Dot COM is king, every other extension sucks.

[daj]

" Dot COM is king, every other extension sucks, Your name isn't worth anything, if only it was dot com"

I'm so tired of hearing this same line being said over & over again on this forum by myself and the mass majority here. Even for great one word names that people have registered on other extensions, the same thing is continuoulsy said in the domain appraisal thread.

I will no longer refer to dot com as being a good extension, and only support the weaker extensions for use for now on. That's one of my goal for 2009, to bring out the public awareness of the awesome other extensions that are available.

I'm disappoinited in ICANN for designating dot com as the only extension for widespread use, and all of the people involved with making that one extension the leader when it comes to domains. I dare any registrar to not even include dot com on their list of tld's to choose from, and to only support the exotic extensions. Seriously.. start supporting the other extensions! Put the rare beauties at the top of your list, and put dot com on the bottom. These 60+ other extensions are just as good, and the only way they will become players in the domain world, is to start using them, developing hot sites on them, and opening people's minds to realize dot com isn't the only extension...

For now on the dot com extension is dead to me. :bah:

 

[snoop]

I will no longer refer to dot com as being a good extension, and only support the weaker extensions for use for now on.

Funny, but not logical at all, people can generally see through "promotion", especially if you don't really believe the pitch yourself (obvious from above), it isn't going to change anything.

I'm disappoinited in ICANN for designating dot com as the only extension for widespread use, and all of the people involved with making that one extension the leader when it comes to domains.

.com's current/original designation has nothing to do with Icann, but other extensions have been brought out for widespread use, eg .biz, .info.

I dare any registrar to not even include dot com on their list of tld's to choose from, and to only support the exotic extensions.

If any registrar decinded to make this change I bet they'd be out of business within 6 months.

These 60+ other extensions are just as good

You described them as "weak" at the start of this post.

 

[animeenergy]

Dot com is KING!! the rest are Bull -S**^t domains.

It's your money, do what you want!

 

[Jake]

Heres something for the haters to think about

www.wikipedia.org
www.yahoo.co.jp
www.google.co.in
www.google.de
www.sina.com.cn
www.google.fr
www.google.co.uk
www.mail.ru
www.vkontakte.ru
www.google.com.br
www.google.cn
www.google.it
www.yandex.ru
www.google.es
www.google.co.jp
www.orkut.com.br
www.craigslist.org
www.odnoklassniki.ru
www.google.com.mx
www.bbc.co.uk

All of those sites are on the top 50 ranked alexa list.
Granted, many of them are big name corps, like google, but it still shows that every other extension doesn't "suck".

I do agree with the fact that .com is king. The media plays a huge part in that, but there are many other extensions that are far from "sucking"

 

[netfleet]

I hear you sportomoney!

com has been dead for years from an investment point of view. Exhausted, overpriced, swamped with crap & even the good ones are depreciating rapidly as end users (which drive our industry - never forget that) flock to better value extensions and more targeted cc-TLDs.

I think you hear the same old "com is king" (a search for that phrase on NP reveals no less than 500 posts!) on the forums as com domainers try to convince themselves as much any anyone that their investments are sound. Fact is, most people's com investments are going nowhere (yes that includes Frank Schilling, Marchex etc)

Com 5 or more years ago - great investment I'm sure if you were careful. But I doubt there are many (if any) domainers who have come into the game in the last few years & made a living off .com alone

As I've said many times on these pages investments (of any kind) should be judged on their ROI...

All just my humble opinion

 

[Jake]

I hear you sportomoney!

com has been dead for years from an investment point of view. Exhausted, overpriced, swamped with crap & even the good ones are depreciating rapidly as end users (which drive our industry - never forget that) flock to better value extensions and more targeted cc-TLDs.

I think you hear the same old "com is king" (a search for that phrase on NP reveals no less than 500 posts!) on the forums as com domainers try to convince themselves as much any anyone that their investments are sound. Fact is, most people's com investments are going nowhere (yes that includes Frank Schilling, Marchex etc)

Com 5 or more years ago - great investment I'm sure if you were careful. But I doubt there are many (if any) domainers who have come into the game in the last few years & made a living off .com alone

As I've said many times on these pages investments (of any kind) should be judged on their ROI...

All just my humble opinion

I agree 99% with this. From an investment standpoint, most good .com's are taken. Thats not to say that there aren't good hand-reg'es still out there, but they are extremely hard to come by.

And most companies are realizing they can have much more effective ad campaigns with inexpensive, or even made up names.

They seem to understand that with enough solid marketing, people will remember just about anything, and a .com isn't always nessecary. But in my opinion, it is still important to hold the .com or whatever name you are using. Especially if you are selling something, because you are almost guaranteed to leak traffic to the .com.



