4 ms·

Let me put this as clearly as I can. This is very bad advice. I've been in this business since 1996 and I deal with end users and customers on both the buying a

by larrys 13y ago

Let me put this as clearly as I can. This is very bad advice. I've been in this business since 1996 and I deal with end users and customers on both the buying and selling side. For everything from a standard domain registration (at normal pricing that you can get at your registrar) to high value sales (let's say hundreds of thousands of dollars). Anything but .com is almost always going to be problematic and will more than likely cause problems. You can get a reasonably priced .com you just have to be creative. Let me give you an actual sale today that I handled. I bought both the .com and the .org of the same domain name for a customer (someone who sold their company to google iim).. The .com went for $70,000. I was able to get the .org for $1,500. Domains are all over the place and despite what the OP says (I will try to address that in a separate post) there are domains that can be had and sellers who are reasonable. Getting anything but a .com for a serious site is going to be a problem. If anything makes more sense to tack on a word to what you want (pre or suffix) than it does to get anything but a .com

petergreen 13y ago
"This is bad advice" only until google decides to tweak some rules. (by problems I assume you mean problems with google) For me it's a matter of principle: I will choose common sense over google. Sure if you're selling SEO services, you're google's b*tch, but when you're building a visionary company (yes, blah-blah), to me it's important to get a good name, and not worry about some ugly .com domain. Zerrply Tweekly Songza Vobbler.. etc - that's what this leads to. No thanks.
adventured 13y ago
It's not very bad advice. I've been building web businesses for 16 years. You have no advantage over me on time. The end of the dominance of .com was always inevitable, and is already occurring. Sites as varied as ask.fm, twitch.tv, minecraftwiki.net, foods.tv, formspring.me, php.net, about.me, imageshack.us, last.fm, mega.co.nz, rapidgator.net, popads.net, speedtest.net, ustream.tv, prchecker.info, who.is, all.biz, jsfiddle.net, justin.tv, bit.ly, scoop.it, snap.do and vine.co are proving that every day (or already proved it in the past). And that's ignoring the rest of the vast array of .net and .org sites. There will be a lot more big alt sites in the next five years. Instagram didn't start out as instagram.com. Clearly Vine didn't need the .com to succeed at all. Different use case than your typical 1998 .com? You bet, and that's exactly the future. The proof is already in place: you don't need a .com to succeed any longer. Among the top 5,000 global sites, .com addresses are in the minority now. Apparently other entrepreneurs and businesses in other countries are also having no problems building global, world class businesses without using .com. In fact, over the last decade as the web has become dominated by non-English speaking and non-American businesses and users, I'd argue that everybody outside of America is already very accustomed to the use of alternative domains. Just another reason .com is the past. Saying that something is going to be problematic, doesn't mean that it is actually so. Only $70,000 for that .com? You mean in other words very few startups could actually afford that. You're talking about an elite class of startups - the top 1% - once you're talking about spending $70k on a domain.
- marban 13y ago
  You're mixing up the importance of a .com for an app- vs. web-centric business.
  - adventured 13y ago
    No, I'm talking about the future. The .com argument is about the past. And I've listed tons of web centric sites that have had no problems succeeding without .com.
    - marban 13y ago
      Perhaps for a web-savvy audience/product but thisisthefutu.re wouldn't pass the bumper sticker test for a regular user.
- glennon 13y ago
  "Among the top 5,000 global sites, .com addresses are in the minority" Could you provide a source for this? I just picked a random top website page (http://stuffgate.com/stuff/website/top-1000-sites http://stuffgate.com/stuff/website/top-1000-sites) and found that 637 of their top 1000 are .com. It appears their rankings are from Alexa.
gadders 13y ago
I would say it depends on the audience, maybe? EG cutting edge webapp for developers [app].io or .fm is probably fine. Something aimed at middle-America (or the world) - maybe a .com is more appropriate.

by larrys 13y ago

petergreen 13y ago

"This is bad advice" only until google decides to tweak some rules. (by problems I assume you mean problems with google) For me it's a matter of principle: I will choose common sense over google. Sure if you're selling SEO services, you're google's b*tch, but when you're building a visionary company (yes, blah-blah), to me it's important to get a good name, and not worry about some ugly .com domain. Zerrply Tweekly Songza Vobbler.. etc - that's what this leads to. No thanks.

adventured 13y ago

It's not very bad advice. I've been building web businesses for 16 years. You have no advantage over me on time. The end of the dominance of .com was always inevitable, and is already occurring. Sites as varied as ask.fm, twitch.tv, minecraftwiki.net, foods.tv, formspring.me, php.net, about.me, imageshack.us, last.fm, mega.co.nz, rapidgator.net, popads.net, speedtest.net, ustream.tv, prchecker.info, who.is, all.biz, jsfiddle.net, justin.tv, bit.ly, scoop.it, snap.do and vine.co are proving that every day (or already proved it in the past). And that's ignoring the rest of the vast array of .net and .org sites. There will be a lot more big alt sites in the next five years. Instagram didn't start out as instagram.com. Clearly Vine didn't need the .com to succeed at all. Different use case than your typical 1998 .com? You bet, and that's exactly the future. The proof is already in place: you don't need a .com to succeed any longer. Among the top 5,000 global sites, .com addresses are in the minority now. Apparently other entrepreneurs and businesses in other countries are also having no problems building global, world class businesses without using .com. In fact, over the last decade as the web has become dominated by non-English speaking and non-American businesses and users, I'd argue that everybody outside of America is already very accustomed to the use of alternative domains. Just another reason .com is the past. Saying that something is going to be problematic, doesn't mean that it is actually so. Only $70,000 for that .com? You mean in other words very few startups could actually afford that. You're talking about an elite class of startups - the top 1% - once you're talking about spending $70k on a domain.

marban 13y ago
You're mixing up the importance of a .com for an app- vs. web-centric business.
- adventured 13y ago
  No, I'm talking about the future. The .com argument is about the past. And I've listed tons of web centric sites that have had no problems succeeding without .com.
  - marban 13y ago
    Perhaps for a web-savvy audience/product but thisisthefutu.re wouldn't pass the bumper sticker test for a regular user.
glennon 13y ago
"Among the top 5,000 global sites, .com addresses are in the minority" Could you provide a source for this? I just picked a random top website page (http://stuffgate.com/stuff/website/top-1000-sites http://stuffgate.com/stuff/website/top-1000-sites) and found that 637 of their top 1000 are .com. It appears their rankings are from Alexa.

gadders 13y ago

I would say it depends on the audience, maybe? EG cutting edge webapp for developers [app].io or .fm is probably fine. Something aimed at middle-America (or the world) - maybe a .com is more appropriate.