Dot Coms Only

[Orbital]

I was curious why there is so much talk on here of .us, .cc, .info, etc.

Just from personal experience, registering anything besides a .com is a waste of money unless it's a rare 2 or possible 3 (letter) character domain, and even then should preferrably be a .net, or .org.

Obviously dictionary terms and brandable words ending in .us, or whatever may be sellable, but are they developable? Would you build a costly website project on it? Probably not, why would you?

Also, buying and owning 100's of domains can be a serious waste of money from an investment standpoint. From experience learning from some of the greatest domain speculators who own thousands of domains and drop 100's a year, you should be extra careful what you register. You can be nearly certain that you will be disappointed and will drop a lot of those non .com domains, as professional domain speculators drop 100's of fairly good .com's per year because they aren't developable.

Some rules you should follow are:

Dot Coms Only

No dashes, numbers or variations (name-pros.com or go2hawaii.com)

avoid typos as tempting as they are for redirects (britnayspears.com)

focus on domains related to your trade/job/expertise

avoid long domains, too many syllables, and phrases (todayisawonderfulday.com)

avoid spelling errors, mixed words, or hard to spell words (transcendingood.com)

Attempt to coin (google.com) marketable dot coms words or word combos

If you find a great dot com that you want to develop, consider snapping up the .net and .org version not for development, but for protection.

In closing, register domains that you can visualize a profitable/brandable business model around. A website will lose credibilty as a business if its not a dot com. If everyone is shopping at amazon.com, ebay.com, walmart.com, and you come out with electronicstore .cc, .info, .biz, etc., you likely aren't going to get much business. People are already afraid of identity theft on the web. They want trusted sites.

And say you do develop a lucrative advertising campaign, you will likely push most of your traffic over time to the dot com version.

So you're only other option is an informative site (books.info) which generally is also very unprofitable.

If you disagree, that's fine, but please at least try to support your rationale or give some kind of example as to why you feel differently.

 

[Orbital]

You mean http://www.earthlink.com/ :D


I haven't seen the welcome center yet, I'll check it out.

 

[snoop]

Plus, can you really argue that someone who buys voyuer.com as you stated for $112,100 is a smart investor? Does that suddenly justify typos and traffic on the smaller scale?

How much money do you think that name will make?

The buyer though is most definately a smart investor, I think it would be fair to say he would rank in the top 10 for people who have made the most money from domaining.

You can't make an extreme the norm. That's their business strategy, to specifically buy traffic and make money on traffic. By arguing that point, you'll lead speculators to think that if they buy what the can afford that drops, etc because it has some traffic, and redirect it to a ppc page or affiliate, they can generate great revenue. In most cases, they are generate some revenue that goes towards covering their hundreds of reg. costs.

Think about it, how long until the traffic dies out? How sooner on a pool of smaller combined traffic? The ppc type mlm programs pay only percentages of percentages.

I'm simply replying to your comment,

"And even then, the professionals are redirecting traffic, not to pay per click style sites or programs, but to their own sites to make real money."

The fact is though the majority of domain bought for redirection, are used for ppc programs and affiliates, whether you take the biggest sales (which is the examples I have given) or more intermediate or small sales the results will be no different. Do some analysis on dnjournal sales data I would suggest.

 

[robertjr]

To end up in profit from a regular $8.00 domain, a domain must earn a minimum of .0219 a day. Any domain, any extension, is capable of earning this amount.

Dam! I was just doing the math on that! :p



I try to keep mine in the .05 :lol:

 

[Mark]

You mean http://www.earthlink.com/ :D
I haven't seen the welcome center yet, I'll check it out.

Nah - He means .net ~

435,541 @ Marketleap - www.Earthlink.net PR8

39,351 @ Marketleap - www.Earthlink.com PR6

:bingo:

 

[Orbital]

Traffic Rank for comcast.net: 39

Traffic Rank for comcast.com: 1,816

:wave:

No, your correct about that, but vvv DOES!

Noticed you never addressed that, nice try though

I wouldn't be suprised if comcast.net gets more traffic considering it's specifically designed for their existing clients. The comcast e-mail icon is in the top left corner. They all go there to check their e-mails. It's not an establishing site or homepage. It's essentially a subdomain. Might as well be like mail.yahoo.com.