^^^
I hope that post didn't sound like a lot of rambling :lol:

 

[alanj878]

Yah .com is perfect for building a brand but to a common domainer/developer trying to put up numerous sites trying to get roi back from mini sites I believe any extension is good with refined serps. Dot com is only good for main businesses meaning businesses that you truly spend time and type in traffic investments but if you are just trying to put up a quick site and get it monetize money.us is as good as money.com

 

[snoop]

com has been dead for years from an investment point of view. Exhausted, overpriced, swamped with crap & even the good ones are depreciating rapidly as end users (which drive our industry - never forget that) flock to better value extensions and more targeted cc-TLDs.

The entire industry is seeing price declines though personally I would have said the "alt extensions" have done the worst. Endusers are barely using those extensions and hardly flocking to them, anyone can see that with a 5 minute at dnjournal domain sales. Also let's not confuse popular country codes that have been estbaslished as long as .com such as .co.uk, .de etc with new extensions, this is two very different markets.

 

[owntype]

FACT DOMAINING is NOT DEVELOPING, DOMAINING is registering domains and selling them, or parking them and earning PPC.

Hit the nail on the head!

 

[snoop]

I agree 99% with this. From an investment standpoint, most good .com's are taken. Thats not to say that there aren't good hand-reg'es still out there, but they are extremely hard to come by.

Same is true in all extensions, domains that are worth something are generally long gone, people don't leave money lying on the street.

 

[Jake]

Yah .com is perfect for building a brand but to a common domainer/developer trying to put up numerous sites trying to get roi back from mini sites I believe any extension is good with refined serps. Dot com is only good for main businesses meaning businesses that you truly spend time and type in traffic investments but if you are just trying to put up a quick site and get it monetize money.us is as good as money.com

I mostly agree with this as well.

I think your comparison might be a tad flawed, but over all, I think your right.
With top dollar keywords (such as money), I think they .com will always prevail.

But heres an example:

I picked up DeepLyrics.net a while back (.com was/is taken and parked), with the intentions of developing it (with wordpress) as a place for music artists to share their lyrics.

I set up a free wordpress theme on the name, but then I got lazy, and just let it sit.

One day, I got the urge to check its stats, and it had more than 100 unique visitors in the first month alone!
Most of the visitors were coming from google, where I was ranked 4th for "deep lyrics".

I didn't even have any real content, besides the theme, but google gave me the traffic. Now I have a site with the lyrics from every artist that has a song named "deep" (because thats what my visitors were looking for).


That was just a long example showing how other extensions can be beneficial, and sometimes even better than the .com

Same is true in all extensions, domains that are worth something are generally long gone, people don't leave money lying on the street.

For the most part, yes, but I think it is especially true when dealing with .com's.

 

[mwzd]

Till the average surfing public automatically puts .com behind any 'web site' they hear of, its king, whether it be domaining or developing.

That said, there is a growing segment of the web - webmasters, domainers, remote workers, etc - who are getting more 'savvy' and hence are able to differentiate tlds and use it to their advantage. Theres an additional set of people who's first exposure to the web has probably been via cctld. For them, cctlds are as easy to 'grasp' as .com and they have a tendency to differentiate.

There is also a growing segment of web companies all over the world who use alternative domain extensions for development and do quite well by it. If you check out the alexa million dump, you'll see a large percentage of extensions which are not .com - so eventually, a website will only be as good as its development and not its tld.

 

[-REECE-]

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- there are too many lazy new domainers who want a get rich quick scheme. It's not 1995 anymore, or even 2002. Some domainers seem to forget how many years it took for most people to get to where they are today.

You want the success of someone who started years ago when there was way more opportunity and you want it now, not years from now? Good luck with that...

Put in the time or sit here and whine -- your choice. Work hard the next few years and there's no reason you can't be sitting pretty.

 

[firefly]

Development is King, every other use of a domain sucks :sold:

So every one of your names is developed and not parked??

 

[snoop]

Agree with what Equity has said, developing is not domaining, completely different skill set and it is not easy.

 

[-REECE-]

No but I sold close to 4000 domains this year I had no intention of developing and will be focussing on getting the 200 or so domains I will be keeping developed over the next few years (many are non-.coms).

Pure domaining just isn't near as profitable for me or most people as it has been in year's past and I am switching to a monetization plan which will greatly increase the likelihood of stable long term income, something a pure domainer never has and never will have.

So every one of your names is developed and not parked??

 

[GF]

Development is King, every other use of a domain sucks :sold:

If there's one opinion to pay attention to in a thread, Reece's would be it. :tu:

-Galel

 

[snoop]

No but I sold close to 4000 domains this year I had no intention of developing and will be focussing on getting the 200 or so domains I will be keeping developed over the next few years (many are non-.coms).

Pure domaining just isn't near as profitable for me or most people as it has been in year's past and I am switching to a monetization plan which will greatly increase the likelihood of stable long term income, something a pure domainer never has and never will have.

