Help With Similar Domain

[Carl Smith]

Hi there,

I am currently planning on starting a new website but I am having a hard time finding a name.

So far I have found a domain that I like but is similar to an existing competitor.

Existing domain example is:

apptrack.com

My domain is:

apptracker.io

Will this be a bad idea choosing a similar domain? It has a different domain extension in the .io and the extra words “er”

Is this bad for SEO? Or bad in general? Should I go for another domain instead?

 

[wayne wooldridge]

It's difficult to say, really, without knowing the name. I guess it depends on how specific/branded the other domain is.

For your general keyword example, I'd say go for it. On the other hand, if its more like a brand where it's nullsoft.com vs nullsofter.io, then you should continue shopping.

 

[bluemeteor]

As long as the competitor can’t fire URDP, good seo, sounding nice, meaning well. I wouldn’t care much at startup.
But if your business want to surpass that competitor, their shorter dot com seems to have much more authority.

 

[Macit]

You can see all the domain names that contain "apptrack" (only gTLDs): https://dofo.com/search/?contains=apptrack (change apptrack with your keyword).

The results may say something to you.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of dofo.com

 

[MR Harrist]

if I don't have Big plan, for my website, usually I don't really care that much about domain name as long it reg fee and make sense, its more than enough!

actually apptracker.io is good enough but if I Have big plan, for sure I will not choose that kind of domain! from my seo standpoint, to be honest, dot io is not good, because IO is CCTLD, and as far as I know, if our website using CCTLD our GWT will fix for certain country, as result your ranking will dominant for country target! but in the other hand, you will loose rangking for non target country!

but of course, if your market for British Indian Ocean Territory. for some reason it will help your ranking! but if your market target in US, probably you will need 2 times backlink ! but again don't worry!, as long you hired good seo, and can get backlink from US website, maybe it can solved your problems, its just you need 2 times, effort from other website. thats all no biggy! if normal person spend $5k, for backlink, you just need more, something like $10k or above, but I assuming you'll use adwords than SEO as marketing effort, so again no problems

 

[MapleDots]

Personally I think the .io extension hurts it. Other than domainers, developers etc the general public does not know what .io is and that is what some very popular websites have found out. I read a story the other day of a big site rebranding completely because they wanted to switch from .io to .com and when they could not get the .com they rebranded entirely.

To answer your question, personally I don't think you have a problem but I would be careful before sinking a lot of money into developing an io extension. I think you could find a .com if you focused on it.