.mobi iPhone/iPad/Mobile Sites, is it worth having .mobi?

[neogrant]

Hi,

I'm after a little advice on a few things really, which hopefully someone can answer.

Is it worth purchasing a .mobi domain for the likes of iPhone/iPad etc? Or instead adding a sub domain like mobile.site.com

Advice appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Erdy]

The mobile subdomain is usually shorter like http://m.facebook.com/

To be honest, if I wasn't a domainer I wouldn't even know there is such a thing as mobi. That tld has been a total failure. I'm surprised people still talk about such a useless thing.

 

[neogrant]

Thanks for the heads up !

 

[Steven]

Agreed with Erdy.

 

[scandiman]

Either .mobi or subdomain can work. It's expected to see more .mobi bashing here from a domainer perspective, and yet more and more .mobi sites emerge while domainers continue the bashing. My mobile web reading list includes cnnmoney.mobi, time.mobi, foxnews.mobi, circleid.mobi, espn.mobi, weather.mobi and more, while at the same time I keep hearing at NP of how dead the extension is. Whatever.

 

[carob]

Hi,

I'm after a little advice on a few things really, which hopefully someone can answer.

Is it worth purchasing a .mobi domain for the likes of iPhone/iPad etc? Or instead adding a sub domain like mobile.site.com

Advice appreciated.

Thanks

Are you asking this as a domainer or a site owner?

Mobis have so little resale value that it makes no sense to buy them for resale. For development they do as well in search as other tlds. If you already have a site on an existing domain it makes no sense to use a mobi as well and adds expense - the convention now is use m. or else no subdomain so you just serve mobile content on the same url.

You can use this tool to search for actual active developed mobi sites and decide for yourself if there are many.

 

[freeflow]

Here are some points to consider for your decision.

m.domain.com is one character longer than domain.mobi and .mobi looks better than
all the other possibilities (Good for marketing).

.mobi domains are whitelisted by network level transcoders

Designing great mobile sites takes time and effort to get the most out of the limited screen resolution and navigation mechanisms of mobile phones. Having invested money and time in creating your mobile presence, you don't want a third-party transcoder modifying your site ... but this is exactly what happens when you use a non-standard name for your mobile Web site. As a rule, .mobi sites are automatically whitelisted by all network-level transcoders, so you can be sure your site will render as you intended on all mobile devices.

.mobi domains offer better search engine performance

In North America alone, search engine marketing last year was at $12.2 billion and is forecast to grow to $25 billion by 2011. Those numbers show that search engine performance has become crucial to the success of any business. Because every .mobi domain registered gets its own entry in the Internet Zone File -- the files that search engines use to start their crawls -- your site will automatically perform better than any other naming convention. Additionally, search engines detect when searches are being made from mobile devices and prioritize their results accordingly. Because .mobi sites are high quality and made for mobile, they are automatically brought to the top of the mobile search results.

http://mtld.mobi/resource/top-5-reasons-why-you-need-a-mobi-name

Why don’t you just give it a try before the domain you want is registered by someone else.
You can always drop it later if it doesn’t work for you.

 

[carob]

Sorry, but this stuff from MTLD is just NOT true, you should very, very careful about this company and what they say. They lost huge amounts of money and got dumped by all their backers while assuring domainers they were in profit and on course for success. Domainers lost really large amounts of money on .mobi.

When MTLD / DOTMOBI said that stuff about mobi advantages five years ago it had some chance of coming true IF mobi domains ALL carried mobile content, which they planned to require. They gave up on that totally, another big failure, so you can do whatever you like with a mobi domain, and people do.

So search engines and transcoders treat mobi like any other domain, no advantages to the site owner except maybe a short keyword domain for reg fee. And possibly disadvantages if people can't remember or trust the extension, or think it only has mobile content.

.mobi domains are whitelisted by network level transcoders

Designing great mobile sites takes time and effort to get the most out of the limited screen resolution and navigation mechanisms of mobile phones. Having invested money and time in creating your mobile presence, you don't want a third-party transcoder modifying your site ... but this is exactly what happens when you use a non-standard name for your mobile Web site. As a rule, .mobi sites are automatically whitelisted by all network-level transcoders, so you can be sure your site will render as you intended on all mobile devices.

