This or that short domain international.tld advice please

[dezinerite]

There is an international .tld available for a word that best decribes my business. The word is a generic 4-letter word but phonetically sounds the same if you remove the vowel, which would give me a 3-letter non-word domain name (also available).

E.g.:
tumbler: word
tumblr: non-word, but now brand

My question is too obvious: which should I register?

Also, I kind of like the plural of the word, but if I register it, that means the 4-letter one will be available for a competitor to snap up. Sort of like if you're selling shirts, it might be cool to own shirt.com but on the other hand shirts.com might be better for typed-in traffic.

Back to my question, my business is both offline sales and consulting, so I'm not to focused on online traffic. My gut is telling me to stick to the 4-letter generic. But I might be able to brand the 3-letter non-word.

 

[Domain Lead Finder]

If it is really important to you, why risk? Just reg both.

 

[dezinerite]

Only one will ever really be used, e.g. for emails, signboards and so on, so I would prefer to reg only one. The renewals are also more than a hundred dollars so it would be costly over the years, especially it not actually being a .com.

 

[korganian]

If your business is successful, you will always wish you had gotten the correct spelling with the extra letter because you will lose a lot of traffic to it and create a lot of brand confusion for your customers.

 

[dezinerite]

So you're advising me to register the full generic domain, is that what you mean? Thanks.

 

[korganian]

Yes, but also consider that 3 letter domains are currently appreciating rapidly in any extension that experiences a buyout. So you may want to buy the full generic for your business and get the 3 letter as an investment.

 

[james haw]

Only you can decide which one to 'use' as we do not know enough about the domain name, your business, etc.

If it's too expensive to reg more than one then your decision is made, reg whichever you prefer. Otherwise, I advise buying both if you buy/use the non-full name.

So if you buy tumbler.com then no need to reg others, as you could go on for ever - tmbler, tumblr, tmblr, etc etc. However, if you reg any non full version then yes buy the full version as well (not all the others though).
So then you have and use tumblr.com, but anyone who mistakenly tries to go to tumbler.com gets to your site too. You don't have to use it or market it etc, just redirect to your live one.

This is not essential, as backlinks and your marketing etc will point to your exact domain name, but sites do get free traffic because a similar domain name has been promoted, depends on the domain name, and should be fairly obvious if it's a potential or not.


That said, this all really depends on the scenario, your business, the domain name, your plans, future marketing, etc etc. And 3/4 char is not likely to have many similar potentials. So it's all just general advice you need to consider, not take as a solid rule to work by

 

[james haw]

Yes, but also consider that 3 letter domains are currently appreciating rapidly in any extension that experiences a buyout. So you may want to buy the full generic for your business and get the 3 letter as an investment.

This is true, and most certainly a consideration to ponder. However, again entirely depending on the name as it's entirely possible the 3 char version will be lost in the ether of China and not likely to be any competition for you.

 

[Manik]

Buy the 4 letter. Also why not buy the 3 letter as a link shortener or at the least, brand protection? 2 Years later, if you're not happy with the 3 letter, you can sell it off because it is most likely to be liquid then. Best of luck!