I'm not saying that .cc, .biz, .info's can't sell. Sure they can. People have paid crazy prices for crazy things. But in general, you should still go out of your way to avoid them. Just because someone made $37,375 by selling their forehead for a billboard doesn't mean you will also come across such dumb luck so easily. :D

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6867209/?GT1=6065

At that point, you are essentially betting on someone else stupidity, which may be very profitable. By pointing out .nets, .orgs, spinoff sites, you aren't justifying registering a .cc, .biz, .us, etc., and creating a business solely on it. If you can't do that, how do you expect others to justify it in their minds to buy it from you?

So they can then own a domain and you own their money? :D

 

[equity78]

So every small business will what buy a three letter .com or pay a sum they can't afford for the .com? No a US company will buy the .us in some cases the .biz if television or entertainment maybe .tv INDIA the LArgest English Speaking COuntry in the world .in/.co.in


established sites www.germany.info www.mtv.tv www.h2o.tv www.tnt.tv www.cn8.tv
www.hitachi.us www.mp3.tv www.whois.sc

 

[Mark]

Just because someone made $37,375 by selling their forehead for a billboard doesn't mean you will also come across such dumb luck so easily. :D

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6867209/?GT1=6065

:lol:

No Arguements there - lol -


BTW - If earthlink.com and .net were to drop tomorrow , And you could only pick up One of them ...... Which one ? :hehe:

Either way - Welcome aboard ... I'm sure we're all glad to have someone new to argue with ~

 

[equity78]

THE craziest prices have been Paid for .com

Because those pro only .com (we allagree that its number 1 But this thread started saying don't reg anything else) just please help I can't afford $5,000 for a name that Iw ant that's .com what do I do I don't think a three word .com will work do I just forget about my business?

 

[Orbital]

To be fair, those are all primarily spinoff sites. They didn't start with those or build their business model on it because it wouldn't be smart.

They built their business model on the dot com. There are a few networking companies that will use the .net. It was well publicized that they did that to try to popularize different extensions to expand the net.

But you know what keeps happening in the end? The dot com is the homepage. The dot com is the site everyone goes to. Personally, I wish I was wrong. Because there are a lot of interesting domains with .us, .biz, .cc, .ws, .tv, that I've always wanted to register.

And say I did. Say I registered one and built a $100,000 business on a .us. Suddenly I'm losing most of my client to the dot com equivalent. The dot com equivalent is now building a similar business model and is taking the traffic and my clients. The .net is now involved, the .org is now involved, and suddenly all my clients have to go through around 20 extensions to get to my site. The others are porn sites, casino sites, redirects, coolwebsearch trojan sites, and now my clients are fed up.

They have come to visualize a company that owns the .com, .net, and will do everything in their power to protect it's name. But I can't protect my name, because .com has come to symbolize the internet business.

I just picked a ridiculous variation that I have to aggressively market based on the extension. If it's electronicstore.info, it's now...go to..electronicstore.INFO. <---- All my money is on them getting it right although 99% of what they type in is .com.

You know there was talk of future internet browsers automatically taking you to a dot com if you just type in a word. So if you typed in namepros in your address bar and hit enter, it would take you to namepros.com. Probably will never happen, but something to think about.

Edit:

If earthlink.com and .net dropped and I could only get one. I'd get the .com. No questions asked. The .net gets internal traffic from existing clients. What will you have if the servers drop? So I want the official dot come name.

Regarding, not registering anything but dot com, personally I don't feel that way. In the original comment I mentioned there are opportunities, but they aren't the norm. If someone doesn't want to start a business model centered on a .cc knowing someone else owns the .com and is probably developing it, why would they buy it off you? There is generally little incentive. So it's a tough sell. You just be sitting on traffic, if you're lucky.

So I'm not against it, there is money to be made anywhere as I've stated over and over again. There is always a forehead for sell and someone will to brand it.

But does that mean you should get to optimistic about it? If anything you should be more careful and try to avoid it at all costs. Hope for the best, but don't walk around expecting it in that neighborhood. :D

 

[Jeffrey]

I agree most of Orbital's comments. And i do agree that hypens devalues a domain. But i just registered my first ever hypen domain (taking advantage of Godaddy's promo). I did not hesitate to register the domain because i read in a PC article that "multi-threading is the next big thing in computer chip technology." :D

http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=30817
http://www.inq7.net/inf/2003/nov/17/inf_5-1.htm

 

[equity78]

Don't think Brits Germans Indians or any other country not in US would like that would be really stupid.

Another flaw in your arguement is that learning will stop, users will get more accustomed to seeing other extensions and understand what they mean and If a company names itself Electronics USA and says remember our address Electronics.US you are right some people will still type the .com idiots with no sense of memory that cannot recall anything probably not a good customer FUNNY I never type in WHOIS.com ALWAYS whois.sc .COM had a big start and therefore FIrst mover advantage Like Sears had on Walmart, IBM on DELL Dare I say DNF on Namepros but you never know how it will play out.

