discuss .com or Local Domain???

[WeBuyDomains]

OK so from your experience... can you list all countries where they prefer their own ltd over a .com

For example in Dubai or in England... the first thing that comes to mind when we think of an online business is XYZ.COM and not the .ae or .co.uk version... My experience is as follows

UK = .com
DUBAI (UAE) = .com
PAKISTAN = .COM
INDIA = .COM

 

[MKA]

OK so from your experience... can you list all countries where they prefer their own ltd over a .com

Here's a complete list:

The only exception to this list is when you have non-English words, like maschinenwerkstatt.de is better than maschinenwerkstatt.com. But even then there's a bit of a grey area depending on the country in question.

 

[nicenic]

It depends on your target market. If your business is mainly for global customers, .com is a more universal and widely recognized choice, which can bring higher brand trust and visibility. But if you are mainly targeting a specific country or regional market, a local domain name will be more advantageous, which helps localize the brand image and improve search engine rankings in that region.

 

[WeBuyDomains]

lets get specific

Netherlands: .NL or .COM

and

Vietnam: .VN or .COM???

 

[DediRock]

Some countries prefer their local TLD for credibility, while .com is seen as more global. It really depends on the audience and business goals.

 

[Kyle Tully]

OK so from your experience... can you list all countries where they prefer their own ltd over a .com

For example in Dubai or in England... the first thing that comes to mind when we think of an online business is XYZ.COM and not the .ae or .co.uk version... My experience is as follows

UK = .com
DUBAI (UAE) = .com
PAKISTAN = .COM
INDIA = .COM

In Australia .com.au is much more common and the "default" extension.

But if you're selling internationally and/or savvy, you always want the .com as well.

Many larger businesses redirect their .com to .com.au or vice versa depending on where their focus is.

 

[WeBuyDomains]

In Australia .com.au is much more common and the "default" extension.

But if you're selling internationally and/or savvy, you always want the .com as well.

Many larger businesses redirect their .com to .com.au or vice versa depending on where their focus is.

Good to know that, thanks for your Insight


Keep the knowledge nuggets coming please. Don't be shy, this thread has received hundreds of views... but your all benefiting and not contributing, that's bad, very bad

 

[AniMeshorer]

lets get specific

Netherlands: .NL or .COM

I'm from Belgium, which neighbours the Netherlands, and as I'm from the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium we have many cultural exchange with the Netherlands.

From my impression, .nl is at least as common as .com. For sites aiming mainly at local people, .nl is probably even recommended over .com, or at least they're on par.

By the way, Dutch websites can also use .eu (as the Netherlands are part of the EU), .amsterdam if they are aiming at the Amsterdam market specifically, and Friesland province has its own TLD too (.fyl or .fry I think?)
I actually do think that the overload of extentions can create confusion.



In my country, Belgium, .be is on par with .com. Many artists, businesses, websites etc actually use .be as primary domain. Even some artists, tourist agencies, businesses aiming at the international audience, still use .be.

We also have TLDs for the cities of Ghent and Brussels (.gent and .brussels) and the region of Vlaanderen has its own TLD (.vlaanderen).
.gent and .brussels get some use within those cities indeed, .vlaanderen is very rarely used (even some sites by the Flemish government use .be instead of .vlaanderen).
We also have a minority of sites using .eu, but this is not common at all.

Most sites here are either .be or a generic TLD (mostly .com, sometimes .net or .org).



In countries like Germany, China and Russia the local ccTLDs are also extremely popular, probably to the extent they're more popular than .com in their countries.



I would say: choose .com or .net in case you aim for an international audience, use the local ccTLD if you mainly aim at a local audience.
One side remark: not all ccTLDs are well governed by their registries. In most countries in Europe the registries are operating very well which means many European countries' ccTLD's are very popular, and in the USA, Canada and Australia you also have very reliable registries. However, it seems that for example in Africa the local ccTLD's are not commonly used, partially due to unstable or poorly maintained registries operating those ccTLD's. Many African websites seem to use .com instead of the local ccTLD.

I'd choose .com over the local ccTLD in case you have doubts about how well the ccTLD is maintained.

 

[jmcc]

A fascinating thread. Some of the assumptions about .COM are not supported by the data. A .COM is good for a global market. When a ccTLD s well run and developed, the new registration volume in the ccTLD each month will be at least two times that of new .COM registrations. The .COM eventually becomes a legacy TLD where the new registrtions are just marginally ahead of deletions.

