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Hear me out... Will there be a penalty if I change my .COM to a .IT?

by Geek3
12 replies
  • SEO
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I own a technology business for my local area. We do IT for other business. It's a big deal and we love it. And we rank well too.

A lot of business are using acronyms and I was able to score a 3 character .IT domain with our acronym. It's pretty slick looking. But alas, the .IT domain is country specific to Italy. And I read on Moz that country specific domains could pose an SEO hit to anywhere other than the country it's from.

Please tell me it ain't so. That if I did a 301 redirect that it would be fine. And that I wouldn't get killed in local SEO(?)
#change #hear #penalty
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  • Profile picture of the author qwikaddotcom
    I hear you loud and clear. To me it seems crazy that you want to change your .com domain name to a .it domain name. Nobody I know takes .it, .net, .me, .biz and so on seriously. If you want your business to dominate now and in the future it has to be a .com business. You don't have to believe me, but I have a strong conviction about that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Geek3
    Well, I know you'll probably stick to your guns on this.. but I'm not a big fan of our domain name. When we started the demographic was purely residential. Now it's flipped and is all business.

    The website is "geek3" with a .COM. The alternative is "GK3" with a .IT at the end. Considering we're in IT and GK3 is a short acronym.. I can get away with a rebrand without changing the name of the business. And it sounds more mature too. That's kind of the thought behind it.

    And yeah.. maybe it's just staring at the same name for so long that i'm just wanting to shake things up a little.
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    • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
      Originally Posted by Geek3 View Post

      The website is "geek3" with a .COM. The alternative is "GK3" with a .IT at the end. Considering we're in IT and GK3 is a short acronym.. I can get away with a rebrand without changing the name of the business. And it sounds more mature too. That's kind of the thought behind it.
      Actually GK3 is a syllable longer than your existing name, and it's not exactly an acronym of Geek3. Obviously, you do what you like, but if it were me, I'd stick with the current branding.
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      • Profile picture of the author Geek3
        Originally Posted by Frank Donovan View Post

        Actually GK3 is a syllable longer than your existing name, and it's not exactly an acronym of Geek3. Obviously, you do what you like, but if it were me, I'd stick with the current branding.
        True. Not really an acronym. It just looks a bit more mature. And I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of changing the name since it would mean the same thing.

        But i think the consensus is to not lose the .com
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        • Profile picture of the author DABK
          What's so good about looking more mature? Have you lost business because of the name? Are people telling you, You know, I'd hire you if it weren't for your name?


          Originally Posted by Geek3 View Post

          True. Not really an acronym. It just looks a bit more mature. And I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of changing the name since it would mean the same thing.

          But i think the consensus is to not lose the .com
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          • Profile picture of the author savidge4
            Originally Posted by DABK View Post

            What's so good about looking more mature? Have you lost business because of the name? Are people telling you, You know, I'd hire you if it weren't for your name?
            Ooooo this is a good shallow question!! lol

            So let me ask this in return. Walmart exchanged its yellow accents for a light orange. Did people say "Hey, we will shop with you if you get rid of the yellow?" The answer is technically YES - without the actual words.

            BRANDING is a big deal. Geek3 is 20 something ish - compare Geek3 to say Geek Squad and I think that cements the idea.

            But lets go a step further in the world of brand there are 2 elements - THE brand and THE logo right? In both cases geek2 .com and GK3 .it THE Brand has not changed. so the question becomes why bother ( Unless you are actually located in Italy - and that's a whole other ball game )

            So we are then left with THE Logo as a way to identify a more "Mature" IT business. My personal thoughts on this is Geek3 to GK3 isn't working for me... I would reduce a step further to G3 - having now looked at your site. Geek3 on top and GK3 in your text is not working - as in not working at all. you need to unify this.

            What happens if you turn the 3 in to an exponent? AKA Geek to the 3rd power. So your LOGO would be G^3 and a by line like Geek^3 taking Information Technology to Magnitude. I would go with a capital G in black and the exponent 3 in red. When writing out the word geek... I would either use all caps or at the least a capital G Geek.

            So lets look a bit deeper at what i just gave you. when you are the small guy and looking for help in this type of thing you need to be looking at what the big boys are doing. THEY actually spend money to figure this stuff out. Walmart didn't just go from Yellow to Orange because it looked better. That was probably a multi million dollar decision - literally.

            So in Tech right now RED is THE COLOR. Tesla as probably the best example. the term "Magnitude" is a hot term right now and without really looking at what you do I believe it will come into play. bit rate at a magnitude of 3 would be 1000 correct? I will guess you install systems that operate at this speed? ( Magnitude for those that do not know is a multiplier of 10. So an order of magnitude would be 10X greater. An order of Magnitude of 2 would be 100 times greater and then an order of Magnitude 3 x would be 1000 times greater. )

            I think these "slight" changes will get what you need without the need to change "BRAND" you can effectively change LOGO and get the desired effect and build apon a more current and mature presents.

