debate gTLD as main brand

[shig]

I recently built one of my overarching brands with the gTLD .network and I sort of regret it now.

Short story, I have over 100 city domains I am developing and rather than spending $500 a month on emails for each I thought I would brand them together as a network from a business perspective so email cost would be just the $5 for the one by pushing all contacts and business relationships through it.

The problem I am encountering is some websites (affiliates, advertising, etc) do not recognize the .network as a proper domain extension causing application forms to error out stating invalid email address. This is the main purpose for picking up the domain, a form of communication among the entire network (SEO, SEM, etc doesn’t even matter to me for this particular domain in this case).

Conclusion.... my first usecase for a gTLD and besides the higher renewal fees, any kinds of disadvantages with brand interpretations or radio test (with a little know extension), I am having functionality issues as well.

So... back to my old ways - I will only be registering TLDs (99% .com). I didn’t see many advantages to owning a gTLD before this experience and after finally trying one out I am more confident than ever .com will always be king and the more crap extensions put on the domain market, the more confusing, diluted and harder it is for the dev community and average Joe to keep up.

Personal advice, just buy a .com.

What are your thoughts and experiences with gTLDs? Have they worked out well for you?

 

[Premiums]

i have no problem with new gltds it works like a .com / .org
renewals: $15- $35

just stay away from premiums/platinums.. they are hard to sell.

 

[lock]

Anything new is like that I find the same with seo tools. Direct type in has value it may be worth having a dot com whether a brand or generic as well. The real concern is whether enough people renew the extension itself.

 

[shig]

Might as well end this convo since being moved to this hidden section

 

[GoKaizen]

Thanks for sharing @shig.

 

[atinc]

I recently built one of my overarching brands with the gTLD .network and I sort of regret it now.

Short story, I have over 100 city domains I am developing and rather than spending $500 a month on emails for each I thought I would brand them together as a network from a business perspective so email cost would be just the $5 for the one by pushing all contacts and business relationships through it.

The problem I am encountering is some websites (affiliates, advertising, etc) do not recognize the .network as a proper domain extension causing application forms to error out stating invalid email address. This is the main purpose for picking up the domain, a form of communication among the entire network (SEO, SEM, etc doesn’t even matter to me for this particular domain in this case).

Conclusion.... my first usecase for a gTLD and besides the higher renewal fees, any kinds of disadvantages with brand interpretations or radio test (with a little know extension), I am having functionality issues as well.

So... back to my old ways - I will only be registering TLDs (99% .com). I didn’t see many advantages to owning a gTLD before this experience and after finally trying one out I am more confident than ever .com will always be king and the more crap extensions put on the domain market, the more confusing, diluted and harder it is for the dev community and average Joe to keep up.

Personal advice, just buy a .com.

What are your thoughts and experiences with gTLDs? Have they worked out well for you?

I have businesses on new gTLDs, and I am happy with their performance. But when I say performance I am not sure if it is the domain name that helps the traffic and the returning customers or the website content itself...

I don't use affiliates or advertising to monetise the sites, I actually sell products there... There might be problems in affiliate programs you are working with but I think it would be wrong to generalise this for all the affiliate programs out there and all the new gTLD extensions.

You mentioned you spent $500 on e-mails, I didn't really get that part. What kind of mailing service are you using?

Also mentioned that you had problem with advertising aspect, can you please provide more information about it? Like what happened?

Could you please provide the new gTLD site you made, I would love to look into that!

I hope you the best of luck with your project, 100 city domains! That's huge. Are you using sub-domains or 100 diffirent domain names and forwarding them to your .network website. Which method of redirect do you use 301 or 302? There are too many factors.

 

[Kate]

I would maybe use subdomains, rather than 100 domains.
Just need one solid domain.

 

[shig]

I have businesses on new gTLDs, and I am happy with their performance. But when I say performance I am not sure if it is the domain name that helps the traffic and the returning customers or the website content itself...

I don't use affiliates or advertising to monetise the sites, I actually sell products there... There might be problems in affiliate programs you are working with but I think it would be wrong to generalise this for all the affiliate programs out there and all the new gTLD extensions.

You mentioned you spent $500 on e-mails, I didn't really get that part. What kind of mailing service are you using?

Also mentioned that you had problem with advertising aspect, can you please provide more information about it? Like what happened?

Could you please provide the new gTLD site you made, I would love to look into that!

I hope you the best of luck with your project, 100 city domains! That's huge. Are you using sub-domains or 100 diffirent domain names and forwarding them to your .network website. Which method of redirect do you use 301 or 302? There are too many factors.

Thanks for the insight and info from your experience.

I don’t have a problem with gTLDs. I just believe .com is the better and possibly more reliable move.

I meant the email is only $5 for the gTLD domain. If I were to buy 100 emails accounts for every domain it would cost around $500. So I am saving money by running all cities through a single brand for communication purposes.

As far as advertising. I have no need to atm (just getting started) but I have already had multiple people refer to my URL as visitornetwork.com, so I can imagine it is a difficult translation to those unfamiliar with .network (maybe a shorter extension is better - idk).

Visitor.network is the domain (nothing special - like I said, more of a means of communication). List of domains is available there. They’re mostly city state with the exception of a few city countries and an island.

Any redirects I would use permanent 301 but no sub domains so no need.

Let me know if you have any more questions. I enjoy the conversations

 

[shig]

I would maybe use subdomains, rather than 100 domains.
Just need one solid domain.

One of the most important characteristics of a domain name is it’s instant authority. Subs don’t provide that.

 

[Brands.International]

I am using new gTLD as my main brand and so far I am very happy with it.

For me, everything works just fine.

Also I do not experience that someone would be stupid enough to write brandsinternational.com instead of brands.international - maybe I work with clever people only, who knows