discuss The official "Dot Com is King?" thread.

[PowerUp]

I've read alot of comments of domainers putting forth their ideas of why or why not dot com is King and which are the other possible extensions having potential to follow the rise of the .com.

Perhaps we could all appreciate these ideas better if we could bring (or dig) out facts and figures for analysis.

Below is a list of top 100 sites from Alexa ranking as at today. If anyone has a top 100 list from last year, then we could compare and see if there are any extensions gaining publicity faster than the others.

I encourage everybody to share more figures with us.

Alexa Top 100 (50 out of top 100 domains isn't a .com.)

1. yahoo.com
2. youtube.com
3. live.com
4. google.com
5. myspace.com
6. facebook.com
7. msn.com
8. hi5.com
9. wikipedia.org
10. orkut.com
11. blogger.com
12. rapidshare.com
13. fotolog.net
14. megaupload.com
15. google.fr
16. skyrock.com
17. friendster.com
18. microsoft.com
19. baidu.com
20. megarotic.com
21. google.cl
22. yahoo.co.jp
23. ebay.com
24. google.com.br
25. google.es
26. mail.ru
27. google.com.mx
28. seznam.cz
29. dailymotion.com
30. photobucket.com
31. youporn.com
32. google.pl
33. imdb.com
34. imageshack.us
35. vkontakte.ru
36. nasza-klasa.pl
37. qq.com
38. google.co.uk
39. flickr.com
40. megavideo.com
41. odnoklassniki.ru
42. google.de
43. metroflog.com
44. amazon.com
45. google.co.ve
46. redtube.com
47. google.com.ar
48. free.fr
49. wordpress.com
50. uol.com.br
51. google.com.co
52. imagevenue.com
53. mininova.org
54. wretch.cc
55. google.com.pe
56. onet.pl
57. aol.com
58. allegro.pl
59. yandex.ru
60. go.com
61. sina.com.cn
62. deviantart.com
63. google.co.in
64. bbc.co.uk
65. google.ca
66. craigslist.org
67. google.sk
68. adultfriendfinder.com
69. livejournal.com
70. globo.com
71. iwiw.hu
72. google.com.vn
73. wp.pl
74. netlog.com
75. perfspot.com
76. google.co.hu
77. googlesyndication.com <--- Adsense bot traffic?
78. google.it
79. terra.com.br
80. ebay.fr
81. google.cn
82. veoh.com
83. fc2.com
84. google.co.th
85. fotka.pl
86. orange.fr
87. rambler.ru
88. onemanga.com
89. badongo.com
90. google.com.tr
91. 51.com
92. geocities.com
93. taobao.com
94. mediafire.com
95. ebay.de
96. megaflirt.com
97. ebay.co.uk
98. sexyono.com
99. apple.com
100. google.co.jp

# .org = 3
# .net = 1
# .fr = 4
# .cl = 1
# .co.jp = 2
# .com.br = 3
# .es = 1
# .ru = 5
# .com.mx = 1
# .cz = 1
# .pl = 6
# .us = 1
# .co.uk = 3
# .de = 2
# .co.ve = 1
# .com.ar = 1
# .com.co = 1
# .cc = 1
# .com.pe = 1
# .com.cn = 1
# .co.in = 1
# .ca = 1
# .sk = 1
# .hu = 2
# .com.vn = 1
# .co.hu = 1
# .it = 1
# .cn = 1
# .co.th = 1
# .com.tr = 1

 

[netfleet]

Jeff just enjoys ridiculing others investments in domains, and hopes to see people fail. This is someone who gets free reign here to post as he pleases, it does bring in peeps to read and watch, and all he does is criticize and belittle others investments. He never has anything positive to say on anything. He does his best to try to facilitate the down fall of any extension he doesn't like (check his previous history here with other extensions) (.asia your turn is next), and deflate others choices and courses. Despite his reduntantly overly worn out ridiculing and negative opinion of .mobi, he has to keep rubbing it in everyones face, be they newbies or oldtiimers, 'over and over and over', no matter the subject of the thread. The funny thing is, he supposedly only has 150 names, but never once posted or noted one worth more than reg fee here. But because he get's his free reign to insult others investments here, and has 25,000+ useless postings, some actually think he has some kind of insight to offer other than being able to use more smileys in a post than anyone would think of, or care to.