.mobi domains offer better search engine performance

In North America alone, search engine marketing last year was at $12.2 billion and is forecast to grow to $25 billion by 2011. Those numbers show that search engine performance has become crucial to the success of any business. Because every .mobi domain registered gets its own entry in the Internet Zone File -- the files that search engines use to start their crawls -- your site will automatically perform better than any other naming convention. Additionally, search engines detect when searches are being made from mobile devices and prioritize their results accordingly. Because .mobi sites are high quality and made for mobile, they are automatically brought to the top of the mobile search results.

 

[scandiman]

So search engines and transcoders treat mobi like any other domain...

Yea, in google I haven't seen any specific benefit they give to .mobi. As for transcoders it seems that is becoming less of an issue as phone browsers improve. I've seen some of the transcoding whitelists and .mobi was usually listed, but so was other common naming conventions like mdot. Where transcoding is deadly is to pc sites that rely on auto detection because the mobile site can be ignored and the transcoded pc site shown to the site visitor. So for me the transcoding debate is less about .mobi and more about the use of auto detection alone.

 

[Erdy]

m.domain.com is one character longer than domain.mobi and .mobi looks better than
all the other possibilities (Good for marketing).

How about a little common sense before you investigate such useless details as one being one character longer than the other. The .mobi tld is the weirdest thing people have seen and will see on the internet.

When they are linked to .mobi most people will think that is a fake website or they will not understand what it is. It is some weird useless crap nobody knows about. Yet you think the length of characters is important.

Good luck with that approach as a domain investor. I hope you invest all your money in mobi.

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 PM ----------

"m.facebook.com" can't be fake. It is a subdomain. But "facebook.mobi" could be fake. It is a completely different domain. The first thing I think when I see something unexpected such as "facebook.mobi" is that it might be fake. Then I spend some extra time searching whether or not it is fake. You might save people 0.01 seconds by using one character less but many people will end up spending a few minutes more just to check what that fake looking link is.

Here are two examples:
namecheapcoupons.com
mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird

Both of those links are official but when I saw them I thought they might be fake because it was not what I was expecting to see. I would expect to see

namecheap.com/coupons
and
mozilla.com/thunderbird or mozilla.org/thunderbird or thunderbird.com

Whenever you show people an official link that they were not expecting, or can not connect directly to the official site, they will think it might be fake. Mobi does not look good, It looks fake!

If I see something like namepros.mobi, I don't think namepros owners have created a mobi version. I think some scammer created an impersonating website to steal my password. Mobi looks as fake as it gets. It looks like a total scam, like a totally stupid idea and something totally useless. It is as stupid as fake wrestling.

 

[scandiman]

How about a little common sense ... The .mobi tld is the weirdest thing people have seen and will see on the internet.

How about a little more fact and a little less opinion.

When they are linked to .mobi most people will think that is a fake website...

Please point us to a survey that supports your conclusion that most people will think a .mobi is a fake website. Bank of America and it's millions of customers don't seem to share your opinion or concern.

It is some weird useless crap nobody knows about. Yet you think the length of characters is important.

You're entitled to your opinion, doesn't make it fact. As for length of characters it was the detractors who made such a big stink about character length in the beginning, I'm glad you no longer think it matters.

If I see something like namepros.mobi, I don't think namepros owners have created a mobi version.

For a few years namepros was using namepros.mobi for a mobile website, they let it go in favor of using apps for mobile users, concerns over phishing were never cited, in fact I don't use the app for namepros because it's a 3rd party app and I have no assurances that the app isn't able to collect my username and password.

Mobi looks as fake as it gets. It looks like a total scam, like a totally stupid idea and something totally useless. It is as stupid as fake wrestling.

Again, you're entitled to your opinion, doesn't make it fact.

 

[freeflow]

I’m always amazed about the reactions when mobi is mentioned even though it is said to be dead. To add some oil to the fire I've listed a few "real" companies that use a mobi. If your theory was true these companies would have only registered their names and would not have used them for their mobile websites.

Bing.mobi
Google.mobi
Microsoft.mobi
Nike.mobi
Norton.mobi
Blackberry.mobi
T-Mobile.mobi
Lufthansa.mobi
Vodafone.mobi
Nokia.mobi
3Skype.mobi
MTV.mobi
Cisco.mobi
Xbox.mobi
Coca-Cola.mobi
Volkswagen.mobi
NGC.mobi
Visa.mobi
Iberia.mobi
Heineken.mobi
BMW.mobi
Barcelona.mobi
Frankfurt.mobi
Dublin.mobi
Helsinki.mobi
InformNY.mobi
BofA.mobi
Chase.mobi
Deutsche-Bank.mobi
Wachovia.mobi
Barclays.mobi
Fidelity.mobi
Ing.mobi
AXA.mobi
Ferrari.mobi

 

[Erdy]

I didn't say companies don't use mobi. I said mobi looks fake. I'm not going to use any of the mentioned links before I search google and confirm that it is not fake. So why bother using a TLD that might be fake and needs checking before it is used?

