Which Domain Name Extensions are Best?
There seems to be no shortage of lively debate between those who swear by .com domain names as the way, the truth and the light, and those who believe that the keywords contained within the body of the domain are of greater value than the extension. So which is the case? They can't both be right, can they?
As with most questions involving internet technology and profitability, the answer is not quite as simple as crowning one approach over the other. Depending upon one's needs, budget and general business strategy, there are situations in which owning a .com domain name is ideal, and there are some situations in which domain names containing the primary keywords being targeted in search would be preferred, even with an obscure extension.
Geo targeting effectively levels the playing field across all domain extensions. The only difference the extension makes is on the branding end of things, and people are in fact smart enough, I have found, to remember a two-letter extension as opposed to a three-letter extension such as .com.
Having keywords in your domain is far, far more important to the overall potential for profitability of the name than the extension ever was or will be. I think the perceived weight/authority of the 'dot com' TLD - both in the minds of people and search engines - is somewhat overrated. The popularity of the 'dot com' extension is substantially lower outside of the United States where country-code TLDs tend to dominate.
Additionally (and more importantly), it is extremely difficult to obtain a genuinely high-quality .com via new registration. That is not to say it never happens, but it is the exception - not the rule.
Much fuss is made over users typing in exampledomain.com when in actuality the site they intended to go to was located at exampledomain.net (or any other non-.com TLD). However, most users eventually reach their intended destination, and very few make the mistake more than twice.
Every bit if not more traffic is lost by the site whose domain is mycoolexampledomain.com (or any other excessively long combination of characters) as would be by the site with the short keyword-domain at a non-.com TLD.
In general, I tend to favor keyword-domains in various TLDs, unless of course the .com has significant strength from a marketing/branding perspective.
I don't go after just any TLD, though. There are a select few that meet my branding specifications that I will register when the keywords are right. Most notably, I like .net, .us, .ws .info and .cc. For multimedia sites, acceptable TLDs include .am, .fm and .tv.
Don't get me wrong, I still love .com domain names, but only if the name itself is of good, sound quality. If the domain sucks, I'd prefer a better name in a less-common extension, preferably with good keywords contained within it.
Tags: domain monetization, domain names