You would think that after 2 years of his ragging on the .mobi extension, he'd have other things to share here, but, I guess for him - Nothing is better than insulting, ridiculing, and spreading demented 'hope', to see domainers fail on something he doesn't like. It seems to be the only thing that makes him happy.

One sad little man.

Very well said!

 

[Work In Progress]

Thanks, Mark ... and I did mention above, "and for any of these newer extensions to even make a dent in this .COM empire will require unique and compelling developments (specifically, corporate), major league budgets on advertising and marketing / promotions of those newly developed sites, effective branding (of, for the most part, unnatural new extensions), as well as corporate and mass adoption and usage, IMHO" ... so I provide kudos to you on your developments and traffic, etc! :gl: :music:

This is certainly true in all non .com extensions. The majority of people still browser surfing do so with a dot com on the end. If Joe Lunchbucket is looking for info on cats, he's more apt to type in cats dot com than cats dot anything else. We're all creatures of habit. That's why dot coms will always be the parkers best friend. But ANY other extension can be used for developing using appropriate keywords. Search engine traffic is the future, IMHO. and you don't need a dot com to get more traffic there. I know this from experience. Many of my lowly mobi's out rank dot coms in various keywords. If I chose to develop them in dot in, dot eu, dot asia...it matters not. I happen to believe that mobi and com can peacefully co-exist and prosper off of each other. The WWW is a big place.

But, how much assistance are you getting insofar as the other critical factors ... namely, corporate developments of generic .mobi's, major league budgets on advertising and marketing / promotions of those newly developed sites, effective branding, as well as corporate and mass adoption for the extension?

I don't count on or insist on major corporate development at this early stage. That's why I develop my names myself. There's plenty of time for big companies to jump in. They can m.anything.com or re-direct all they like. The fact remains that visitors have no reliable way of knowing if the particular company they're trying to access has a mobile version or not. And that's all dot obi is about. Nothing more. Nothing less. If I sit back and wait for the mobile web to be developed by others, I'd be hindering the progress itself and devaluing my names. By developing, I'm helping by setting a standard myself, adding to the "ecosystem", getting traffic building up exponentially, climbing up the SE rankings and...here's the most important thing...increasing the value of my portfolio.

At its present pace, and should it even survive to be a niche/novelty, how MANY YEARS will work against it (versus emerging mobile technologies favoring the .COM's)? This time is the key point here (along with the obvious difficulty of the branding of the "dot Mobey", IMHO.

Tick tock.
-Jeff

How do these mobile technologies favor dot com? The fact at hand will always be the small screen. And no matter how you look at it, no matter how much you can scroll and zoom, no matter how many flashy intros you can come up with, a small screen with download limitations will be around for the masses for years (probably decades). You may prefer to take 5 minutes to download a page you scroll around on, but I would rather go to a simple to navigate and load site I know will work on my mobile. I don't want a site I need a magnifying lens to look at with bells and whistles. I'll save that for my PC at home.

For the life of me, I have no idea why branding dot mobi would be any more difficult than branding anything else. Branding is branding. Its all marketing. Every single person I've spoken with (non-domainer) about dot mobi "get's it". Did they know anything about it? Nope. Do they now? Yep! And they think it's a great idea. Pretty simple, really...

 

[Jeff]

For the life of me, I have no idea why branding dot mobi would be any more difficult than branding anything else. Branding is branding. Its all marketing. Every single person I've spoken with (non-domainer) about dot mobi "get's it". Did they know anything about it? Nope. Do they now? Yep! And they think it's a great idea. Pretty simple, really...

Again, I congratulate you, Mark, on your developments! I don't quite comprehend your apparent reluctance to insist on similar corporate - of, namely, generic terms versus defensive ™ domains/"watered down" mini-sites- developments/adoption/promotions and the assistance you deserve from mTLD in marketing the extension to the masses! :imho:

But that's just me, as it is with the highly problematic issue of effectively branding the ugly and unnatural ".mobi" extension IMHO.
Let's just agree to disagree on these points ... here in the .COM King™ thread! :gl:

See you soon.
-Jeff

 

[PowerUp]

I wonder when the browsers will be intelligent enough to go to a more popular page even if it's not a .com

Example, if chemotheraphy.com is undeveloped / parked, while chemotheraphy.net or .org is developed, then when a use types into the browser address bar "chemotheraphy" and enters, it will bring the visitor to chemotheraphy.net or .org instead of the .com. The concept is similar to googles "I'm feeling lucky" page.

