Help! Vietnam's ".vn" versus ".com.vn"? Which is better?

[INFJ]

Hi all,

Hope you can help with this matter. Would you rather own a good .vn or .com.vn name, and why? I'm in Vietnam and we've just jumped through hoops to register a few of both variants, but in terms of resale/investment value or development for affiliated marketing/AdSense, which one would you recommend?

I found only a mention of this in an article that simply suggests you should "buy both", with no specifics as to why.

I checked prior successful sales and I have seen both of them sell, with ultra premiums pulling in a pretty good sum.

I don't mind developing a site, but I can't rule out flipping opportunities either.

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Sn952

 

[branding]

Since you're from Vietnam you're probably the best guy to answer the question

When you look around, what do most businesses use? .vn or .com.vn? Go with what most companies use and is recognized amongst VN citizens.

I personally always follow the shorter is better rule but as an investment that's not always wise. For instance, as an investment I'd pick .co.uk over .uk any day. Although being the longer TLD it's more established amongst UK citizens, globally even.

 

[John Napoletano]

Hi all,

[1] Would you rather own a good .vn or .com.vn name, and why?
[2]...resale/investment value...
[3]...development for affiliated marketing/AdSense...
[4]...you should "buy both", with no specifics as to why...

My answers in reverse order:

4. Buy both yes. The reason is quite simple. You buy pham.vn and advertise the site for 2 years. Your competitor buys pham.com.vn and steals a piece of your market share. Buy both while they are cheap. Investors should try to buy both and sell both together as a package deal (if you can't buy both I'd suggest you buy the shorter one, read on). Forward the longer to the shorter if you build.

3. There are different types of buyers: business owners, content sites (affiliate/adsense), defensive buyers, and investors. Often investors buy too many variations of what a 'business' owner or 'content site' buyers might want. Look at business names in each vertical/seed phrase and find the shortest one word, two word max, of that 'business' phrase or content topic for example. Buying all the variations may lead to wasted registration fees.

2. I think most western buyers use NameBio and Estibot sales history. I looked quickly and see no history on NameBio for .vn or .com.vn domain names. If you have such data please post a link here so we can take a look and learn the market with you.

1. Don't just look at .uk. Notice the good with the bad such as .de sales history for example. It makes no 'long term' sense to me why someone would chose .co.uk over the shorter .uk for example. Think about it advertising that, the radio test for .com.vn won't people get confused? I heard .com then stopped listening. I hear .vn I think Vietnamese. If you spend $$$ over 5 years link building the .com.vn then the market shifts you are stuck. Google move is a horrible thing, don't count on moving all your SEO $$$ you will need to rebuild all links.

Google search(es) to play around with:

site:.com.vn

site:.vn -".com.vn"

The second search attempts to pull all the shorter websites using only the .vn. Click through those to make sure they are real sites. Do the same with your top keywords added before the "site" keyword. I see more .vn in use today.

Other digital marketing pros out there could add more to this discussion but it's a start.

Please continue the discussion. I think this will help a lot of people out there in Southeast Asia.

In Thailand I saw .jp in use for a cosmetic company. In Thailand, on the front window of a store in a large mall .jp was used to indicate 'quality'. That's marketing and branding. It's never just about domaining.

 

[mAd MaX]

As per Alexa top sites of Vietnam are using .vn mostly

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/VN

If you are from Vietnam where I plan to visit later this year, probably you can guide me to schedule the trip.

Would you pls?