opinion Is It Important to Buy Multiple Domain Extensions?

[DediRock]

Hi, should I buy multiple extensions like .com, .net, and .org for my domain? I'm unsure if it's necessary for my small business.

 

[pb]

As a business, yes, you should. It's unlikely (but not impossible) that someone will launch a competing site on .org if you own .com, but scammers might want to use it and .org has good authority in general. Of course it doesn't make sense to buy all possible domains, but I think com, net, org + your country's ccTLD is a decent minimum. As your company grows you might want to use .net for internal systems and/or communications for example.

 

[DediRock]

As a business, yes, you should. It's unlikely (but not impossible) that someone will launch a competing site on .org if you own .com, but scammers might want to use it and .org has good authority in general. Of course it doesn't make sense to buy all possible domains, but I think com, net, org + your country's ccTLD is a decent minimum. As your company grows you might want to use .net for internal systems and/or communications for example.

Great points, pb, thanks! I’m curious—how do you decide which domains to use for different purposes like internal systems or communications?

 

[pb]

Great points, pb, thanks! I’m curious—how do you decide which domains to use for different purposes like internal systems or communications?

It just comes naturally. And if you have multiple domains with different TLDs, it's easier than "inventing" subdomains or variations. Oh and btw, same goes for CDN, for example you can serve static content from another domain etc. because if you use subdomains, it can get messy with cookies.

[edit] to add an example about internal use. Let's say you have a hosting company at abc.com and early on you made a mistake of giving each customer a subdomain in abc.com and/or mail at @abc.com. Well, for security reasons shouldn't have your intraweb use .abc.com subdomains and your employees @abc.com emails, but fortunately you can set it all up on abc.net that you own. BTW don't make that mistake.

 

[DediRock]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, pb! That makes sense—keeping the separation between customer-facing and internal domains is crucial for security.