"It is the single biggest mistake one can make on the Internet"

[IAmAllanShore]

According to Rick Schwartz, the "...single biggest mistake one can make on the Internet" would be registering and promoting a .net that you don't own the .com for also.

I know that many a 'folk here have .net's that they don't own the .com for, myself included.

<snip http://www.dnjournal.com/columns/cover020204.htm >
Still, Schwartz thinks the new extensions are a better bet than one old-timer, .net. “.org is the #2 extension because of its widespread use with charities and heavy TV and print advertising. .net is the orphan. It has no identity and loses massive amounts of traffic automatically to the .com counterpart. Not basing your business on a .net extension is the #1 piece of advice I would give anyone that asked. I would choose .whatever over ANY .net unless you own the .com version. If you promote .net, and don’t own the .com, you are likely working hard for someone else and wasting 15%-25% or more of your hard work and marketing efforts. It is the single biggest mistake one can make on the Internet.”

Schwartz recognizes that “it is statements like that where folks either totally agree with me or hate me for saying it. But it is FACT and the more the fact is shown the greater the hate grows. Having a .net to base your business on is like building a boat with a BIG gaping hole in it. What does it say about the boat owner/builder that gets angry when you point out that HUGE LEAK?”
</snip>

Can't help but think that this guy has made millions and millions doing this, so he must know what he's talking about... but at the same time it's depressing to think that 3 letter .net's might even be OVERvalued right now...

-Allan

 

[dsforsaken]

so basically if you had site.net, you should also buy site.com and make site.net redirect to site.com?

 

[Grrilla]

so basically if you had site.net, you should also buy site.com and make site.net redirect to site.com?

Yup. That would be how I'd play it. The usual scenario would be that you regged the .net, because the name was important to you, for whatever reason, and the .com was unavail. You would, than, either purchase the .com from it's current owner or you would acquire the .com name as a drop.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

so basically if you had site.net, you should also buy site.com and make site.net redirect to site.com?

Not necessarily. Some people actually like the sound of .org, .net, or .info better and use one of them as primary and recirect the .com to that. It depends which one you want to promote.

 

[Grrilla]

Not necessarily. Some people actually like the sound of .org, .net, or .info better and use one of them as primary and recirect the .com to that. It depends which one you want to promote.

Good point. There are good reasons, (often due to branding), for preferring to use exts, other than .com, for the masthead site- whether you own the .com or not.

For instance, if I were starting out from scratch, and had both the .com and the .net for "mobile", I'd go w/ mobile.net and redirect the .com to it. (If it was actually there at that moment in time, I would have probably passed on the .org, to grab another one of those fat .coms instead- can you imagine!?- Ahh...but I digress.) One of my own sites, (temp offline for total remake, yadda, yadda), that I don't have the .com for, but prefer the ext I do have, is MentalCase.Org, because of my vision for the site, and how I want to brand it.

 

[worldstar]

Habits is important! Most people would like to type .com!
Yet php.net is easier to remember!
If choose phpnet.com and php.net,maybe i choose phpnet.com

 

[Grrilla]

Habits is important! Most people would like to type .com!
Yet php.net is easier to remember!
If choose phpnet.com and php.net,maybe i choose phpnet.com

Right. In my "mobile" example, for instance, I chose .net over.com, but because I am branding mobile.net, if I was forced to choose between mobilenet.com and mobile.com, (perish the thought), I would choose the mobilenet.com as a developer, because of mobilenet type-ins, but would take mobile.com as a straight name investment. Again, .net is my preference w/ mobile, but in example of "php" my choice would be php.com over both php.net, and phpnet.com, which brings us back to .com being the usual preferred, first choice of the exts.
Between phpsource.com and php.net, I'd take the php.net, right now, but I'm, in all honesty, not certain that this is necessarily the the best choice. (That's a toughy.) Both would develop well- php.net is more valuable as a name, but does have the .com default search problem to overcome. phpsource, is weakened because of the multiple alternate ways that phpsource could be expressed, ie phpsite, phphome, etc.

 

[armstrong]

Back on topic, anyone notice that Schwarz said that he preferred ".whatever over ANY .net unless you own the .com version." I think that's putting down .net to the max, and is way off-base. He wasn't talking about just ".com vs .net" in his statement, but ".net vs. everything else".

Would anyone here agree that php.tk is better than php.net? That's what Schwarz was saying.

 

[Grrilla]

Back on topic

I thought I that I was on topic, but I will defer to your judgement, Armstrong, because you are, usually, alot more on the ball w/ this sort of thing than I am. (plus, you've gotten your MBA. and I've only got an MA.) :p

Would anyone here agree that php.tk is better than php.net? That's what Schwarz was saying.

