Do extensions really matter?

[Nathan]

Hey everyone,

I'm starting to think that domain extensions are starting to become irreverent. My thought process behind this is quiet simple... Search engines hunt for keywords... If your domain is insurance.com insurance.cc insurance.tk insurance.whatever the domain is going to rank just as high as it has "insurance" as the domain name... I do not believe that extensions will matter... I think it will only be a matter of time before people realise this...

For example let's take

insurance.com... Going off what you are all thinking at the moment, that domain is the best because it's the keyword that is entered into the search engines, however... insurance.net is going to rank aswell if there is a site attached to it... Going off your logic saying that insurance.net will not rank higher than .com.... That means that .co will never rank higher than a .com ... Again, I do not believe this is the case!

I believe it's only a matter of time before the industry starts to forget what the extension is... The .me is starting to take off and you even have a .com redirecting to a .me. Example DespicableMe.com redirects to Despicable.Me

I strongly believe that in a few years... that domains extensions will not matter. I believe that top level domains will rank higher than country code domains, but will rank high enough on the .com search engines, but then rank higher again on their country search engines... Ie google.cc

Thoughts?

 

[ghoneim]

Hey everyone,

I'm starting to think that domain extensions are starting to become irreverent. My thought process behind this is quiet simple... Search engines hunt for keywords... If your domain is insurance.com insurance.cc insurance.tk insurance.whatever the domain is going to rank just as high as it has "insurance" as the domain name... I do not believe that extensions will matter... I think it will only be a matter of time before people realise this...

For example let's take

insurance.com... Going off what you are all thinking at the moment, that domain is the best because it's the keyword that is entered into the search engines, however... insurance.net is going to rank aswell if there is a site attached to it... Going off your logic saying that insurance.net will not rank higher than .com.... That means that .co will never rank higher than a .com ... Again, I do not believe this is the case!

I believe it's only a matter of time before the industry starts to forget what the extension is... The .me is starting to take off and you even have a .com redirecting to a .me. Example DespicableMe.com redirects to Despicable.Me

I strongly believe that in a few years... that domains extensions will not matter. I believe that top level domains will rank higher than country code domains, but will rank high enough on the .com search engines, but then rank higher again on their country search engines... Ie google.cc

Thoughts?

If what you say is true, how the heck I could not sell my customer.im or any of my other .im domanis for pennies?!

Almost all my portfolio consists of one word ccTLd domains. However, I never get any offer except a $15 for Advertisers.tel through this forum, which I did not even bother to respond to!

 

[realtimeregister]

Hi Nathan,

I agree with your point of view. With more and more ccTLD's becoming available to the public the importance of the extension becomes less.

Few months ago i regged a 5 letter .BE for a friend of mine for his new startup company in the USA. The reg fee was 6 Dollars and he is happy he has a short domain name and his customers never ask what .BE stands for.

But still good money can be made with domaining.
onlineshop-fuer-kleidung.de sold for over 14k USD according to Sedo last week

 

[smillikan]

our demographic ~

The four or so websites that I will initially have are music related; my guess is that for wedding music, the surfers will be a bit less discerning than they might be for some other products. For this reason, it seems to me .net at least should not scare anyone off - as was just posted, an unwieldy domain name would do that more than .net. For other less 'trusted' extensions, maybe it swings a bit more - but for .net I'm comfortable with a couple domains I've purchased, since the domain name is more pleasant.

 

[gpmgroup]

My Guess is more extensions makes the extension more important not less. Semantic meaning will become increasingly important. No meaning between the extension and the domain name will equal no interest.

Even if there are hundreds of extensions only a few will be truly desired.