Have you ever heard about user experience? What kind of experience does mobi create? The answer is simple: an annoying experience. Why? Because people need to check that is genuine before using it.

Do you automatically login to "gmail.de" without questioning whether it is genuine? It is in fact unrelated to google.

When I go to Barclays.mobi and see a barclays logo and some content that looks genuine, what do I think? I still think it is fake because this is exactly what a scam site would do.

A scam .mobi site would look exactly the same like a genuine .mobi site. There is no way to confirm whether a mobi is genuine without spending a few minutes and making a google search.

Do I want my users to make a google search and waste a few minutes just so that they can confirm my mobi site is genuine because I was stupid enough to use .mobi instead a subdomain which would completely eliminate the problem? No.

No matter what you do all mobi sites look fake because they are on a different tld than the genuine website. And because there are lots of fake websites on other tlds, the user rightfully will question any additional tld that is not the genuine tld of a site.

Mobi is doomed to look fake by definition. There is no way to fix it. No matter what you do all mobi sites will always look fake to a new visitor.

 

[scandiman]

When I go to Barclays.mobi and see a barclays logo and some content that looks genuine, what do I think? I still think it is fake because this is exactly what a scam site would do.

Then you obviously haven't visited their mobile banking page at http://www.barclays.co.uk/MobileBankingServices/Mobilebanking/P1242561069586 which clearly tells their customers to visit www.Barclays.mobi

If financial institutions (arguably the most sensitive type of content) are having success using .mobi for their online banking then your assumptions are not supported by fact. Please present even one .mobi website that is actively trying to trick customers of an existing PC website into providing their personal information.

 

[Erdy]

The question is not whether there are impersonating sites using .mobi, the question is, can you use .mobi instead a subdomain without creating fear that the mobi site might be fake? And the answer is no.

Even if mobi is the most trustworthy extension and there is absolutely no problem with it, still it looks fake.

If you told me to visit "godaddy.mobi" or "namepros.mobi" or "barclays.mobi", I would not visit any of them before I search on google if they are genuine.

However if you told me to visit "m.godaddy.com", "m.namepros.com" or "m.barclays.com" I wouldn't have such a problem.

Mobi does not provide a solution. It creates a problem that does not normally exist. Therefore I will not use mobi. If I design a website and my client wants me to use .mobi I will refuse it because I can not create a bad user experience for anybody.

 

[scandiman]

The question is not whether there are impersonating sites using .mobi, the question is, can you use .mobi instead a subdomain without creating fear that the mobi site might be fake? And the answer is no.

Again, many financial institutions are currently using .mobi without a problem so your conclusions are not supported by the facts.

If you told me to visit "godaddy.mobi" or "namepros.mobi" or "barclays.mobi", I would not visit any of them before I search on google if they are genuine.

I'm not telling you to do anything, it's the likes of Barclays, Bank of America and others that are telling their customers to use a .mobi website. If you don't like that that's not my problem.

Mobi does not provide a solution. It creates a problem that does not normally exist. Therefore I will not use mobi. If I design a website and my client wants me to use .mobi I will refuse it because I can not create a bad user experience for anybody.

Refusing to do as your client requests seems foolish but that is your prerogative. The bad user experience probably would have more to do with your development skills than the .mobi extension you have an irrational hatred of (as evidenced by your statement "Even if mobi is the most trustworthy extension and there is absolutely no problem with it, still it looks fake."). But hey, it's your business to do with as you wish, I feel sorry for your clients who are not being given a balanced perspective.

 

[carob]

Then you obviously haven't visited their mobile banking page at http://www.barclays.co.uk/MobileBankingServices/Mobilebanking/P1242561069586 which clearly tells their customers to visit www.Barclays.mobi

That is what I need to see to be sure that company really is using another domain - a direct link from their own site.

Paypal of all people actually send out surveys that take place on another domain, I took the trouble to verify it but I bet most people just think SCAM and don't do the survey. A really silly mistake that reduces response rates.

