Domain Names: Importance and Costs

Major Dubfire

Hi folks,

I recently went to register a domain for a business I am planning to set up soon, but the .com version of the website name is taken. I have purchased the .net version instead and am wondering whether it is worth bidding for the .com version.

I'm curious to hear from anyone who has noticed a difference (or lack thereof) between the effect domain extensions have on user and customer activity.

More specifically, in terms of landing pages and being found through paid/organic search, would a .com domain be much more advantageous when it comes to website visitors and ultimately sales?

Thank you.

Dades

The .net domain used to be the first alternative to the .com domain back in the day when there was only really .com, net, & org.

I don't really see anyone using it any more save the type of companies who it was originally intended for such as large network companies.

There are dozens of TLDs now, there must be a better option available to you? What about the .ie? .io or .it are also both popular.

Sure a .com would be good, but in my experience greed is rampant with domain sitters. They'd rather sit on them than give sell them for a fair price. It costs nothing to enquire, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Axwell

You would be better off going with the .ie and .com - .net

If the domain you want is gone (which is the case with a huge amount of .com) then alter the domain slightly if possible by adding something like 'we are' ahead of the business name.

For example if your business is called Red Square then go with weareredsquare.ie /.com

It will also make it easier to get the social media handles on twitter and facebook.

You need to be looking at the availability of them all and try get them all at once so spend a bit of time checkign everything is available you want.

ironclaw

The landscape for doing well in the domain game has changed greatly, especially with Google's rank changing in the Q3/Q4 of last year. A great number of top sites fell as there is new criteria including the need for SSL. Good for shaking things up but another expense that in some industries is unfounded e.g. Portfolio sites with no sensitive data. We have noticed however that the consistently high ranked sites are the ones that pay for AdWords. We did an experiment with one over a 4 week period. No Ads, we dropped to page 3 organically, paid again, we rose to position 2 within about 3 or 4 days. Which makes sense, but having a great name won't have you at the top in competitive searches.

If it was me, I'd go with .ie for anything but tech. If its tech, go with .io

ironclaw

The landscape for doing well in the domain game has changed greatly, especially with Google's rank changing in the Q3/Q4 of last year. A great number of top sites fell as there is new criteria including the need for SSL. Good for shaking things up but another expense that in some industries is unfounded e.g. Portfolio sites with no sensitive data. We have noticed however that the consistently high ranked sites are the ones that pay for AdWords. We did an experiment with one over a 4 week period. No Ads, we dropped to page 3 organically, paid again, we rose to position 2 on page 1 within about 3 or 4 days. Which makes sense, but having a great name won't have you at the top in competitive searches.

If it was me, I'd go with .ie for anything but tech. If its tech, go with .io

Graham

.com unless you're targetting UK/Ireland in which case get the appropriate CC TLDs (.ie / .co.uk).
.io may work if your a tech startup targetting other tech startups.
.net may be appropriate if you're a comms/networking-tech business otherwise forget it.
Assorted .NewWord tld's, forget it (for now). It's the domain equivalent of opening a shop in a shed at the bottom of a garden in Leitrim.

It's not all about SEO either, you will probably want your customers to remember your domain/email etc etc etc

ironclaw wrote: »

The landscape for doing well in the domain game has changed greatly, especially with Google's rank changing in the Q3/Q4 of last year. A great number of top sites fell as there is new criteria including the need for SSL. Good for shaking things up but another expense that in some industries is unfounded e.g. Portfolio sites with no sensitive data. We have noticed however that the consistently high ranked sites are the ones that pay for AdWords. We did an experiment with one over a 4 week period. No Ads, we dropped to page 3 organically, paid again, we rose to position 2 on page 1 within about 3 or 4 days. Which makes sense, but having a great name won't have you at the top in competitive searches.

If it was me, I'd go with .ie for anything but tech. If its tech, go with .io

SSL is only 1 small factor taken into account for ranking purposes but given an SSL cert can cost less than a tenner why wouldn't you.

“Google does not, not, repeat NOT give a higher ranking to websites which run AdSense. They’re completely independent. It’s not the case that if you run AdSense you get any kind of boost in a ranking or anything like that.” — Matt Cutts

Trojan

Are your customers in a specific country? Go with the appropriate country code TLD (like .ie).

Are your customers worldwide? Go with a global TLD (like .com or one of the new alternatives).

Can't get the .com? Go with something else to get started, and either stick with it, or invest in the .com when you can afford it in a couple of years time.

Major Dubfire

Thanks for all the responses folks.

It is a B2C service provision in Ireland initially but also in the UK not long afterwards (if not immediately). Although targeted at Ireland and the UK it will be available beyond there so I don't think a country specific tld is the way to go.