As far as Domainers I am sure everyone here thinks they can be a success so they can be successful In other exts maybe they will but you have to think you can do it if not why do anything just be a clone I MUST HAVE .COM I MUST HAVE .COM BE different stand out make it your way .com .info .de .in .tv whichever be unique

 

[Orbital]

This is the biggest problem with non dot coms.

Most people register .cc, .info, .biz, .us, etc., because why?

Because the .com is taken.

Generally not just the .com, but the .net and the .org. So they are basically going down the lineup. And in the end are getting what, the 7th best domain for that keyphrase?

You can't develop a business model on that domain. How do you brand it? You can't. So if you are looking for a brandable domain, registering something like a .us is a paradox. It's already essentially unbrandable.

And if it's really a good phrase or word, the .com, .net, and .org are probably already in use.


There are horrible ICANN stories of domains being WIPO'd from .cc, .us, .biz, etc. because someone had the .com and your business happened to be too similar. Which if your site is say electronicstore.info, and electronicstore.com just happens to be developed, what are the odds of you having what ICANN would consider a similar business violating a first come copyright policy.

Just something to think about.

 

[.X.]

.infos are very developable and can make good revenue Provided it is a good relevent .info with excellent feed. But i've seen people use the .info for B2C selling,Not a good idea for sure.

 

[equity78]

There are horrible ICANN stories of domains being WIPO'd from .cc, .us, .biz, etc. because someone had the .com and your business happened to be too similar. Which if your site is say electronicstore.info, and electronicstore.com just happens to be developed, what are the odds of you having what ICANN would consider a similar business violating a first come copyright policy.

SHOES.com will not be able to take SHoes.biz there is no support for that whatsoever on a generic name, in some goofy cases little guy cannot afford counsel

 

[snoop]

agree with equity on that, also the issue is trademark infringement not copyright, copyright has nothing to do with domains.

 

[Orbital]

You never know, trademark violations, copyright violations, whatever you want to call it. Just look at the WIPO history.

Decisions (closed cases with results)
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/index-gtld.html


Pending Cases
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/cases/all.html


A large majority of domains seized/terminated are typos and variations. .us, .biz, .tv, etc. can easily be seen as a variation.

 

[equity78]

Orbital I agree with you that you never know I mean some have had their own name taken.

 

[Orbital]

I've heard stories of people paying hundreds to thousands for a domain, developing it or redirecting it, then getting it terminated or seized. Could you imagine that.

 

[robertjr]

I wouldn't be suprised if comcast.net gets more traffic considering it's specifically designed for their existing clients. The comcast e-mail icon is in the top left corner. They all go there to check their e-mails. It's not an establishing site or homepage. It's essentially a subdomain. Might as well be like mail.yahoo.com.

You are kidding about

It's essentially a subdomain

right?
(I can feel the whole "new .net" thing comming back!

They build their business model on the dot com.

No...Not exactly

I have been with Comcast from the ATT acquisition and NEVER once have they marketed it as .com for the broadband service. You may want to review the company history. Comcast.com was marketed as a cable and cellular provider. Comcast.net was marketed as a broadband and cable provider.

You can't develop a business model on that domain. How do you brand it? You can't. So if you are looking for a brandable domain, registering something like a .us is a paradox. It's already essentially unbrandable.

Sucks to be Whois.sc........

BTW,
Traffic Rank for whois.sc: 514
Traffic Rank for whois.com: 6,597

 

[Kenny]

Orbital~

No matter when you make the Welcome Center, I imagine before the end of this thread you'll have met most of the members anyway. :hi:
A hearthy discussion to say the least about a subject that stirs up bigtime emotion, whichever side you take as there will be plenty of examples to support each.
Very cool of you to pick such a topic as your opening gambit. Takes cajones, and you have many valid points. However the word "Brandable" means just that. The somename.com,net,info,us etc ext's are not always pitching the same product or service and that is where other ext's can and do have a niche all their own.
Still, at this point in time, you are correct about COM as King, and all others just players in his court, but many of us have looked to the future when buying new ext's. As affordable access to the internet continues to expand to other parts of the world(not just the west) these will gain value simply on supply and demand. IMHumbleO

Once again, Welcome to NamePros, you have certainly arrived in style.
Thank you for a great thread.
kid5150