I need your opinion!

techgal128 · Oct 9, 2013

So I'm creating a website that has to do with domaining. Here's the thing though, all the domain names relating to the subject are obviously taken.

So here's the question. If you were developing a site, which would you rather get?

1) A site with a .net extension that's catchy and easy to remember.

2) A mediocre name that is a bit long but has a .com extension.

I'm planning on regging a new name and not picking up an old one if that matters.

Eric Lyon · Oct 9, 2013

The first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not this development will be strictly an online venture or if it will also double as a brick-n-mortar venture. If strictly online, the domain + extension itself becomes less of a concern as long you have a solid search engine marketing and optimization plan to attract viewers. If it will also double for brick-mortar (offline) marketing / advertising campaigns then you'll need to put more consideration on the domain + extension being memorable, brandable, short, and easy to type for those with spelling problems (like myself :p ).

I wouldn't rule out using and extension you have passion for, but not many are aware of if you have development plans and a marketing strategy (Especially if it's strictly an online venture). Multiple extensions opens the door to multiple options and the ability to register a domain name you actually love, rather than just settled for. The more proud you are of the name you build on, the easier it is to promote it to others later on and still be able to maintain some excitement, pride, and joy that others will transparently see in your body language or messaging.

Both your options now (the way you listed them) sound like you're not completely happy and considering settling for something you may regret or not be as passionate about later.

Don't be afraid to be a pioneer and develop an extension others are afraid to. Be a trend setter!

That's just my opinion anyways,

Eric Lyon

techgal128 · Oct 9, 2013

Eric_Lyon said:
The first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not this development will be strictly an online venture or if it will also double as a brick-n-mortar venture. If strictly online, the domain + extension itself becomes less of a concern as long you have a solid search engine marketing and optimization plan to attract viewers. If it will also double for brick-mortar (offline) marketing / advertising campaigns then you'll need to put more consideration on the domain + extension being memorable, brandable, short, and easy to type for those with spelling problems (like myself :p ).

I wouldn't rule out using and extension you have passion for, but not many are aware of if you have development plans and a marketing strategy (Especially if it's strictly an online venture). Multiple extensions opens the door to multiple options and the ability to register a domain name you actually love, rather than just settled for. The more proud you are of the name you build on, the easier it is to promote it to others later on and still be able to maintain some excitement, pride, and joy that others will transparently see in your body language or messaging.

Both your options now (the way you listed them) sound like you're not completely happy and considering settling for something you may regret or not be as passionate about later.

Don't be afraid to be a pioneer and develop an extension others are afraid to. Be a trend setter!

That's just my opinion anyways,

Eric Lyon

What a lovely answer. This is strictly an online business that's targeted at domainers so I do think the name is more important. I'll make sure to pick out a good one, thanks for the advice! :D

techgal128 · Oct 9, 2013

I'm thinking of using a .us domain but could that scare off international customers?

Eric Lyon · Oct 9, 2013

techgal128 said:
I'm thinking of using a .us domain but could that scare off international customers?

I actually have a few developed .us domains myself. While my primary market is USA visitors (which .us does pretty good in u.s. based search), I still get plenty of traffic from Mexico, Canada, Italy, Germany, Russia, China, India, Lithuania, France, UK, etc... With that said, i don't personally see any hindrance in international visitors.

Granted, no matter what extension you develop (especially a cctld) it's important to understand that each region has different servers dedicated to returning relevant results to the local markets (E.G. google.fr / google.mx / google.it / etc.). Results for each region are calculated by different value factors to determine where in the results page they should be displayed. The country code extension is one of those values, along with language on site, whois country, hosting server IP, backlinks hosting server IP's, etc...

With that said, it's actually quite easy to get any extension to rank well on the search index with the proper optimization and marketing strategy.

Does a .us domain at first glance pose a higher trust value to a U.S. citizen? sure.

Does a .us domain at first glance pose less trust to an Italian citizen? Maybe, but only if there's a better alternative website available to them to compare it to.

Regardless of the extension, focusing on the quality of the content, service, product, and optimal targeting of the ideal consumer plays a vital roll in any websites success or failure.

That's my opinion anyways,

Eric Lyon

biggie · Oct 9, 2013

techgal128 said:
So I'm creating a website that has to do with domaining. Here's the thing though, all the domain names relating to the subject are obviously taken.

So here's the question. If you were developing a site, which would you rather get?

1) A site with a .net extension that's catchy and easy to remember.

2) A mediocre name that is a bit long but has a .com extension.

I'm planning on regging a new name and not picking up an old one if that matters.

