6 ms·

(I work at Notion) I usually feel a bit apprehensive when I see a new app pop up using the .so TLD (Somalia, operated by SONIC.so), since we’ve faced a lot of

by jitl 3y ago

(I work at Notion) I usually feel a bit apprehensive when I see a new app pop up using the .so TLD (Somalia, operated by SONIC.so), since we’ve faced a lot of issues with it over the years. I end up repeating the same kind of comment about it (eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36825966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36825966), but I wonder if all the apps on it, including Notion, have changed the reputation of it with corporate firewalls by now. Still, watch out if you host user-generated content there, it can be hard to undo reputation damage to .so domains if you get reported to various watchdogs. Notion’s longest hard-down outage happened after a takedown notice got sent to one of our upstream providers but they never forwarded it to us, and it took ling hours on the phone to various NICs and ISPs to get unblocked.

stickfigure 3y ago
Also - the organizations that run the DNS servers of little top level domains are not necessarily competent. Back when I had a company on the .st domain, we had an 8-hour outage when something in the TLD infrastructure broke and their support team was asleep: https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-letter-TLDs-for-your-domain-name https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-l...
- jitl 3y ago
  Yeah, this reminds me of our outage. When we finally got through to SoNIC at 2am their time, and they scrambled to find someone who could speak English, and we scrambled to find someone who could speak French. I think with high school level on either side plus Google Translate, eventually we worked out the issue was with an intermediary in Germany.
dinkleberg 3y ago
Not the OP, but thanks for the heads up! Just recently started a new project with a .so domain, but looks like I'll have to pick up another one. No point introducing more work for ourselves just for a domain name.
- addandsubtract 3y ago
  What's the rationale behind using a .so tld in the first place? Unless it allows you to have a clever domain name (which neither notion.so nor shots.so are), I don't get the appeal.
  - dinkleberg 3y ago
    Getting a nice named domain rather than having to do something like getX.com. If the name you want is taken on .com, .io, etc but none of them are actually in use or are completely unrelated to your industry, using a less common tld can make sense.
    - zakki 3y ago
      I'm curious, why .so (Somalia, unstable country)? why not let say .id (stable country)? Is it easier to get .so?
      - DANmode 3y ago
        Cheaper, higher margins for some registrars, so promoted, highlighted, whatever, by those registrars.
tiffanyh 3y ago
Why doesn’t Notion use .com (since you now own notion.com)?
- jitl 3y ago
  Our public API uses Notion.com: https://developers.notion.com/ https://developers.notion.com/ Switching the product and marketing sites would take a lot of work for unclear/low benefit since at this point we’ve learned the .so lessons and have a good reputation. Given the choice of projects like “scale infra so we stay online and fast-ish”, “improve search”, or “notion dot com”, Notion dot com ends up below the cut line.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Why choose .so in the first place? Am I missing some cleverness in the name here?
    - gnrlst 3y ago
      Likely was one of the only available ones and they felt it was edgy? in terms of cleverness, perhaps "so" as in "so much"
      - dylan604 3y ago
        if you have to use a TLD from some country that is not exactly the most stable and can at anytime shut down your domain because you feel it is edgy, maybe you should be rethinking that. Maybe it's a generational thing. Do younger internet users not pause at the domain name if it looks sus at all? Then again, how many users are actually using domain names to get to websites? With everyone obfuscating the basic link with some cute button, or shortening within the address bar, or any other modern things to hide the grotesque string of text, do people even see the actual links in the day to day adventures on the web? Maybe this is an everyone needs to get off my lawn moment, and I should just go find a cocktail?
  - tiffanyh 3y ago
pantsforbirds 3y ago
I lost access to all of our documentation at work for a week because my (small local) ISP banned all content from Somalia as being suspicious. I had to call their office and explain to them that Notion is a rather large and popular application.
- jitl 3y ago
  Thanks for your help and sorry for the trouble!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pedalpete 3y ago
I honestly don't even look at tld's anymore, and I'm surprised anyone does. We just got the .com for our re-brand, and my co-founder was excited because he hates .co/.net/etc etc. I get why the .com is valuable, but does anybody really think that just because a site has a .so extension that the company has anything to do with somalia? How many people even notice that notion is a .so?
- jitl 3y ago
  well, enterprise firewalls still find .so to be sus. We're making progress with our growing reputation, but still get feedback like this: > Will you ever convert your domain from .so. Our security systems block that domain and prevent any of our users from accessing the site.

