Why should I buy .net?

Its funny still seeing people preach about the traffic spillover from net/org to .com
In todays world of Search Engines, how many people do you think actually type the URL???
Unless it is a very well known one (cnn, amazon), they are just going to search for it.
Once they find a site they like, they'll bookmark it or remember the extension.
Its our own narrow minded domainer way of thinking that brings such phrases as 'the .com was taken so I got the .net' loser stigma attached to .net sites.
Maybe it was taken, maybe it was not. Who cares?
Add content, SEO, and let the search engines do the rest.
even if someone was to type the .com instead of .net, once they realize its not the correct site, they are out.
The traffic bleeding would have been true years ago (in internet years thats back in the dinosaur age).

---------- Post added at 08:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

Steve said:

Can you show me a case where the .net version of a domain would be preferred over a .com?

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The news TV station euronews preferred .net
International news | euronews, latest international tv news
After CNNi and BBC, they are the 3rd largest in Europe.

check the whois for the com and net version and you'll see which was regged first.
Not to mention they could have bought the .com if they wanted it.

There are many other such examples.
When I think of euronews, I immidiately think of .net with it as do all the people that watch it and are non domainers.

I feel you should consider a lot of factors like availability, target audience, source of traffic, readability etc before making a call. I felt it is worth a post on my blog.

why buy a .net?

Because sometimes the .com is over priced! It may be 2nd tier but, if its the name you want and the price is right....

example:
Domain Name Wire » News » Business.com Owner Files for Bankruptcy - The Domain Industry's News Source

I manage a developed .info, let's say it is "something(.)info" for an example.
Even google search with "something com" as the keywords returns the .info domain on first position.

But i am lucky because the com is a dead site, not even parked, totally unresolved.

But yes, i tried to approach the com owner several times :]
I still believe that if i can, i should get the com instead.

-> seeker

What you miss is that thats a information site. (By the way, Im from Europe and I have never heard of them).

I know from myself, that I do NOT buy any product from a .net site. What I always think is, if they were a serious business they would have gotten the .com.

So you might be right about the search engine and so on, but what good is it if the customer do not feel secure enough to buy anything from the site?

In all these years I have used the internet, I have only bought from the extension of my country .dk and .com. Even though I visited other extension sites, I have always thought, why dont they have the .com? is this not a real business? is it a scam site trying to benefit from the .com site?

I have only once used .net site and paid for hosting. And the only reason that I did that was, that one of the sellers was a Moderator here in NamePros. If he hadnt been I would have not chosen that hosting site.

So at the end, I dont think I am alone thinking like that. I am sure others also thinks like that. And if only 10% of all the visitors to a .net site think this, that is a loss of earnings the .net owner could have had if he had the .com. Wouldnt it be worth to invest in the .com then, instead of being stubborn and use .net? And I am sure its a lot more then only 10% that turn away from the .net to find another .com site.

Let me ask you this, have you ever bought anything from a .info site?

When I first started out in the business, I registered all manner of extensions, including .net, .org, .in, and mobi. But over time I've found that the ones that sell are the .com domains, though I've had some limited success with .in as well.

It's true that some of the .nets earn a decent income when parked. They get some traffic. But I would not start a serious website based on a .net. And I am now adhering to a strict budget when it comes to acquiring domains, so I prefer to save my money and go for the occasional quality .com, rather than waste it on several .nets.

Ok, so your point is that 'domainers' don't like or buy from .net or any gtld other than .com. However that is like people that work/worked for the phone companies saying they would never use an 877 or 866 toll free numnber. "If's not 1-800, it must not be a real number!" Why not take your 'theory' and simply ask 20 'random people' if they care what the extension is of the sites they shop from!! Or for that matter, even know! Domainers must look at things beyond the 'domainers pov', because Joe average doesn't care if it's 877, 866, 800, .net, .us, .com etc!. They want the content that is provided, not the extension!!

testingyou said:

-> seeker

What you miss is that thats a information site. (By the way, Im from Europe and I have never heard of them).

I know from myself, that I do NOT buy any product from a .net site. What I always think is, if they were a serious business they would have gotten the .com.

So you might be right about the search engine and so on, but what good is it if the customer do not feel secure enough to buy anything from the site?

In all these years I have used the internet, I have only bought from the extension of my country .dk and .com. Even though I visited other extension sites, I have always thought, why dont they have the .com? is this not a real business? is it a scam site trying to benefit from the .com site?

I have only once used .net site and paid for hosting. And the only reason that I did that was, that one of the sellers was a Moderator here in NamePros. If he hadnt been I would have not chosen that hosting site.

