.com is enough?

[commsskills]

It was only a short while ago that some say if you want to protect your brand, you register the .com, .net and .org versions.

I do not know if this logic still applies in this current day when domain extensions are a dime a dozen. Because if you cannot get .com, .net, .org, you can always try for .can, .be, .me, etc.

Besides, looking at McDonalds, they only have the .com and .org. The singular version, McDonald, is regged by others. I have seen quite well developed sites where the owner does not bother to reg the .net and .org versions.

May I have your opinion if regging .com, .net and .org as a triad still applies if you want to protect your brand? Thanks.

 

[inquirerSG]

.com is enough

unless your brand is worth like $10 million and spans several countries..

 

[commsskills]

Thanks InquirerSG.

I noticed the SG so am i right in saying you are from Singapore? Same same.

So let me put it in another way: if you are doing a business in Singapore and it is a start-up, will you register a .com, .com.sg, .sg or all three of them?

In your opinion, is it really neccessary to register a .com.sg and .sg?

My opinion is a .com.sg and .com is enough. The .com.sg gives creditability and the .com is useful to have. The .sg does not really give much value and besides it is expensive to maintain both the sg domains.

 

[dotker]

Thanks InquirerSG.

I noticed the SG so am i right in saying you are from Singapore? Same same.

So let me put it in another way: if you are doing a business in Singapore and it is a start-up, will you register a .com, .com.sg, .sg or all three of them?

In your opinion, is it really neccessary to register a .com.sg and .sg?

My opinion is a .com.sg and .com is enough. The .com.sg gives creditability and the .com is useful to have. The .sg does not really give much value and besides it is expensive to maintain both the sg domains.

i thought shorter is better.

.sg for me pls.

 

[commsskills]

i thought shorter is better.

.sg for me pls.

Thanks. I see your point. I have a few .sg domains and the maintenance cost is making me frown. I often wonder why am i keeping them when i can reg the .com.

For example, is there a difference between Inquirer.SG and InquirerSG.com ? What do you think please?

Personally i think if it is a .me, there can be a subtle difference in terms of branding, eg GreatCustomerService.ME versus GreatCustomerServiceMe.com but the differential is lessened when you do GreatCustomerService.SG or GreatCustomerServiceSG.com.

 

[inquirerSG]

i think .com and .sg is good enough, .com.sg is like both combined lol

 

[commsskills]

i think .com and .sg is good enough, .com.sg is like both combined lol

thanks

 

[aloofkid]

i thought shorter is better.

.sg for me pls.

Though here in the Philippines .com.ph is widely use, and Google uses .com.ph too. Though some big company used .ph but most filipino uses com.ph

Whatcha ma think?

 

[commsskills]

Though here in the Philippines .com.ph is widely use, and Google uses .com.ph too. Though some big company used .ph but most filipino uses com.ph

Whatcha ma think?

It all depends on the criteria of registering a com.ph versus .ph.

For singapore, you need a business registration to register a .com.sg whereas you can do your self-declaration to register a .sg. Naturally the governing body requires bona fide evidence before you do your registration. At the internet level, we enter our SingPass which comprises our national identification number and a password. Thus ownership of a .com.sg carries greater creditability.

If this is the same in Philippines too, then the major benefit of .com.ph is that you are who you say you are. This gives confidence to your business partners.

 

[aloofkid]

It all depends on the criteria of registering a com.ph versus .ph.

For singapore, you need a business registration to register a .com.sg whereas you can do your self-declaration to register a .sg. Naturally the governing body requires bona fide evidence before you do your registration. At the internet level, we enter our SingPass which comprises our national identification number and a password. Thus ownership of a .com.sg carries greater creditability.

If this is the same in Philippines too, then the major benefit of .com.ph is that you are who you say you are. This gives confidence to your business partners.

Thanks for the info commsskills,

Though here in the Philippines we don't have this requirements to register .com.ph, though .com.ph are widely known to all Filipinos.

But the dot ph registrar are now promoting the .ph domain, probably in due time .ph will be known to many IMO.

 

[commsskills]

You are welcome. How much does your .ph costs?

I read that hacks are quite in demand. Why not try sera.ph ?

 

[SpareDomains]

for resale I invest in 99.9% .com only as after 9+ years almost every sale I have made is .com and usually is the one that type in traffic falls to, as far as development goes I have some sites just on the .com and I have others where I have bought 20+ domains which include alternate extensions and variations of the domain, if it's a business you plan to own years down the road the cost of the extras is minimal to lock it down, if it's a site not so important or that you might sell later on I think .com is good enough.

 

[commsskills]

Thanks SpareDomains, i find your post enlightening. I went to check on a brand singapore airlines. It is commonly known as SIA. But sia.com had been booked by others. So they choose an awkward sounding singaporeair. Because of its awkwardness (it does not have a nice intonation) it was not booked by others. They took up the .com, .net, .org and .asia domains.

What is surprising is that they did not bother to protect their .sg domain. However they took up .com.sg. I feel this substantiate the earlier point that i made regarding .com.sg versus .sg

So SpareDomains, if .com, .net, .org, .asia (or in your case .us) and the corporate identity (.com.us?) are taken. Is this what you meant by extensions or will you include other extensions too?