by jitl 3y ago

stickfigure 3y ago

Also - the organizations that run the DNS servers of little top level domains are not necessarily competent. Back when I had a company on the .st domain, we had an 8-hour outage when something in the TLD infrastructure broke and their support team was asleep: https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-letter-TLDs-for-your-domain-name https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-l...

jitl 3y ago
Yeah, this reminds me of our outage. When we finally got through to SoNIC at 2am their time, and they scrambled to find someone who could speak English, and we scrambled to find someone who could speak French. I think with high school level on either side plus Google Translate, eventually we worked out the issue was with an intermediary in Germany.

dinkleberg 3y ago

Not the OP, but thanks for the heads up! Just recently started a new project with a .so domain, but looks like I'll have to pick up another one. No point introducing more work for ourselves just for a domain name.

addandsubtract 3y ago
What's the rationale behind using a .so tld in the first place? Unless it allows you to have a clever domain name (which neither notion.so nor shots.so are), I don't get the appeal.
- dinkleberg 3y ago
  Getting a nice named domain rather than having to do something like getX.com. If the name you want is taken on .com, .io, etc but none of them are actually in use or are completely unrelated to your industry, using a less common tld can make sense.
  - zakki 3y ago
    I'm curious, why .so (Somalia, unstable country)? why not let say .id (stable country)? Is it easier to get .so?
    - DANmode 3y ago
      Cheaper, higher margins for some registrars, so promoted, highlighted, whatever, by those registrars.

tiffanyh 3y ago

Why doesn’t Notion use .com (since you now own notion.com)?

jitl 3y ago
Our public API uses Notion.com: https://developers.notion.com/ https://developers.notion.com/ Switching the product and marketing sites would take a lot of work for unclear/low benefit since at this point we’ve learned the .so lessons and have a good reputation. Given the choice of projects like “scale infra so we stay online and fast-ish”, “improve search”, or “notion dot com”, Notion dot com ends up below the cut line.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Why choose .so in the first place? Am I missing some cleverness in the name here?
  - gnrlst 3y ago
    Likely was one of the only available ones and they felt it was edgy? in terms of cleverness, perhaps "so" as in "so much"
    - dylan604 3y ago
      if you have to use a TLD from some country that is not exactly the most stable and can at anytime shut down your domain because you feel it is edgy, maybe you should be rethinking that. Maybe it's a generational thing. Do younger internet users not pause at the domain name if it looks sus at all? Then again, how many users are actually using domain names to get to websites? With everyone obfuscating the basic link with some cute button, or shortening within the address bar, or any other modern things to hide the grotesque string of text, do people even see the actual links in the day to day adventures on the web? Maybe this is an everyone needs to get off my lawn moment, and I should just go find a cocktail?
- tiffanyh 3y ago

pantsforbirds 3y ago

I lost access to all of our documentation at work for a week because my (small local) ISP banned all content from Somalia as being suspicious. I had to call their office and explain to them that Notion is a rather large and popular application.

jitl 3y ago
Thanks for your help and sorry for the trouble!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pedalpete 3y ago

I honestly don't even look at tld's anymore, and I'm surprised anyone does. We just got the .com for our re-brand, and my co-founder was excited because he hates .co/.net/etc etc. I get why the .com is valuable, but does anybody really think that just because a site has a .so extension that the company has anything to do with somalia? How many people even notice that notion is a .so?

jitl 3y ago
well, enterprise firewalls still find .so to be sus. We're making progress with our growing reputation, but still get feedback like this: > Will you ever convert your domain from .so. Our security systems block that domain and prevent any of our users from accessing the site.