:talk:

Hi

look at your competition

all of the major, "credible" domain related sites use .com

even if you have to find a three or four word domain, go for .com

use any other extension and you'll be leaking traffic.

imo...

Eric Lyon · Oct 9, 2013

Actually techgal, you may want to take a peek at this: http://domaintyper.com/top-websites You can click on individual extensions to see some of the most popular developed websites in those extensions (Its not a complete list by any means, but gives you a good idea). It sheds a little more light on things and shows that the world isn't dependent on just 1 extension. There's lots of changes coming in the future to domaining and how businesses develop their online entity. Don't restrict yourself to any outdated methodology. The world is constantly changing and those that fear or refuse to change with the world, will inevitably be left behind as it rolls on by into the future.

ProsperU · Oct 10, 2013

Eric_Lyon said:
The first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not this development will be strictly an online venture or if it will also double as a brick-n-mortar venture. If strictly online, the domain + extension itself becomes less of a concern as long you have a solid search engine marketing and optimization plan to attract viewers. If it will also double for brick-mortar (offline) marketing / advertising campaigns then you'll need to put more consideration on the domain + extension being memorable, brandable, short, and easy to type for those with spelling problems (like myself :p ).

I wouldn't rule out using and extension you have passion for, but not many are aware of if you have development plans and a marketing strategy (Especially if it's strictly an online venture). Multiple extensions opens the door to multiple options and the ability to register a domain name you actually love, rather than just settled for. The more proud you are of the name you build on, the easier it is to promote it to others later on and still be able to maintain some excitement, pride, and joy that others will transparently see in your body language or messaging.

Both your options now (the way you listed them) sound like you're not completely happy and considering settling for something you may regret or not be as passionate about later.

Don't be afraid to be a pioneer and develop an extension others are afraid to. Be a trend setter!

That's just my opinion anyways,

Eric Lyon

Inspiring as always Eric!

As for me, it doesn't really matter if the extension is .net or .com whatevs.

techgal128 · Oct 10, 2013

So, I have a few ideas and if I could get an opinion on them, I'd love it. Here are my ideas:

topdomaining.com
domaintrade.us
topdomains.cc
domainercentral.net

As you can see, none of them are amazing but I don't have $1000's of dollars to spend on a nice name at the moment.

Oh, just to make things clear, this is a domain marketplace site.

Eric Lyon · Oct 10, 2013

personally I like DomainTrade.us the best and DomainCentral.net 2nd best. That's just me though, I'm but one lonely opinion amongst thousands of others

.. I can just picture the look on the .com holders face if / when you develop in another extension, become successful and reject their offer to buy the .com from them when they decide to contact you with their $xx,xxx sales pitch.

I love domaining and the profits, but sometimes the end-user side of me likes a little poetic justice. I know, I'm weird that way ... you should hear me argue back & forth with myself in the mirror (Domainer Vs. End-user personalities).. lol :p

Eric Lyon

techgal128 · Oct 10, 2013

Thanks for your insight!

Do you think that the .us extension would scare of international visitors?

Eric_Lyon said:
personally I like DomainTrade.us the best and DomainCentral.net 2nd best. That's just me though, I'm but one lonely opinion amongst thousands of others .. I can just picture the look on the .com holders face if / when you develop in another extension, become successful and reject their offer to buy the .com from them when they decide to contact you with their $xx,xxx sales pitch.

I love domaining and the profits, but sometimes the end-user side of me likes a little poetic justice. I know, I'm weird that way ... you should hear me argue back & forth with myself in the mirror (Domainer Vs. End-user personalities).. lol :p

Eric Lyon

Eric Lyon · Oct 10, 2013

As mentioned prior, my .us developments seem to do ok with multiple countries in search engines and even generates sales to those countries. The most shocking for me I think is to see india & china paying my product rates on my .us sites. The only reason I say that is because normally they go for cheaper prices, free, or have a local designer make what they need within their budget and refuse to pay the outrageous u.s. pricing gap.

With that said, I think there may be a little resistance to someone used to doing business with their own country, however I think that global trade is so well known now days that it probably wont effect you to much as long as you have a quality service, product, design, and marketing campaign. There's always going to be patriots though in any country that refuse to use anything not made or operated by one of their own.

Eric Lyon

techgal128 · Oct 10, 2013

Excellent. domaintrade.us it is! Thanks for your help!

Eric_Lyon said:
As mentioned prior, my .us developments seem to do ok with multiple countries in search engines and even generates sales to those countries. The most shocking for me I think is to see india & china paying my product rates on my .us sites. The only reason I say that is because normally they go for cheaper prices, free, or have a local designer make what they need within their budget and refuse to pay the outrageous u.s. pricing gap.