So at the end, I dont think I am alone thinking like that. I am sure others also thinks like that. And if only 10% of all the visitors to a .net site think this, that is a loss of earnings the .net owner could have had if he had the .com. Wouldnt it be worth to invest in the .com then, instead of being stubborn and use .net? And I am sure its a lot more then only 10% that turn away from the .net to find another .com site.

Let me ask you this, have you ever bought anything from a .info site?

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-> hawkeye

I am not talking about domainers. Even before I get in to the domaining business, I did not trust other extensions beside my own country extension and .com, so I did not trust to use my credit card with other extensions. It might sound weird, but I am sure I am not the only one that has the same thought. I know from people I speak with outside the domaining business that they also have that mistrust with business sites using other extensions then .com, the first thing in once mind is: "Why dont they have the .com?"

I am not talking about non-payment information sites, where people dont have to give any personal information. For those kind of sites any extension might be good. But if you want a serious business, where people buy/pay for something, I am 100% sure that it does matter if the extions is .com or .net, I am sure the .net are loosing customers because they dont have the .com.

But let me ask again, when was the last time you use your credit card with an .info site? Because if you say it doesnt matter what extension one has, then .info is as good as .net, its cheaper to reg. So when was the last time? and which site was it.

hawkeye said:

Ok, so your point is that 'domainers' don't like or buy from .net or any gtld other than .com. However that is like people that work/worked for the phone companies saying they would never use an 877 or 866 toll free numnber. "If's not 1-800, it must not be a real number!" Why not take your 'theory' and simply ask 20 'random people' if they care what the extension is of the sites they shop from!! Or for that matter, even know! Domainers must look at things beyond the 'domainers pov', because Joe average doesn't care if it's 877, 866, 800, .net, .us, .com etc!. They want the content that is provided, not the extension!!

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:bingo:

Nice analogy, hawkeye.

I'm pretty sure 95% of the people around the world identify .com and .net almost at the same way, both are very known "word" reminding internet and websites. And especially in Europe (where i live), own country extensions (.es, .it, .de or .fr mainly) are the first choice for every local company, and the second is .com or .net with few differences.
Besides there are countries where .net is pretty used also for important websites (i think about some east-european countries, or China, or Japan etc).

Yes, .com is the best choice, but don't undervalue .net extension and don't consider United States as the only country

I think the extension must fit the domain and .com isn't always the best choice. I mean, while .com is in most cases the right extension, there are domains in which an extension other than .com fits well at least as the .com. For example I have NewsEvents.info. In this domain I find .info extension very fitting and I love the way the name sounds even more than NewsEvents.com.

HappyDay said:

@owntype thanks for the tip but I have an international forum.I just don´t want run it under this .de name anymore. Hope it will work.Its an experiment.

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Hey happy day

I tried to start a thread about qr codes ...... no one seemed interested

Are they popular in gemany i wonder ?


pehaps your cctld may be better than .net ?

but if you really need a name ....... why not

Well, I think that .net has also good market value like .com
So, you should go for it.

I think the comprison is similar to google v yahoo v bing.

Most people use google some will try yahoo and bing..well.

Given the choice you would rather have the google than yahoo.

Not to say that the .net is worse its just that the way the industry has gone people relate google as "the net"

The same with .com. Everyone knows .com,its the way the industry has brainwashed everyone into that extension.

-> Seeker, Hawkeye and others who dont want to ackknowledge the status of .com

There is a reason that the crisis in 2001 was called:

"Dot-Com bubble"

and NOT

"Dot-Net bubble"

OR

"Dot-Info bubble"

and so on...

The internet has become synonym with .com. Accept that, it might not be understandable for people who is in the IT-business, they know its only 1 and 0's but world wide the .com has a status you cant compare to the other extension.

You just can NOT put Dot com in the same stage as the other extension. Not even in the same league.

"Dot com is the sun and the other extensions just float/move around it" - quote owned by Testingyou

i think your countries tld is better branding than net or com .... to be seen as local and contactable cant be a bad thing

not every website has ambitions to be worldwide

I agree evirtual1, that if the business are not interested in intercontinental business and satisfied with their own country then cctld is good enough and more preferable then .com (if you are outside USA).

I posted the topic,so in summary from what I can gather.

.Com. If your an end user this is the extension you would prefer and want.Gives you online credibility.
.Net. Good for search results,great if you want to park it and leech of the .com.Less credibility in the eyes of the consumer.

So if you want to sell domains to end users grab the .com
If you want to make a living from parked,mini sites,the .net will do.

Is this right?

shane mac said:

Most if not all the great .coms have long since gone.However often I see .net available.Why should I start buing this extension..