Thanks for the transcoding info. I have a successful site on a mobi domain which google transcodes, which makes no sense since the site only has a mobile version. I actually have picked up the same domain in another extension, but in this case I stuck with mobi - using only one domain, not two - because it is very competitive and I really only want to compete and create an identity for that subject on mobile. So I can see why some would want a standalone mobi domain, but I doubt that is enough to create an aftermarket for domainers. But domains don't exist for domainers, really.

---------- Post added at 07:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 PM ----------

Bing.mobi
Google.mobi
Microsoft.mobi
Nike.mobi
Norton.mobi
Blackberry.mobi
T-Mobile.mobi
Lufthansa.mobi
Vodafone.mobi
Nokia.mobi
3Skype.mobi
MTV.mobi
Cisco.mobi
Xbox.mobi
Coca-Cola.mobi
Volkswagen.mobi
NGC.mobi
Visa.mobi
Iberia.mobi
Heineken.mobi
BMW.mobi
Barcelona.mobi
Frankfurt.mobi
Dublin.mobi
Helsinki.mobi
InformNY.mobi
BofA.mobi
Chase.mobi
Deutsche-Bank.mobi
Wachovia.mobi
Barclays.mobi
Fidelity.mobi
Ing.mobi
AXA.mobi
Ferrari.mobi

I'm not sure how meaningful 34 domains are in a registration pool that has now reached 1 million. How many are redirects? I've never heard of google.mobi - some of these lists of big names are five years old and in some cases the companies no longer use mobi.

 

[FathomJH]

I'm not sure how meaningful 34 domains are in a registration pool that has now reached 1 million. How many are redirects? I've never heard of google.mobi

Agreed.

It has been almost 5 years since the release of .mobi and the companies using .mobi has basically stayed the same if not decreased. Most on the list are redirects and redirecting does not constitute using.

Thank you, have a nice day :imho:

 

[scandiman]

It has been almost 5 years since the release of .mobi and the companies using .mobi has basically stayed the same if not decreased.

Since you believe the number has gone down do you have a list available of companies who have stopped using .mobi?

Most on the list are redirects and redirecting does not constitute using.

That's debatable. Companies like Bank of America that actively promote bofa.mobi to their customers but redirect those visitors to bankofamerica.com/mobile/ are clearly using a .mobi domain to interact with their customers and to disregard it over a technical aspect of their servers is unreasonable. Other companies are much more passive about it with the .mobi being one of many mobile naming options that redirect and don't promote the .mobi specifically. In the latter example I would generally agree the .mobi usage is nothing to get excited about.

 

[Erdy]

Mobi is the most stupid idea in domain history from a domainers point of view. However from the founders of this TLD it makes sense. They sold a stupid idea to thousands of people. This takes real talent. Congratulations to them.

Mobi is a weird TLD a bunch of domainers assume it has value and they keep selling those domains between each other. Smart mobi investors found some naive people to offload those worthless names.

If you are one of those naive people who bought into the hype, please keep writing here how good mobi is. It is kind of entertaining to read those desperate attempts to justify your poor decisions.

 

[scandiman]

Erdy, your opinion is well noted, let me know when you have some facts to discuss

 

[carob]

Mobi is a weird TLD a bunch of domainers assume it has value and they keep selling those domains between each other. Smart mobi investors found some naive people to offload those worthless names.

Domainers took risks buying domains in a new, debatable TLD and created a two year price bubble at the start so some lucky domainers quickly sold .mobi domains to other domainers at a profit. But domainers afaik are not buying aftermarket mobi domains now, they have almost all lost money. No one is promoting mobi now afaik, not even the Dotmobi company itself.

But I still wonder if the OP was asking about .mobi from a site owner/developer point of view or a domainer point of view. You can get good TLD domains for reg fee to develop in .mobi if you think the extension will work for you, but don't expect to resell even with a developed site.

 

[DU]

No one is promoting mobi now afaik, not even the Dotmobi company itself.

This isn't true. Promotion occurs in many flavors.

If you think the extension will work for you, but don't expect to resell even with a developed site.

A successful developed site will sell.

What you get in .mobi is a decent opportunity but with little to no reseller fallback. You won't recover your $10 if you fail but you will more than recoup if you succeed.

Sounds worth the risk to me.

Full Disclosure: I have no .mobi and I was totally anti-mobi for a while but I'm re-investigating as opportunities abound for the clever thinker.

 

[freeflow]

There used to be a time when most people couldn’t believe that the world is round.... :D

 

[DU]

There used to be a time when most people couldn’t believe that the world is round.... :D

It's not.

The closest approximation to the shape of the world is an oblate spheroid or oblate ellipsoid.