If this happen, would it take some shine off the generic .coms?

 

[dag]

I have no vested stake in .mobi I own one Transcendent.mobi so I am no Mobian, but it is beyond obsession IMO with this incessant mobi bashing. When they start a thread in Domain Discussion you tell them to move it to the .mobi section. Maybe you could keep the negative comments in the .mobi section Jeff. Not sure how this became a bashing.mobi thread.

Oh he would if he could -- if he hadn't already been banned from there (although I'm sure he'll chime in to say that it was "voluntary").

 

[DenRon]

Jeff just enjoys ridiculing others investments in domains, and hopes to see people fail. This is someone who gets free reign here to post as he pleases, it does bring in peeps to read and watch, and all he does is criticize and belittle others investments. He never has anything positive to say on anything. He does his best to try to facilitate the down fall of any extension he doesn't like (check his previous history here with other extensions) (.asia your turn is next), and deflate others choices and courses. Despite his reduntantly overly worn out ridiculing and negative opinion of .mobi, he has to keep rubbing it in everyones face, be they newbies or oldtiimers, 'over and over and over', no matter the subject of the thread. The funny thing is, he supposedly only has 150 names, but never once posted or noted one worth more than reg fee here. But because he get's his free reign to insult others investments here, and has 25,000+ useless postings, some actually think he has some kind of insight to offer other than being able to use more smileys in a post than anyone would think of, or care to.

You would think that after 2 years of his ragging on the .mobi extension, he'd have other things to share here, but, I guess for him - Nothing is better than insulting, ridiculing, and spreading demented 'hope', to see domainers fail on something he doesn't like. It seems to be the only thing that makes him happy.

One sad little man.

The bottom line is there is only one investment grade extention....and that is dotcom. Everything else is specualtion. Dotmobi's and IDN's are running neck and neck for the moronic idea of the decade award. If you surveyed 100,000 random people in the world.....there might not be a single person who has heard of either. You have no shot. It is over. People who put up big money for IDN's and dotmobi's are basically mad at money for some reason. They have a financial Death Wish.

 

[agentjon]

DenRon, you said it perfectly. I check in once in awhile and it amazes me how this topic keeps coming up since the years I have been lurking on this board. I was always amazed how many people are going to lose their shirts from .mobi. I can right now make my .com sites check to see if you are on a mobile phone and completly change the content to suit your browser. Makes no sense.

.org will always be great for non-profits and organizations. Always liked that extension. But yes, for the one million time, .com is king.

 

[netfleet]

The bottom line is there is only one investment grade extention....and that is dotcom. Everything else is specualtion.

First sentence is complete crap as evidenced by the tens of millions of $$$ made by people trading extensions other than .com. Second should be modified to say "Everything is speculation"

 

[firefly]

Okay. This is just my opinion and my way of trying to rationalize this whole debate.

I think of McDonalds as the dot com of the world wide web. Huge branding. Known absolutely everywhere, and completely dominant in it's field. Omnipresent would almost come close to micky dees presence.

Next is your nets,orgs, and infos. The burger kings ( and alike) of the internet world. Still lots of value to be had. Highly recognizable and brandable. But given a choice between the golden arches and a burger king, the majority would end up at Mcdonalds. Sad but true.

Then there is the local burger joint that all in the local neighborhood know of and recommend to their friends. These are the country specific tld's. The .co.uk,...com.au, dot in, and other country specific extensions. There is big potential for these extension as countries come to embrace there own dot anything. These extensions I believe, will grow the most, with the obvious exception of dot us because America has embraced dot com as it's own.

The newer extensions such as dot eu, dot asia, and dot mobi which are basically just area code extensions, will have little longevity. Once again, this is only my opinion.

Sooooo. If you think McDonalds is going to fall over soon, let me know. I'll race out and buy a heap of .asia names.

:tri:

Sorry for my simplistic rationalization as to why dot com is king and will remain so....lol

 

[raredn.com]

Okay. This is just my opinion and my way of trying to rationalize this whole debate.

I think of McDonalds as the dot com of the world wide web. Huge branding. Known absolutely everywhere, and completely dominant in it's field. Omnipresent would almost come close to micky dees presence.