It seems a .com domain with an additional word or character might be the best route for now, until hopefully a time comes when I can get the main .com domain. The main issue will be choosing a name to go before .com that does not make it significantly less memorable or catchy etc.

It is not tech which rules out .io.

Cheers, appreciate the feedback.

jmcc

Major Dubfire wrote: »

It is a B2C service provision in Ireland initially but also in the UK not long afterwards (if not immediately). Although targeted at Ireland and the UK it will be available beyond there so I don't think a country specific tld is the way to go.

Graham's and Trojan's advice above is the best. From what I can see, a ccTLD per country service is the way to go. (I'm not a SEO but work with domain names, TLDs and how their markets work. I have a different view of how the domain name market is changing.) There has been a shift away from .COM over the last few years towards .ccTLD in various countries so much so that it is almost automatically assumed that a service targeting the Irish market will have a .IE and a service targeting the UK market will have a .CO.UK. Small fringe TLDs like .IO might make sense for some applications but in reality about more than 80% of any country's market is dominated by .COM and the local ccTLD. With fringe TLDs, there's always the problem that the site will lose traffic and customers to the .COM or .ccTLD. The .NET TLD has stalled and has been in decline for a few years. It benefited from a Chinese bubble which saw a spike in new domain name registrations but these have largely washed out of the TLDs without being renewed.

It seems a .com domain with an additional word or character might be the best route for now, until hopefully a time comes when I can get the main .com domain. The main issue will be choosing a name to go before .com that does not make it significantly less memorable or catchy etc.

You are building a brand. Do you hear people refer to 'google.com' or 'Google'? The TLD should not matter. Spend more time on getting the brand right.

Regards...jmcc

Graham

jmcc wrote: »

From what I can see, a ccTLD per country service is the way to go.

+1

With liberal sprinklings of hreflang tags and canonical URLs to keep Google happy.

That's exactly the approach I'm taking with a new e-commerce site I've spent the last 3 months building for the Mrs so if it's wrong I'm fecked

Digital_Guy

Major Dubfire wrote: »

Thanks for all the responses folks.

It is a B2C service provision in Ireland initially but also in the UK not long afterwards (if not immediately). Although targeted at Ireland and the UK it will be available beyond there so I don't think a country specific tld is the way to go.

It seems a .com domain with an additional word or character might be the best route for now, until hopefully a time comes when I can get the main .com domain. The main issue will be choosing a name to go before .com that does not make it significantly less memorable or catchy etc.

It is not tech which rules out .io.

Cheers, appreciate the feedback.

Get the .ie, .co.uk and then a variant of your .com name. Then if you do get to the stage where you are 'big', then you could bid for the .com name.

A tip for you is that if you do think you are going to want the .com, bid for it sooner rather than later because if the owner sees that you have indeed grown to a certain size, they will want more for it.

If you want to market to and attract search traffic from Irish shoppers / visitors, then I advise you to get the .ie. Since it's the same for the UK then get the .co.uk too - people want to buy from a site that is associated with their country and you will do lot better SEO-wise too, although it depends on your overall focus and approach in terms of marketing and targeting your audience.

Websites4u

depends on what the bids are. We have the .IE version and were looking for the .COM version. They were looking for €250K. Now you have to decide if its worth it or not, however, I wouldnt be bidding for that. I would if the cost was reasonable. There are a lot more options now such as abc.xyz (Alphabet, parent company of Google), .IT, .EU etc...

.IT is for italy, but you could be smart and us it in another way, e.g. .US, delicuio.us ... taking away the initial usage of .IT or .US

With apps coming on board, i dont think its worth it, change the name, or get a .net and get going on it!

sReq | uTeK

you could always look at a .co its the Columbia domain extension but no restrictions on who can register and it seems popular now with people claiming it stands for corporation and company.

.ie and .co.uk and .uk are all out there now too.

.xyz has been made popular by the fact that googles parent company alphabet have taken it in the form of abc.xyz

Graham

Websites4u wrote: »

.IT is for italy, but you could be smart and us it in another way, e.g. .US, delicuio.us ... taking away the initial usage of .IT or .US

I'm not sure that would be particularly smart.

How many times have you seen a .it domain name rank anywhere outside of Italy?

Google have a list of cc TLDs that they treat as gTLDs. .it is not one of them.

Generic Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs): Google treats some ccTLDs (such as .tv, .me, etc.) as gTLDs, as we've found that users and webmasters frequently see these more generic than country-targeted. Here is a list of those ccTLDs (this list may change over time).
.ad
.as
.bz
.cc
.cd
.co
.dj
.fm
.io
.la
.me
.ms
.nu
.sc
.sr
.su
.tv
.tk
.ws

jmcc

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

you could always look at a .co its the Columbia domain extension but no restrictions on who can register and it seems popular now with people claiming it stands for corporation and company.