Interestingly enough, by choosing singaporeair, they avoided the need to have variations. I checked singapore-air.com and for a moment i thought it was also their website but a closer look shows it wasn't.

A study of singapore-airline, singapore-airlines gives further insights as to why they finally chose singaporeair.

I guess ultimately having control of .com, .net, .org, .asia, .com.sg is important - a total cost of $75 per year to protect your brand. Not much for a multi-million company.

 

[SpareDomains]

I'm in the US so the farthest I have ever gone on 1 site is .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us and then if I want alternate versions like lets say "domain names" or "names" over "domains" then I just grab the alternates in .com only, so I have 6 domains for the main site and then all the alternates in .com only which could be 1-15 of .com alternates depending on the site. gotta be something I really care about to buy 6-20+ domains for it and for the rest especially domains or sites I intend to sell .com is good enough.

 

[commsskills]

Thanks i understand.

 

[Ms Domainer]

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If you're trying to develop a major business, I think that you need to get all the major gTLDs (even .info and .biz--one can do a lot a damage with .info) and maybe a few select ccTLDs--if nothing else, to protect your business from cyber- and typosquatters.

For flipping and simple projects (blogs): probably not.

.co is problematic in that it is so close to .com and likely to be a lot less expensive and more dangerous than .cm. I don't care what the .co registry says; this TLD WILL be a squatter's paradise.

Will .com owners need to reg .co? I don't know, though it appears that a lot of the generics seem to have already been backordered.

*

 

[Name Trader]

Though here in the Philippines .com.ph is widely use, and Google uses .com.ph too. Though some big company used .ph but most filipino uses com.ph

Whatcha ma think?

All filipinos are crazy Just kidding. The reason for this situation is because .com.ph came out way before .ph. The one domain I registered was .ph. This is because it's shorter and does the same thing. I think both are accepted widely, so why not? I also have quite a few keywordPH.com domains. Reason? Cheaper and .com is also used by quite a few in Philippines.

 

[alien51]

Search Ranking is still tops.

Meaning, some popular websites are just keeping the .com domain because the squatters who snagged the other extensions are simply sitting it out waiting for YOU to buy them out. Most of the time, these extension owners don't have much content in them anyway (if they have content at all). So if people will try to search for your keywords or niche, you'll be on top, and people won't even see the extension sites showing up on search results.

I have one case wherein my .net is more popular in search results than the .com site owned by someone else and he had nothing much in there. Mine is a fully-developed .net site with nice traffic.

You might have trouble if the extension owners try to go head-to-head with you in terms of content. It may be possible that a guy who owns the .info could rank better than yours. So to squash the competition once and for all, .com owners of developed sites try to buy everyone else in the extension line (or snatch them if they are still never owned).

Of course, you may also want to buy all the extensions if you are looking for your domain as some kind of a trademark brand. Some guy might setup a porn or pyramid-scam site on your extension and it will hurt your .com brand sitting right next to it.

 

[Ms Domainer]

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So true.

I have a business plan for a .net (English term) that I plan to develop (it is currently ranking well with not much on it). I have quietly bought the .com in the aftermarket, which, evidently, was used as a bad boy domain, so it will be a redirect (my project will NOT be an adult site). I have registered the term in all the major gTLDs, plus .us, .tv, and .co.uk. I'm working on acquiring at least one other ccTLD.

Better to be safe while the domains are still cheap because once I build my brand, the price would go up, given that the term is generic.

Even if I sell the business, it will be more valuable as a grouping of important ccTLDs and gTLDs. For a viable business, it would be foolish to skimp on regfee domains. Kill the competition before it's competition.

For simply flipping or mini-sites, it's a different matter.



*

Search Ranking is still tops.

Meaning, some popular websites are just keeping the .com domain because the squatters who snagged the other extensions are simply sitting it out waiting for YOU to buy them out. Most of the time, these extension owners don't have much content in them anyway (if they have content at all). So if people will try to search for your keywords or niche, you'll be on top, and people won't even see the extension sites showing up on search results.

I have one case wherein my .net is more popular in search results than the .com site owned by someone else and he had nothing much in there. Mine is a fully-developed .net site with nice traffic.

You might have trouble if the extension owners try to go head-to-head with you in terms of content. It may be possible that a guy who owns the .info could rank better than yours. So to squash the competition once and for all, .com owners of developed sites try to buy everyone else in the extension line (or snatch them if they are still never owned).

Of course, you may also want to buy all the extensions if you are looking for your domain as some kind of a trademark brand. Some guy might setup a porn or pyramid-scam site on your extension and it will hurt your .com brand sitting right next to it.

 

[Alex P]

Im looking to do a new project, just at the major reg sites now thinking how far I should go with the extensions, since I will be using a term I made up all of them are available :hearts:

Good thing is domain prices seem to be cheaper than I last remember, like .us is cheap at godaddy and .in is cheap at internetbs and .tv is cheap everywhere atm :yell: