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Ask HN: Non .com .tld for project website
I'm having trouble finding a good domain name, all good .com are taken (surprised pikachu face)
What other tld than .com would you suggest for a project/saas/tool* if .com is not available?
What do you see/stumble across that you would say are popular alternatives.
.io ?
.is ?
.so ?
grateful for any thoughts,
have an awesome day!
* not!! specifically targeted at it/tech people
- groffee 3y agoIt genuinely doesn't matter anymore. All mine lately have been .xyz you can get them for like $1 a year from porkbun.com.
- scottmas 3y ago.io .ai These are the only other ones I would consider
- robin_reala 3y ago.io is problematic: https://ict.io/en/the-dark-side-of-the-io-extension/ https://ict.io/en/the-dark-side-of-the-io-extension/
- yieldcrv 3y agoand .af domains have to be shariah compliant me and the Taliban not caring about what .af has been reappropriated for
- tkiolp4 3y ago.net Or the tld of your country if possible (e.g., .de for Germany, .fr for France, etc.)
- abudabi123 3y agoName or hyphenated-name dot org or dot space if usage terms match?
- brudgers 3y agoJust pick something that won't get you sued and move forward with what matters. At best, this is premature optimization. If and when the project is wildly successful, you can change the name should it really matter. In the average case, "good domain name" is a means to invent an non-problem to work on so as to avoid working on the hard problem. What I mean is that the time it takes to read this comment is more time than should be devoted to finding a domain name for a project that doesn't have the financial wherewithal to outsource the problem to branding experts and purchase whatever domain the experts recommend. Good luck.
- 3000 3y agothank you, i really like this comment.
- locusofself 3y ago.cloud is an option too if appropriate.
- 3000 3y agoits a very good extension, but i really dont like long tld's i prefer 2 or 3 char max. but as pointed out in other comments... it shouldnt matter at all at this stage.
- ratio11 3y agoSimple opinionated answer: .io and .so A decade ago .io meant you were trendy and in tech, now it means you’re in tech. Today .so means you’re trendy and in tech.
- felixg3 3y agoI was surprised by the sudden tech boom at the Horn of Africa.
- 3000 3y agonotion started the .so trend didnt they? follow up question.... why? whats 'so' short for?
- niemandhier 3y agoShared object, it’s the traditional extension of dynamically likeable c++ libs.
- 3000 3y agothanks didnt know that, was thinking SOftware
- ratio11 3y agoAs far as I know, yes. Namecheap markets it as being short for software, or social.
- simantel 3y agoIt's short for Somalia. I don't think Notion has ever said why they chose it, though?
- abrudz 3y agoThere are now many new tlds of which one might fit the subject domain of your project/saas/tool. Though specifically targeted at it/tech people, I created an informational site using .info and a colleague created one to help people with a difficult aspect using .help
- walthamstow 3y agoI like .net, I think it's underrated and the domains usually undervalued relative to other TLDs.
- marginalia_nu 3y agoOnly tangentially related, I'd warn against .icu, .xyz, .tk, .online, and if you aren't doing business in these regions, domains associated with russia, ukraine, china, singapore, taiwan, bangladesh, zimbawe, and south africa. Many problem sites have been hosted on these domains, and blocking them is such an effective mitigation strategy it's surprisingly common. It can be difficult to for example send emails from these tlds, and firewalls may block your site as harmful, search engines will ignore you or penalize your ranking, etc.
- 3000 3y agothank you
- zhte415 3y agoI'm curious what you, or HN generally, thinks about .lol.
- stanislavb 3y agothat's in the NO, don't use .lol group. Unless is something very straight to the point.
- yieldcrv 3y agoconsider prefixes and suffixes to your desired name getSAAS.com SAASapp.com consider plural or singular to your desired name also ask ChatGPT if you don’t mind the data mining, theyre not going to register your project I’ve done that with domain names and monetized a viral campaign in a week, i didnt pick a brand name until i had the domain name but I’m probably not your target audience and I would never need an email from you to close a sale but I see .io, .dev, .xyz, .wtf, .finance employed alot. if you do those, still register a .com for the transactional emails
- 3000 3y agogood points, thanks!
- stanislavb 3y ago"saas" is a good example of a name where you could have "issues" conversationally. For example, if you are not in a tech circle. I run saashub(.com), and quite often have to explain "saas with double 'a'" or "saas like software as a service"
- et-al 3y agoPersonally, I wouldn't register any TLD that costs over $20/year for a side project.
- tailspin2019 3y agoHaven’t seen it mentioned yet but .app appeals to me more than something like .io these days (it at least seems like a safer TLD than the latter).
- 3000 3y agothank you. to me that indicates that its an app available on the play or app store, not a website.
- apex86 3y agoI like .app too. I think of a web app when I see it. Did anyone mention .co? That seems really close to .com and it's even shorter and seems pretty legit. Any more details on the project? maybe we can help come up with a cool name? good luck!
- dhruvkar 3y agoI like .orgs. I feel they convey a sense of trustworthiness and they're being slept on by commercial projects.
- shanecleveland 3y agoI've used .org and .net with success. Used .app recently. I prefer this to .io, .so, etc. People are familiar with the term app. Not so mysterious. All have ranked fine by Google.