I don't really see it, developing 200 domains is a way of building stable long term income whereas domaining doesn't offer that? Surely "developing" 200 sites means the usual adsense + canned content, a model that that is even more reliant on Google than parking is?

 

[firefly]

No but I sold close to 4000 domains this year I had no intention of developing and will be focussing on getting the 200 or so domains I will be keeping developed over the next few years (many are non-.coms).

Pure domaining just isn't near as profitable for me or most people as it has been in year's past and I am switching to a monetization plan which will greatly increase the likelihood of stable long term income, something a pure domainer never has and never will have.

Fair enough. I understand that you sell a lot of domains...most people here would. I also understand that developed domains offer greater earning capacity and longevity over the long run.

I just don't get the idea behind ragging on a monetisation method that 99% of the members of this forum actually partake in. Not just because they are lazy but because they have thousands of names that they have purchased for investment reasons i.e. later development, resale, or in some cases pure monetisation due to the fact that their highly generic domains recieve greater CTR's than a developed page could ever hope to generate.

In some cases, people like myself who got into this late, don't have a clue as to how to develop websites. Not because I'm dumb...It's just something I can't seem to get my head around for some reason.

Whatever the reason for non development...and there are a few, you have basically told everyone what they are doing with their domains sucks...unless of course it's developed.

Just seems a little strange on a domaining forum.

Nothing personal BTW Reece. Just speaking my mind.

 

[metrisoft]

End users respect .net, and that is all that matters. NET is my highest ROI of any extension.

Brad

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. It doesn't matter what we domainers think. What matters is the end-user (i.e. the vast majority of people who just use Google, Yahoo, eBay, YouTube, CNN, Facebook, and MySpace) and they only really see/hear about .com, .net, and .org. I happen to also like .info and .us for development but that's about as far as I will venture into the "sub-par" extensions.

 

[snoop]

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. It doesn't matter what we domainers think. What matters is the end-user (i.e. the vast majority of people who just use Google, Yahoo, eBay, YouTube, CNN, Facebook, and MySpace) and they only really see/hear about .com, .net, and .org. I happen to also like .info and .us for development but that's about as far as I will venture into the "sub-par" extensions.

Personally I have never seen much evidence of .net names selling well to endusers (.org also). .Com and popular country codes are the only game in town in my view.

 

[wakish]

Whether we want it or not, it is a true reality that a .com has a BIG advantage over other tlds.
Perhaps this is because it came first?
And no one can alas reverse this effect because the whole internet-IT world revolves around it.
Do a simple test:
1) In your browsers url box, type in "name"
You will see that, name.com is instantly loaded. You see even browsers have been coded in such a way as to give .com a priority. And I repeat no one will be able to change things as it stands.

So you don't accept this fact, you are losing a great deal to your competitors/others.. it's your call!

 

[snoop]

1) In your browsers url box, type in "name"
You will see that, name.com is instantly loaded. You see even browsers have been coded in such a way as to give .com a priority. And I repeat no one will be able to change things as it stands.

I typed in "wikipedia" and was taken to wikipedia.org. I'm not sure browsers really work as stated above any more. Firefox takes you to the number 1 ranking google site for the term.

 

[metrisoft]

Personally I have never seen much evidence of .net names selling well to endusers (.org also). .Com and popular country codes are the only game in town in my view.

Well, I think most end-users will choose the .net if they can't get the .com. I know I did with my business (metrisoft.net) and then I finally forked out the money and later acquired the .com. Not sure about resale of .nets and .orgs to end-users but there are quite a few "domainer-to-domainer" sales of these extensions in DNJournal.

Also, I have never understood why someone in a foreign country like Denmark would choose an English word coupled with a .dk extension. Why not just use the Danish word?

 

[wakish]

I typed in "wikipedia" and was taken to wikipedia.org. I'm not sure browsers really work as stated above any more. Firefox takes you to the number 1 ranking google site for the term.

Yep snoop, you are right here, I just tried it. So I had wrongly interpreted it, it is surely this: "takes you to the number 1 ranking google site for the term"

Thanks for the comment *Thumbs Up!*

[..] Also, I have never understood why someone in a foreign country like Denmark would choose an English word coupled with a .dk extension. Why not just use the Danish word?

I have been working with danish people and I can tell you that they pretty much love the .dk

 

[snoop]

Well, I think most end-users will choose the .net if they can't get the .com. I know I did with my business (metrisoft.net) and then I finally forked out the money and later acquired the .com.

No evidence of this. If enduser can't get the .com they usually go for a weaker .com. If most chose .net when the .com wasn't available a heck of a lot more .net's would be registrered and in the hands of endusers. Your example is a interesting one as it sounds like you felt it wasn't good enough to be using the .net. Why was that?

Not sure about resale of .nets and .orgs to end-users but there are quite a few "domainer-to-domainer" sales of these extensions in DNJournal.

Exactly right, that is where most of the market is for these extensions.