With that said, I think there may be a little resistance to someone used to doing business with their own country, however I think that global trade is so well known now days that it probably wont effect you to much as long as you have a quality service, product, design, and marketing campaign. There's always going to be patriots though in any country that refuse to use anything not made or operated by one of their own.

Eric Lyon

Chris Wright · Nov 19, 2013

Wait Techgal,

Eric makes a lot of good points. But I want to add my 2 cents...
You'll NEVER own DomainTrade as a brand.
It is already developed in the .org.
And as soon as someone develops the .com, most of your potential customers who go looking for you will leak over to the .com.
As a domainer, your prestige, reputation, and respect from the business community will suffer from the .us extension.
I would only use a non .com domain if the search numbers were very high.
"Domain Trade" wouldn't qualify for me:

Global searches for "domaintrade" 88
Global approximate CPC "domaintrade" 0.00 USD
Global competition for "domaintrade" 18% (low)

Global searches for "domain trade" 138
Global approximate CPC "domain trade" 2.92 USD
Global competition for "domain trade" 55% (medium)

Another thing is that Google has been favoring brands more, and keywords less, than in the past.
Your chosen domain will always be diluted as a brand.

Have you ever considered a dual domain strategy?
You would build a site on a domain like "DomainAvailability.us" for the SERP boosting keywords.
Then have a brandable domain like DomainAvails.com redirect to the site.
Google sees the popular generic term "DomainAvailability." Humans see the brandable / branded "Avail Domain."
I would also have a "DomainAvails" logo (and trademark symbol) that reinforces your brand.
Then, if anyone tries to use "DomainAvails" in the future, they would be infringing on your trademark and you would have the ability to defend your brand.

---------- Post added at 09:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 AM ----------

Correction:
Humans see the brandable / branded "Avail Domain."
should say:
Humans see the brandable / branded "DomainAvails."

---------- Post added at 09:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:37 AM ----------

Disregard. I didn't notice this was an old thread.

techgal128 · Nov 19, 2013

DomainBizDev said:
Wait Techgal,

Eric makes a lot of good points. But I want to add my 2 cents...
You'll NEVER own DomainTrade as a brand.
It is already developed in the .org.
And as soon as someone develops the .com, most of your potential customers who go looking for you will leak over to the .com.
As a domainer, your prestige, reputation, and respect from the business community will suffer from the .us extension.
I would only use a non .com domain if the search numbers were very high.
"Domain Trade" wouldn't qualify for me:

Global searches for "domaintrade" 88
Global approximate CPC "domaintrade" 0.00 USD
Global competition for "domaintrade" 18% (low)

Global searches for "domain trade" 138
Global approximate CPC "domain trade" 2.92 USD
Global competition for "domain trade" 55% (medium)

Another thing is that Google has been favoring brands more, and keywords less, than in the past.
Your chosen domain will always be diluted as a brand.

Have you ever considered a dual domain strategy?
You would build a site on a domain like "DomainAvailability.us" for the SERP boosting keywords.
Then have a brandable domain like DomainAvails.com redirect to the site.
Google sees the popular generic term "DomainAvailability." Humans see the brandable / branded "Avail Domain."
I would also have a "DomainAvails" logo (and trademark symbol) that reinforces your brand.
Then, if anyone tries to use "DomainAvails" in the future, they would be infringing on your trademark and you would have the ability to defend your brand.

---------- Post added at 09:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 AM ----------

Correction:
Humans see the brandable / branded "Avail Domain."
should say:
Humans see the brandable / branded "DomainAvails."

---------- Post added at 09:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:37 AM ----------

Disregard. I didn't notice this was an old thread.

Well, maybe I should have updated this. I decided to stick with the .us extension to see what happens. I'm not terrible concerned about search results since I'm planning on utilizing good SEO tactics and Google Adwords to promote it. Since the .com one is parked, I made an offer to see if I'll get a bite. We'll see what happens!

JudgeMind · Dec 1, 2013

techgal128 said:
So I'm creating a website that has to do with domaining. Here's the thing though, all the domain names relating to the subject are obviously taken.

So here's the question. If you were developing a site, which would you rather get?

1) A site with a .net extension that's catchy and easy to remember.

2) A mediocre name that is a bit long but has a .com extension.

I'm planning on regging a new name and not picking up an old one if that matters.

personally i would prefer a name 3-5 characters that is a .com and is easy to remember, you can make it brandable with your sites content. For instance, i built a site using the domain name aivmo, this has nothing to do with unlocking or repairing cell phones but was easy to remember and so was successful in maintaining traffic. Pronounceable LLLL domains imo are the best as they are very easy to remember and are still very affordable.

I need your opinion!

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