            Hope that Helps!
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            • Profile picture of the author DABK
              And there I was, thinking I was hiding my shallowness well!



              Branding is, indeed, a big deal. But has the OP's client base changed? Is the OP wanting to target a different base?


              The OP did not address these questions. If the OP's answers is yes to either, the OP would benefit from redesigning the logo and Geek cubed is a great idea.



              Anyway, red is good, because it says excitement, including the dangerous kind. I'd do red and blue (safe excitement) or red and yellow (fun excitement).






              Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

              Ooooo this is a good shallow question!! lol

              So let me ask this in return. Walmart exchanged its yellow accents for a light orange. Did people say "Hey, we will shop with you if you get rid of the yellow?" The answer is technically YES - without the actual words.

              BRANDING is a big deal. Geek3 is 20 something ish - compare Geek3 to say Geek Squad and I think that cements the idea.

              But lets go a step further in the world of brand there are 2 elements - THE brand and THE logo right? In both cases geek2 .com and GK3 .it THE Brand has not changed. so the question becomes why bother ( Unless you are actually located in Italy - and that's a whole other ball game )

              So we are then left with THE Logo as a way to identify a more "Mature" IT business. My personal thoughts on this is Geek3 to GK3 isn't working for me... I would reduce a step further to G3 - having now looked at your site. Geek3 on top and GK3 in your text is not working - as in not working at all. you need to unify this.

              What happens if you turn the 3 in to an exponent? AKA Geek to the 3rd power. So your LOGO would be G^3 and a by line like Geek^3 taking Information Technology to Magnitude. I would go with a capital G in black and the exponent 3 in red. When writing out the word geek... I would either use all caps or at the least a capital G Geek.

              So lets look a bit deeper at what i just gave you. when you are the small guy and looking for help in this type of thing you need to be looking at what the big boys are doing. THEY actually spend money to figure this stuff out. Walmart didn't just go from Yellow to Orange because it looked better. That was probably a multi million dollar decision - literally.

              So in Tech right now RED is THE COLOR. Tesla as probably the best example. the term "Magnitude" is a hot term right now and without really looking at what you do I believe it will come into play. bit rate at a magnitude of 3 would be 1000 correct? I will guess you install systems that operate at this speed? ( Magnitude for those that do not know is a multiplier of 10. So an order of magnitude would be 10X greater. An order of Magnitude of 2 would be 100 times greater and then an order of Magnitude 3 x would be 1000 times greater. )

              I think these "slight" changes will get what you need without the need to change "BRAND" you can effectively change LOGO and get the desired effect and build apon a more current and mature presents.

              Hope that Helps!
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            • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
              Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

              So we are then left with THE Logo as a way to identify a more "Mature" IT business. My personal thoughts on this is Geek3 to GK3 isn't working for me... I would reduce a step further to G3 - having now looked at your site. Geek3 on top and GK3 in your text is not working - as in not working at all. you need to unify this.

              What happens if you turn the 3 in to an exponent? AKA Geek to the 3rd power. So your LOGO would be G^3 and a by line like Geek^3 taking Information Technology to Magnitude. I would go with a capital G in black and the exponent 3 in red. When writing out the word geek... I would either use all caps or at the least a capital G Geek.

              Hope that Helps!

              I'm not a graphics guy, but to expound on Savidge4 visualization maybe a rough draft like this for ideas..


              I do like the present logo font and shadowing which I don't have, but with them it would look professional? Matter of opinion I guess.
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  • Profile picture of the author LGCalab
    Why change IT? Why not just make another website that enhances your .com one? You can use each to link to each other.

    You could also use the .IT for a landing page and do all kinds of things with it. Offer discounts, newsletter sign up, and more.

    No matter what you do with it, it's worth owning. However, changing it from the .com, IMO, wouldn't be beneficial.
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  • Profile picture of the author CaptainCatContent
    I'd never advise anyone to change their domain and yes, .it refers to an italian domain. I've seen a loss in google ranking before from switching domains, even though we installed all the correct redirects (301). Google will realise that you don't own an italian website, so even though it makes sense to you and us, google isn't that smart :')
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  • Profile picture of the author randellz
    Use the geek3.com for your business website and the GK3.it as a short URL for sharing on social media just an idea.

    not sure what your using for your site but if its WordPress there are tons of plugins that can make the GK3 . it a shorturl for each post you publish you can also make short urls on the fly.

    like how facebook.com has FB.me that way no matter what people can find you in search using geek3 and can share and also use gk3
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
    My first thought was to register and incorporate G^3 then use geek3.com as a subsidiary of G^3. Just have to check trademark and if possible trademark it.
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    In the minute it took me to write this post.. someone died of Covid 19. RIP.
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