and can spam rules can keep you relatively safe.
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    • Profile picture of the author kelsa
      So kind of a mixed bag of opinions here then...some say .org, some say hyphenated is good and others wouldn't touch them

      Does anyone have experience of owning both and if so care to share experience with traffic differences (because that was one of my concerns). I know that .org has credibility due to it's information connnotations It was actually on the seochicks blog site that made mention of not buying anything else in the extension trail if the .com wasn't available. In fact the blog was quite explicit!! Since then, I've bought the relevant extensions to keep in my collection and intend to do 301 redirects on them to the main sites,,,but I'm still learning and it's very early days so all comments greatly appreciated

      But heck, since google caffeine and the mayday changes...not sure what exactly the order of the day is right now
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