.com or .cc? Silly question?

[domainsagain]

Apologies for asking the obvious - but I'm just just starting off domaining encouraged by some accidental success and I don't really know what I'm doing!
I live in France, so I am looking at the .fr's.
What would be the better bet for a name in French..the .com or the .fr? I thought it would be obvious, but then a name in French is going to have limited appeal outside of French speaking regions...so perhaps the .fr. The best idea obviously is to get both, but i know at this stage i need to keep a check on my spending.
Grateful for any advice,
Helen

 

[Thirty3Down]

I may be a silly American here but.......
My opinion is that your money is always spent best on the .com .
If you have something that is very popular in a particular country it is wise if the country is dominated by the extension.... see ".co.uk".

Just ask yourself.....Being from France....what ext. do you type the most?
If your subject matter is related to pop-culture in the country and the answer to the above question wasn't ".com"....go with the non ".com".


Best of luck....
Hope that helped a little
Thirty3Down

 

[domainsagain]

.fr's

that's where it's tricky - I don't actually speak much French yet - so I'm expecting a load of unintentional typo's once i start registering names! I would be interested if anyone else from France could give me an indication of whether people prefer .fr or .com. When i lived in the Uk and wanted to purchase things, I'd also look for the .co.uk.

 

[Takwa]

I also live in the uk and even .co.uk is popular, .com is always a better choice.

 

[bmugford]

.COM is the undisputed King.

 

[silveraden]

If your target audience is not only from france, you better use .com.

 

[Coopey]

Hi Helen,
You've not actually said what you are registering domains for- are you going to develop, to resell or are you going to try and park the names to earn advertising revenue?

If you're developing, as others in the thread have said .com is king- but don't rule out the nationalistic tendencies of the French people- .fr is their extension! If you're developing a site intended only for the French domestic market, get the .fr and develop on it, if you can also get the .com, get that too and point it to your .fr. If you're developing a French site with a more international focus or it's likely to grow into an international site, I'd still say get both the .fr and the .com, but develop and brand around the .com and point the .fr to it.

If you're developing to park and earn revenue then both are good extensions to own. As a mature ccTLD, .fr domains get lots of local traffic, just like in the UK- where most net users tend to think .co.uk first, a lot of French users tend to think of .fr first (same goes for most mature European extensions e.g. .de, .nl, .se)
Although you'll be hard-pressed to find good available (French) keywords left in .fr (or .com) and will probably have to buy them on the aftermarket.

If you're buying names to resell, there are a couple of things to learn about .fr- you need to have a French address to legitimately own .fr names- so this rules out a lot of buyers which may hold back prices on .fr names. It is also very likely that most of the names worth selling are already registered- all I can say is read up here on NamePros (there are lots of threads to help newer members) and get comfortable with the language before registering any fresh names!

 

[GF]

I am a huge .CC fan. I'd be happy to give you any advice with regard to .CC domains. I buy .CC's that are big keywords. Some of mine include: AutoFinancing, OptionsTrading, AntiDepressants

.COM is what you want to go with first and foremost. Anything after that is going to depend on the type of domain you're buying. For example, if you're buying a "Green" name - like "GreenLiving" a .org works well as a .com alternative.

There's no hard-and-fast rule with regard to extensions, :imho:

 

[persepollis]

definitely .com because most of the people already get used to .com