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For domain names, how important is .com these days? Do you believe that a memorable name is more important?

Sure, people tend to look down at some top level domains ( .biz comes to mind), but what about .tv , .me & .ly ? Is it too early for the consumer population to remember these alternative tlds?

Hypothetical scenario - your companies product is focused around friends, and all the good friend related .com name's are taken (friend.com as well).

Which approach would you take?

  • amicus.com (latin for friend) or
  • friend.ly
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6 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

What is the purpose of the web site and who is the target audience? If you are trying to sell something, or just deal with the general public .COM is the only choice. How many times have you mistyped someone's email address because it ended in .net or .org? You mistype the email address because you have been trained, since the day you first went on the internet, that all internet addresses end in .COM.

A .COM address is reliable, trustworth, and normal.

The .NET and .ORG addresses are odd, but acceptable. Nowhere near as good as .COM though.

The .EDU and .GOV addresses don't count since you can't really get one of those.

Any other address is suspect. It is not normal. Why trust something strange? Other addresses scream "I couldn't do better than this. I'm desparate, so this is what I got."

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2  
+1 .com is the only choice for business. – Keith DeLong Feb 22 '10 at 18:20
1  
So far the only use for other domain extensions I have found is for the sites that shorten URLs. It is impossible to find a .com name as short as is.gd <g> – Gary E♦ Feb 22 '10 at 19:24
@gary Thanks for the feedback. Confirms my feelings. The target is the general consumer market - not the prosumer / hi-tech savvy ones. While I believe the prosumer would understand friend.ly (.ly as a TLD) , most others would think it was a typo. – jimg Feb 22 '10 at 20:44
up vote 5 down vote

There are a few odd names here and there that are successful without .com, such as bit.ly, or justin.tv, or last.fm. But, I'd agree with most of the people than answered, that a .com certainly increases the probability that you will be more memorable to customers.

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up vote 3 down vote

The .com TLD is essential because it's the gold standard of the web today. This is what mainstream business use and what users are will always type by default.

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up vote 2 down vote

This question should have been asked like "What type of TLD is more important, .com or .net or others?"

If you plan to make money out of your site then without doubt .com is required. TLD and domain name are entirely different things and should not be compared for importance as both are important.

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I understand (and believe others do) about the differences between a TLD and a domain name - sorry if the question was unclear. Perhaps the question would be better posed as such:: what's better for the consumer market - a short memorable name directly related to your product in a .tv or .im domain, or a longer, perhaps indirect name that would be available in .com? Yes, I could get both, but as a business you need to promote one. – jimg Feb 22 '10 at 20:40
up vote 1 down vote

It really depends on whether your website is global or regional. If global, then yes .com makes a big difference. However, if it's localised a ccTLD will work just as well.

However, I would highly recommend ensuring that not only does your domain name reflect your branding and/or product/service, but in doing this, keep in mind, the easiest way to get on top of organic search engine results is with the right domain name.

.ly and .tv and other domain names are as said above not the intuitive choice for people, but with the right marketing (as done before) you can overcome this, just be prepared for the teething phase till you do.

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up vote 1 down vote

From my answer on another page:

The advantages of .COM is that if people only remember the name of your "product" and not the url, it is way more likely that they will go .COM then .NET

Also, some users like to use Ctrl + Enter when they type in the address bar, which automatically inserts a .COM to it.

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