GreenGambler said:
I'm wondering to hear your thoughts on which is a better choice for a domain name. For a company that is more reliant on SEO and traffic but still wants a name that is easy for it's customers to remember and find.
Assume that the targeted keywords .com are already taken. Also assume that ABC is one keyword and that 123 is the second keyword. Finally, assume that the combinations of keywords or neither releated to an organization nor buisness if used for the corresponding extension.
Which is the better choice?
ABC-123.com/net
or
ABC123.org/biz/us
Thanks,
GG
Hmmm....you asked a lot of good questions... I'll try to tackle a couple.
People prefer .com domains and thus build out & link to .com sites more than anything else, for that reason, .coms have a stronger weight with the search engines. The fact of the numbers and popular links lead the engines to go in their favor. Further, most people believe that .com rules, they have been around a long time and most major companies have a .com. Domainers and internet savy people for the most part feel that .coms are rarer and that the owners must have had it for a long time or paid a lot for it. Webmasters also are more apt to link to a .com than a .cc thinking the ranking is better.
I would choose a .com alternative like abcD123.com (however, you didn't mention this). If you can't get that, I'd do the .net (second strongest tld), then the .org. As for the dash you have with the .net option, I'd try to register both the hyphened and unhypendated domain (wal-mart.com and walmart.com). Often the dash helps with SEO, (not in the case of wal-mart) though. However, customers don't really like them. For me, I only get dashes in place of ultra rare .coms that look like 3 letter domains (l-ll) However, I don't really like the way ABC-123.net looks. I could easily say A dash BC dot com but ABC dash 123 dot net is a bit much.
I like .nets and recently purchased about 50 LLLL.nets (just in case) however, I would not want my company being a .net and having a dash in the name. In my mind I'd think that a company wasn't successful enough to get a .com, however, they got a .net which is okay. But, if the .net was dashed, I'd think that someone else must already had the undashed version, so this company is pretty new.
As for the .org idea. I really like .org names. I've got 3 charity names that look great with them. But, if your not in the organization or charity business, having a .org domain to me would look really out of place. It could also devalue a high priced brand. I couldn't imagine seeing a RalphLauren.org or Gucci.org
Hope any of my ramblings helped.