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shane ... Last month I refused over $40,000 on a .net that I bought for about $1,200.00

don't underestimate .net ... in my opinion its underrated

:]

There is execptions that I can gather that the .net is great but in general?

P.s 40k for a .net?

shane mac said:

There is execptions that I can gather that the .net is great but in general?

P.s 40k for a .net?

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sending you pm

testingyou said:

-> seeker

What you miss is that thats a information site. (By the way, Im from Europe and I have never heard of them).

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You dont need to put the persons name that you are replying it if you use the quote reply button.
As of you not knowing EuroNews and being in Europe, I am surprised.

I know from myself, that I do NOT buy any product from a .net site. What I always think is, if they were a serious business they would have gotten the .com.

So you might be right about the search engine and so on, but what good is it if the customer do not feel secure enough to buy anything from the site?

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That is your right, but a typical user will not be affected by such a severe case of paranoia.

In all these years I have used the internet, I have only bought from the extension of my country .dk and .com. Even though I visited other extension sites, I have always thought, why dont they have the .com? is this not a real business? is it a scam site trying to benefit from the .com site?

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May I suggest a few more years of experience then?

Agree with Hawkeye and Seeker 100 %, money can be made with .net, is it .com ? NO, can you make money ? Yes

Let's look at this weeks DnJournal Top sales, Moviles.net #5 sold for $35,250 on Sedo, this was a big profit since the previous owner bought the name themself on SEDO in June 2007 for $11,329. Moviles is Mobile in Spanish.

BarStools.net another repeat seller, #11 this week sold for $23,225 at Moniker, it sold previously for $4540 in April 2008 at a T.R.A.F.F.I.C. live auction run by Moniker.

How about a double hyphened .net Poker-en-ligne.net (online poker in French) $9870.

KreditKarte.net (Credit Card in German) $14,100.

equity78 said:

Agree with Hawkeye and Seeker 100 %, money can be made with .net, is it .com ? NO, can you make money ? Yes

Let's look at this weeks DnJournal Top sales, Moviles.net #5 sold for $35,250 on Sedo, this was a big profit since the previous owner bought the name themself on SEDO in June 2007 for $11,329. Moviles is Mobile in Spanish.

BarStools.net another repeat seller, #11 this week sold for $23,225 at Moniker, it sold previously for $4540 in April 2008 at a T.R.A.F.F.I.C. live auction run by Moniker.

How about a double hyphened .net Poker-en-ligne.net (online poker in French) $9870.

KreditKarte.net (Credit Card in German) $14,100.

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Equity - i spilled my coffee when I saw the french hyphened .net sell for that as I was one of the

first in this market with similar .com and .net versions ... I'm still holding the .com versions

hawkeye said:

Sure, any .com name owned by someone like FS, who only parks the dotcom name, and will 'never' develop it. Example - one name he owns that relates to our business and industry is and has been parked for years. We bought the .net, and have been number one on Google and Yahoo for the last 5-6 years. (Do I care if people go the .com page after? No, they don't sell products or have a phone number to talk to someone there, so they'd just get useless ads.)

Keep in mind, I didn't say that .net was better, I was just pointing out it's not the 'death sentence' extension so many like to make it out to be.

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Oh gawd! I am agreeing with Hawkeye.

If you search around the domain discussions area the past few months you might notice a rise in these com vs net discussions. It should give a lot of anti-net people something to consider. End users are tired of paying top dollar for com imho. My #1 site is a net. It ranks very well for thousands of keywords. The com was parked forever and eventually I did acquire it and redirect the com to my net. I just didn't want a competitor to grab it one day.

For those with the opinion that net isn't in the public mind I think you're wrong. com took off as it should have becuase it was designed to be for "commercial". It has always been meant to be the #1 choice for a commercial site. That doesn't lower brandability of net. People know keyword.net and trust it. Sam with dot org. It's just used less. There was a long thread a few months back about bleed to a com where you run a net. We concluded that it's between 1-5% with a probably 2% average. That's very low. And it's hard to say how many of that 2% find your site anyways. I know this because I and others tested domains where we did own both domains and could see the com vs net traffic results.

A 2% bleed does not justify the 20x multiple you may need to pay for owning the com vs the net. Many domainers consider net value at 5-20% of the com value. Some even make it less. If I can get the net for $100 vs the com for $2000 you can be sure I will get the net. I feel others understand this too. At least those that develop.

If we are discussing pure domainer plays for parking or resale then yes...you're best shot is com to make money. If you are end-user or developer then the .net is going to make you very happy.

btw..I wouldn't develop a net where the com is already a successful site. That imho is just not wise for a variety of reasons.