Next is your nets,orgs, and infos. The burger kings ( and alike) of the internet world. Still lots of value to be had. Highly recognizable and brandable. But given a choice between the golden arches and a burger king, the majority would end up at Mcdonalds. Sad but true.

Then there is the local burger joint that all in the local neighborhood know of and recommend to their friends. These are the country specific tld's. The .co.uk,...com.au, dot in, and other country specific extensions. There is big potential for these extension as countries come to embrace there own dot anything. These extensions I believe, will grow the most, with the obvious exception of dot us because America has embraced dot com as it's own.

The newer extensions such as dot eu, dot asia, and dot mobi which are basically just area code extensions, will have little longevity. Once again, this is only my opinion.

Sooooo. If you think McDonalds is going to fall over soon, let me know. I'll race out and buy a heap of .asia names.

:tri:

Sorry for my simplistic rationalization as to why dot com is king and will remain so....lol

Out of the box abstract thinking, put into a simple to understand summary, very well done. YOU GET AN A+ IN CREATIVE WRITING AND EXTRA POINTS FOR HAVING A GRASP ON THE 'REAL WORLD' REALITY OF DOMAIN NAMES

_______________

 

[firefly]

lol....my wife thinks I'm a bit abstract at times too!

Thanks

 

[Pred]

ROFL
Just seen your siggy
REPPED :great:

 

[firefly]

it popped into my head while I was at work the other day. A bit of a concern...lol

 

[Jeff]

Oh he would if he could -- if he hadn't already been banned from there (although I'm sure he'll chime in to say that it was "voluntary").

It is voluntary, please PM Management™ directly ... if you wish my friend! :blink:

DenRon, you said it perfectly. I check in once in awhile and it amazes me how this topic keeps coming up since the years I have been lurking on this board. I was always amazed how many people are going to lose their shirts from .mobi. I can right now make my .com sites check to see if you are on a mobile phone and completly change the content to suit your browser. Makes no sense.

.org will always be great for non-profits and organizations. Always liked that extension. But yes, for the one million time, .com is king.

^ Nice summation, Rep.+ added Agentjon! :music: :talk:
-Jeff

 

[dag]

The bottom line is there is only one investment grade extention....and that is dotcom. Everything else is specualtion. Dotmobi's and IDN's are running neck and neck for the moronic idea of the decade award. If you surveyed 100,000 random people in the world.....there might not be a single person who has heard of either. You have no shot. It is over. People who put up big money for IDN's and dotmobi's are basically mad at money for some reason. They have a financial Death Wish.

DenRon, you said it perfectly. I check in once in awhile and it amazes me how this topic keeps coming up since the years I have been lurking on this board. I was always amazed how many people are going to lose their shirts from .mobi. I can right now make my .com sites check to see if you are on a mobile phone and completly change the content to suit your browser. Makes no sense.

You guys are funny. And sad. All at once.

 

[Domain Crazy]

After reading through some of this it seems most people think that .com will always be king. I'm not so sure...

Most websites that are in the TOP 100 were from an era where .com was the global extension - before new gTLDs.

More websites are released more than ever neglecting .com especially now that we have all the new gTLDs. Over time, newer websites will replace the old ones as they become more popular like maybe a replacement for Facebook/Twitter or just new websites in general. Slowly .com will be worth less as people become more comfortable with different domain names. Whether it takes 50 years or 200 who knows.

Kids today who will be the new adults of tomorrow are more used to the new gtlds than anyone. All the .io games and custom domains they will register themselves because they can't get .coms. Thinkspot is currently being held under a ".today" domain waiting for release.

.com is clearly still king but I think it'll change with new generations to come who are more tech-savvy/dependent.

I can imagine a time soon where a website goes big under a new gTLD and then spends millions purchasing a .com which nobody uses. All it takes is a few websites to be mass-'meme'd into popularity. The website matters more than the domain anyway.

(I do personally still prefer .coms!)

Edit: Simply look through the gaming websites that exist today. Almost all of them are under gtlds. Go and google "CSGO Trading" and look at the domains that return. Kids use these domains all the time and are very used to it. There is .gg, .money, .deals, .trade, .farm on the first page alone.

 

[Mary Muse]

No. Just look at the stats TODAY.

.com is overwhelmingly dominant, and has solidified that trend despite the constant release & promotion of ngtlds.

 

[cooljub]

Interesting to read this thread over a decade later

 

[equity78]

After reading through some of this it seems most people think that .com will always be king. I'm not so sure...

