dgridley said:
Personally I think you're wrong there.. anyone who surfs the net at all these days has most likely run across a .biz extension by now... and if .com = commerce, how do you account for the millions of non-commerce related domains registered as .com's?
It reallt doesn't matter tho because as I've pointed out in the past, the ext is only 10% of the total equation.. it's what's to the left of the dot that counts most IMO.
Sorry, you're dead wrong on this one. .BIZ is not known/remembered over .COM by most of the internet surfers out there and it is a bad marketing move to not own a .COM for a site that sells products. At the very least, .NET as that is much better known than .BIZ.
Again, you bring up the fact that .COM is diluted with non-commerce sites. That is an invalid arguement. All extensions are diluted by unmatched sites to some degree.
I am not saying that absolutely no one will buy from a .BIZ (although you're sales will be less), I am saying that is a terrible, terrible marketing move to not have the .COM as well for commerce and can be tested an proven. Try it. ALso I am not saying that no one knows .BIZ, jsut that most do not adn that they are lest trusting of it over .COM.
Many visitors will remember your name but many will not remember the correct ext. They sill likely think ".com". When they go to the .COM they will not find your site. Unless they remember that it was a .BIZ, then you lost that prospective customer.
This is not a domainer issue. It is a marketing/commerce issue. I suggest you the OP go and register and participate in commerce forums and he will see that most there will agree with me. Marketing is your #1 concern in commerce. No .COM = bad marketing move. It is quite simple logic to follow.
trust
memorability
ease
All these and more are far more important than a domain with good keywords when trying to sell products online. Sure, agreat dictionary name is awesome, but not the most important fact in the ecommerce world as it is in the domain trader world. In ecommerce, you aer much better off doing busienss from
bobstrinkets.com than
trinkets.biz.