4 ms·

Not to burst your bubble but I'm convinced we're moving into an era where your domain name and TLD are becoming less and less relevant. Google and Social are a

Not to burst your bubble but I'm convinced we're moving into an era where your domain name and TLD are becoming less and less relevant. Google and Social are all that matter. Had you asked me 4 years ago if I'd ever consider building a business on .io or .co I would have laughed in your face. Now I'm building products on both of them. FWIW, I used to buy/sell domains and I think it's a terrible investment strategy now. I can't tell you how many thousands of dollars I've wasted. Unless you're able to pick up one-word / 3L .com's for very cheap and know you can easily flip them, it's just not worth it.

eightturn 10y ago
gotta disagree, with all due respect. But I do like the .io extension.. but confused - you say Google & Social are all that matter.. Google indexes domains. And once a user visits a domain and has a positive experience, the domain would be that much easier for them to remember. And with social, you don't own or control the content - so if they fold (or change the rules), you're up the creek.
- chrishacken 10y ago
  > Google indexes domains Based on their content, back links, etc. > And with social, you don't own or control the content Using social to drive traffic to the content, not posting content directly on social.
- herbst 10y ago
  The point is returning people dont remember your domain anyway. They type the first few chars of your brand and hope for a suggestion. Thats why "getbrand.com" domains are a bad idea, and tlds dont matter because costumer akquisition happens over social or backlinks anyway.
melvinmt 10y ago
In the context of YC, here's what pg thinks about domain names: "If you have a US startup called X and you don’t have x.com, you should probably change your name. The reason is not just that people can't find you. For companies with mobile apps, especially, having the right domain name is not as critical as it used to be for getting users. The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness. Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company. Whereas (as Stripe shows) having x.com signals strength even if it has no relation to what you do." http://paulgraham.com/name.html http://paulgraham.com/name.html
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- eightturn 10y ago
  author here.. I've pinned that post on twitter. Paul gets it.
- chrishacken 10y ago
  How many companies have started without x.com that are now huge? Tesla was TeslaMotors.com before it was Tesla.com, Square was SquareUp.com before it was Square.com, DataDog was Datadoghq.com before it was Datadog.com; I can keep going.. (yes, they're still .com's, but you wouldn't consider datadoghq.com investable. In all likelyhood, Datadog only used that name because it was a $9 registration.) The domains didn't make them succeed. I mean sure, if you're going to invest in domains, I'm not going to argue that buying turtle.com for $9 is a good idea, but those days are long gone. Anything that's dropped or available now probably isn't going to be worth anything; unless you're paying $8k on NameJet and flipping for $10k.
  - scrapcode 10y ago
    Didn't rap genius start as a subdomain even?
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    To add to this, Steam is still steampowered.com.

eightturn 10y ago

gotta disagree, with all due respect. But I do like the .io extension.. but confused - you say Google & Social are all that matter.. Google indexes domains. And once a user visits a domain and has a positive experience, the domain would be that much easier for them to remember. And with social, you don't own or control the content - so if they fold (or change the rules), you're up the creek.

chrishacken 10y ago
> Google indexes domains Based on their content, back links, etc. > And with social, you don't own or control the content Using social to drive traffic to the content, not posting content directly on social.
herbst 10y ago
The point is returning people dont remember your domain anyway. They type the first few chars of your brand and hope for a suggestion. Thats why "getbrand.com" domains are a bad idea, and tlds dont matter because costumer akquisition happens over social or backlinks anyway.

melvinmt 10y ago

In the context of YC, here's what pg thinks about domain names: "If you have a US startup called X and you don’t have x.com, you should probably change your name. The reason is not just that people can't find you. For companies with mobile apps, especially, having the right domain name is not as critical as it used to be for getting users. The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness. Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company. Whereas (as Stripe shows) having x.com signals strength even if it has no relation to what you do." http://paulgraham.com/name.html http://paulgraham.com/name.html

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
eightturn 10y ago
author here.. I've pinned that post on twitter. Paul gets it.
chrishacken 10y ago
How many companies have started without x.com that are now huge? Tesla was TeslaMotors.com before it was Tesla.com, Square was SquareUp.com before it was Square.com, DataDog was Datadoghq.com before it was Datadog.com; I can keep going.. (yes, they're still .com's, but you wouldn't consider datadoghq.com investable. In all likelyhood, Datadog only used that name because it was a $9 registration.) The domains didn't make them succeed. I mean sure, if you're going to invest in domains, I'm not going to argue that buying turtle.com for $9 is a good idea, but those days are long gone. Anything that's dropped or available now probably isn't going to be worth anything; unless you're paying $8k on NameJet and flipping for $10k.
- scrapcode 10y ago
  Didn't rap genius start as a subdomain even?
- yellowapple 10y ago
  To add to this, Steam is still steampowered.com.