Most websites that are in the TOP 100 were from an era where .com was the global extension - before new gTLDs.

More websites are released more than ever neglecting .com especially now that we have all the new gTLDs. Over time, newer websites will replace the old ones as they become more popular like maybe a replacement for Facebook/Twitter or just new websites in general. Slowly .com will be worth less as people become more comfortable with different domain names. Whether it takes 50 years or 200 who knows.

Kids today who will be the new adults of tomorrow are more used to the new gtlds than anyone. All the .io games and custom domains they will register themselves because they can't get .coms. Thinkspot is currently being held under a ".today" domain waiting for release.

.com is clearly still king but I think it'll change with new generations to come who are more tech-savvy/dependent.

I can imagine a time soon where a website goes big under a new gTLD and then spends millions purchasing a .com which nobody uses. All it takes is a few websites to be mass-'meme'd into popularity. The website matters more than the domain anyway.

(I do personally still prefer .coms!)

Edit: Simply look through the gaming websites that exist today. Almost all of them are under gtlds. Go and google "CSGO Trading" and look at the domains that return. Kids use these domains all the time and are very used to it. There is .gg, .money, .deals, .trade, .farm on the first page alone.

I talk to nieces, their friends, children of friends who are in their teens, not one has ever heard of a new gtld, not one. .IO is a country code and some tech savvy younger people know that, some know .tv from sites like Twitch.

I know women who are models in their 20's and when I tell them to get their .com they are like it's ok I got Instagram don't need it.

Kids really don't care about domain names businesses do.

 

[equity78]

Interesting to read this thread over a decade later

What's really interesting is most of those posters from 2008 are not here and haven't been for years.

 

[Domain Crazy]

I talk to nieces, their friends, children of friends who are in their teens, not one has ever heard of a new gtld, not one. .IO is a country code and some tech savvy younger people know that, some know .tv from sites like Twitch.

I know women who are models in their 20's and when I tell them to get their .com they are like it's ok I got Instagram don't need it.

Kids really don't care about domain names businesses do.

Most new websites that rise up are built by young entrepreneurs. I'm only talking about the future. I'm not talking about the now. I don't think people are generally using ngtlds at the moment. However sites under "csgo trading" is a good example of how it could be in the future.

What's really interesting is most of those posters from 2008 are not here and haven't been for years.

Sorry for bumping an old one but glad it can be used for archaeology.

 

[poweredbyme]

What's really interesting is most of those posters from 2008 are not here and haven't been for years.

Everything is a learning curve. I think those people graduated from NP school. Nothing left for them to learn here. When did you last visit your schools located in different cities or how many times you visited there after the graduation?

This is not interesting for me, is rather sad. Time is passing so fast. Important things of today for us will change in the future. Those people may not be doing domaining at the moment. We will likely follow the same path they walked and passed, just like the young students walking today in our old schools as we walked there years ago.

 

[HotKey]

I talk to nieces, their friends, children of friends who are in their teens, not one has ever heard of a new gtld, not one.
Kids really don't care about domain names businesses do.

I hear this all the time, frankly, it gets tiresome. Don't be the excuse for people's lack of knowledge, be the seed of change. People don't know until they know, and you might have missed an opportunity to be the very first to introduce something like a new G to them.

What's holding you back? How can kids, friends and others care if you don't care? Excitement is contagious.

 

[equity78]

I hear this all the time, frankly, it gets tiresome. Don't be the excuse for people's lack of knowledge, be the seed of change. People don't know until they know, and you might have missed an opportunity to be the very first to introduce something like a new G to them.

What's holding you back? How can kids, friends and others care if you don't care? Excitement is contagious.

Not really sure what you are talking about? Where did I say I don't care. I said these kids and models don't care and don't care about my opinion on domain names. When I get outside the people I know from domaining, everyone else family, friends, etc... They think domaining is either the dumbest or most boring thing they have ever heard, I have gone to parties where someone asked me to please not talk about domain names.

 

[garptrader]

The vast majority of people place very little importance on domains and consider them an $xx item. Suggest they pay $xxxx+ is like asking them to pay that price for movie tickets. So most domain buyers opt for crappy ref fee alternatives. Trying to convince them to pay big money for a domain is like me trying to visit a Dunkin Donuts and recruiting people to join me for my Saturday morning sprint interval workouts in the South Florida summer heat.