No. The .CO ccTLD is a truckstop TLD where users go before being directed elsewhere. You will lose traffic to the .COM because people automatically assume that they've misheard and will add the 'm' to the end. Overstock, a US company, did a switch to a .CO domain a few years ago and lost 60% or so of their web traffic. They switched back.

.xyz has been made popular by the fact that googles parent company alphabet have taken it in the form of abc.xyz

No. It is not really a popular gTLD and the registration volume has been artificially inflated by 1 cent domain name offers and other heavily discounted domain offers in the Chinese and Japanese markets. It is really a Chinese market dominated gTLD with very little visibility in the Irish market.

The .IRISH gTLD has the largest new gTLD footprint in the Irish market but development rates are low as it is a relatively new gTLD. The second, from memory, is the .CLUB gTLD. Again, .CLUB suffers from an exposure from the Chinese market. There are some new gTLDs that should be avoided completely as they are toxic TLDs and browsing random domain names are more likely to lead to adult affiliate websites, video streaming sites, gambling affiliate websites or a PPC lander. The proliferation of these types of websites has been enabled by heavy discounting offers from registrars.

You cannot really judge the quality of a gTLD by the number of domain names registered. In order to use them properly, you have to understand the niche at which the gTLD is aimed and the market breakdown of the gTLD.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Websites4u wrote: »

With apps coming on board, i dont think its worth it, change the name, or get a .net and get going on it!

There's even a .APP new gTLD but Google has got that and they haven't a clue what to do with it. It might have been a good gTLD under a clueful management/registry.

Regards...jmcc

Digital_Guy

Some dubious advice here...a .co is fine for a trendy new startup or if you really cannot get a .com or another tld for the name you absolutely must have.

.xyz and the likes - just for where you are right now at least, maybe don't look at Google and think you can do the same

If you want to do business in Ireland and be taken seriously, you need a .ie.

If you want to do business in the UK and be taken seriously, you need a .co.uk.

The exceptions broadly speaking are where you are already up and running a while and doing fine with your .com, or where you are very much targeting a global market and can manage with sub-folders targeting local markets.

brimal

Digital_Guy wrote: »

If you want to do business in Ireland and be taken seriously, you need a .ie.

If you want to do business in the UK and be taken seriously, you need a .co.uk.

The above advice is all you need.
If you can't get the .com then stick to ccTLDs.

You really are doing your business a disservice by using anything else.

Websites4u

agree with @brimal . but if you are looking to expand past country borders, you need to move out of .IE/CO.UK to .COM . This is where issue is, they are all nearly taken. Stripe was named as it was the only domain they could find in .COM. I wouldnt have an issue buying from .Shop or .Buy , or .xyz. i would have 5 years ago, now i don't as I understand good .COM domains are hard to come by! I think it was Money.com or Pizza.com sold for $3M or $12M.

Dades

Ironically Stripe couldn't initially get the .ie domain!

I know because my mate did a deal with them, but only after the business he was using it for ceased trading.

That said, they only use the .ie to redirect to stripe.com/ie.

Websites4u

if you're that big you would get .ie , .it , etc... however, i would say if your looking to go intl .COM is the way to go if you can find it.

Also congrats to your mate - pints on him next time were in silicon valley

Websites4u

i would have thought that if you bought Buy.it (if it was available) and hosted on an irish server, with irish customers,etc, it would show up in Ireland..?

ironclaw

Websites4u wrote: »

i would have thought that if you bought Buy.it (if it was available) and hosted on an irish server, with irish customers,etc, it would show up in Ireland..?

Lots of factors at play. For example: site language, hreflang tags, site contact details, physical store location, general linkage to and from, visitor origin and locale... The list is pretty extensive.

mneylon

jmcc wrote: »

Websites4u wrote: »

With apps coming on board, i dont think its worth it, change the name, or get a .net and get going on it!

There's even a .APP new gTLD but Google has got that and they haven't a clue what to do with it. It might have been a good gTLD under a clueful management/registry.

Regards...jmcc

Not entirely true  They have quite specific plans for it, though it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Websites4u

i suppose as it moves towards apps - searched for on Google and Apple, domain names become less irrelevant..?

Dades

I find the value of a .app domain is hard to get behind. If you have a mobile app... it's found in an app store. I guess there's desktop apps too, but they're not really what people associate with the word.

Google or someone could make a concerted effort to promote it in some way but the public have shown a real stubbornness when it comes to accepting what they're told is the Next Big Domain.

Websites4u wrote: »

i suppose as it moves towards apps - searched for on Google and Apple, domain names become less irrelevant..?

It that more relevant?

Websites4u

two negatives so i suppose it is thanks for pointing that out - i hang my head in shame. .COM initially was commercial, but it took of so people just think of .COM , not .commercial, should i say people don't not think of .COMmercial