Not me! .tk would have to gain a tremendous amount of exposure and move up the tld hierarchy in dramatic fashion, for that to ever happen. What is it w/ that Schwartz character, anyways? He should take more care in qualifying his statements.

In all seriousness, and as previously mentioned, .net should be the tld of choice for sites dealing w/ the infrastructure of the internet, ie ISP's, networks, communication etc. and Schwartz's statement has some truth, but only in a rather limited context, IMHO.

 

[armstrong]

Wouldn't the 2-letter MA.com be more valuable than the lowly MBA.com? I should've found namepros before taking that d*mn course. :notme:

 

[Grrilla]

Wouldn't the 2-letter MA.com be more valuable than the lowly MBA.com?

At the risk of seeming to act like one of those guys that always wants to pop in the last comment: Armstrong, this may be true, but your's is, I'm sure, an active site that is bringing in revenue, and mine is still collecting dust and $0.18/mo, (on a good month!), at a ppc site.

Last comment on the Schwartz fellow w/ the prescience, early on in the domain name arena. Is it possible that he could have been trying to acheive some dramatic effect, by overstating his opinion, regarding this issue?

 

[primacomputer]

In the context of what Schwartz was saying I would have to agree 99%. He's not saying .net is no good. He's not saying you can't make money off buying and selling them. He's not saying you can't park them at Sedo and make some money. All he is saying is that if you are going to promote your business on the net having a .net without the matching .com is a bad idea.

When you promote a .net name without owning that .com you loose a traffic to the .com site. How much depends on the type of promotion you do. Same thing when you promote a hyphenated name without owning the un-hyphenated. If you have money to spend on promotion spend some of it on a good .com name. I would choose my local ccTLD over a .net in nearly every case.

I agree that .net fits for certain tech businesses. I have a few .nets for tech companies, but I have the .com for every .net I own. I'll often use the .com for the corporate site and the .net for network related things, mail servers, name servers, etc.

 

[Exovian]

I have to agree. That does make someone think.

Nice Thread.

 

[CrazyTech]

Well I'd be on affected by this statement.

I just purchased a medium-sized .net free hosting/email and directory website. The .com is owned by someone else and seemingly is partially used (just has an email login when you visit). It has been registered by them ever since 2002. Although I do not know the traffic stats for the .com I'm not too worried about it. As long as you brand the site as a .net you'll be fine. That's not to say that I'll be looking into acquiring the .com but it's not a must for me personally. I don't think it's critical that you have the .com but it's nice to have IMHO.

 

[NickRac]

just buy both!

 

[Grrilla]

just buy both!

and if the .com is unavail, know the potential pitfalls and think twice before buying the .net. And if your voice on the internet is large enough, make broad, sweeping, controversial statements that draw attention and keep the discussion mills churning.

 

[PoorDoggie]

According to Rick Schwartz, the "...single biggest mistake one can make on the Internet" would be registering and promoting a .net that you don't own the .com for ...

meh... just bought, made, uploaded and am now promoting 6yd.net, and I don't have the .com noooooo!

 

[domainica]

Respectfully disagree with Rick. Someone's buying:
Net.net - $100,000
Almousa.net - $39,324
Ad.net - $24,990
Password.net - $20,555
Dubai.net - $18,000
Humour.net - $17,726
Fiji.net -- $17,500
Destination.net $17,000
Teacher.net - $17,000
Beijing.net - $16,998
Immobilier.net -- $15,311
Dog.net - $15,000
IIS.net -- $15,000
SY.net -- $15,000
Gratuit.net - $13,910
BVL.net - $12,500
MonteCarlo.net - $12,000
B2B.net - $10,200
Flower.net - $10,100
Draw.net - $10,099
FT.net -- $10,001
Jew.net - $10,000
RYL.net - $9,450
Grants.net - $9,000
Nubile.net - $8,639
Wedding.net - $8,000
SanDiego.net - $8,000
Mature.net - $7,209
Shoponline.net - $5,932
Paintings.net - $5,600

All sales verified by DNJournal.com and Afternic.

 

[RogueWriter]

Darn, I missed that "molism", William9. Tx for picking up on it. Gulp! Does that mean that draining that bottle of Tequilla while I was at Pool all day, might've been a mistake? I kept getting bounced back and forth between Pool and PayPal so many times, I couldn't figure out where the heck I was at. PayPool? PoolPal? PayPoolPal? I don't know! Guess I'll just have to wait 'til those 3 or 4 screens I been seein, all come together, so I ken see waz in all them emails thatz been stackin up. :tri:

errrr, now we know where Grrilla's X and 4 theory originated...... hehe!

 

[DOMiNIC]

Love him or hate him, I listen to anything Rick has to say even if I don't agree.

 

[Grrilla]

errrr, now we know where Grrilla's X and 4 theory originated...... hehe!

Only because I c4re -> Help for the Ogreyeter