With Ireland, the local ccTLD, .IE, has approximately three times the number of registrations as Irish hosted .COM domain names. The UK has about 9.8 million registrations and that's much larger than the number of UK hosted .COMs. A similar effect is seen with .AU, .DE, .NL, .BE ccTLDs. The .EU ccTLD is a truck stop TLD where users go before being redirected to the domain owner's site in a ccTLD or .COM. The Web Usage in that ccTLD is only around 18% while Web Usage in a typical ccTLD is 30% or more.

There iare some African countries where the ccTLD is developed (South Africa's .ZA is the largest). Kenya is also quite strong. The main problem is the lack of local hosting infrastructure. That means that most African websites will be hosted outside the IP addresses of its country. South Africa has a lot of these websites. The number of gTLD registrars in the African region is low and registrants in many countries use ICANN registrars like Godaddy. The markets in some of these countires is still .COM focused but the lack of infrastructure and domain name pricing is holding back development in the local markets of these countries.

In Latin America, Brazil's .BR is the bigglest local ccTLD and .COM is almost ignored there. Some of the other ccTLDs are also more popular locally than .COM as the regfee for .COM has increased over the years.

ICANN's registrar policy on the requirements to become an accredited registrar has effectively priced it out of some of the developing markets and web developers and hosters often become a ccTLD registrar in their local ccTLD and outsource gTLD registrations to registrars like Godaddy and Tucows.

Regards...jmcc

 

[AniMeshorer]

A fascinating thread. Some of the assumptions about .COM are not supported by the data. A .COM is good for a global market. When a ccTLD s well run and developed, the new registration volume in the ccTLD each month will be at least two times that of new .COM registrations. The .COM eventually becomes a legacy TLD where the new registrtions are just marginally ahead of deletions.

With Ireland, the local ccTLD, .IE, has approximately three times the number of registrations as Irish hosted .COM domain names. The UK has about 9.8 million registrations and that's much larger than the number of UK hosted .COMs. A similar effect is seen with .AU, .DE, .NL, .BE ccTLDs. The .EU ccTLD is a truck stop TLD where users go before being redirected to the domain owner's site in a ccTLD or .COM. The Web Usage in that ccTLD is only around 18% while Web Usage in a typical ccTLD is 30% or more.

There iare some African countries where the ccTLD is developed (South Africa's .ZA is the largest). Kenya is also quite strong. The main problem is the lack of local hosting infrastructure. That means that most African websites will be hosted outside the IP addresses of its country. South Africa has a lot of these websites. The number of gTLD registrars in the African region is low and registrants in many countries use ICANN registrars like Godaddy. The markets in some of these countires is still .COM focused but the lack of infrastructure and domain name pricing is holding back development in the local markets of these countries.

In Latin America, Brazil's .BR is the bigglest local ccTLD and .COM is almost ignored there. Some of the other ccTLDs are also more popular locally than .COM as the regfee for .COM has increased over the years.

ICANN's registrar policy on the requirements to become an accredited registrar has effectively priced it out of some of the developing markets and web developers and hosters often become a ccTLD registrar in their local ccTLD and outsource gTLD registrations to registrars like Godaddy and Tucows.

Regards...jmcc

But Irish and British sites that aim at an international audience will probably still look at .com, .org and .net first. Sites that aim at a local audience obviously will be better off with .ie or .co.uk.

As a Belgian, I can indeed say that .be here is at least as widely used as .com (the regional extentions .gent, .brussels and especially .vlaanderen are only sparsely used).
Slightly off-topic, but especially in the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) area of Belgium, there is an independence movement that strives for a Flemish Republic. I am not in favor of splitting up Belgium personally. And so far it would still be a minority of Belgians who want it, but increasingly difficult government functioning does irritate many here, and the minority in favor of splitting up Belgium is not a very tiny minority. That is a reason why I'm still leaning to .com even for local websites of mine ; maybe I'm looking into things too deeply here, but imagine Flanders would become independent, what would happen with .be domains? And will Flanders then immediately enter the EU so that at least .eu domains could be retained?
But I may be looking into things a bit too deeply here. I hope we'll never end up in such situation.

.com.br is very popular, but .com.ar (Argentina) is also very widely used. Not sure about the other Latin American countries, although it seems .com.mx is also very popular. In Cuba, almost everything is .cu rather than a gTLD.

In Africa, other ccTLD's that are widely used are .ma (Morocco), .ng (Nigeria) and I think also .eg (Egypt). Not too sure about Ghana, Ivory Coast and Tunisia, but I did come across several such websites too.

In Asia, in some countries the local ccTLD is also very widely used. .cn comes into mind, but .co.jp, .co.kr, .in are also very widely used. I think .ir, .co.sa and .co.il are also sufficiently used that they compete well with .com.