But\n with as much excitement as there is behind these new domain name \nextensions, is it ever worth going through the trouble of not owning the\n .COM as well (as a redirect at the very least)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Going with a non \n.COM domain name might save you money in the short term, but there are \nmany reasons why you should try to own the .COM for your brand, even if \nyou plan to market it under a different domain extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. 46% of websites use a .COM domain name<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Make no mistake about it, the overwhelming majority of websites use .COM for their Internet presence. The extension dates back to 1985, when it was originally foreseen as the domain extension of choice for brick and mortar companies seeking a website (.net was anticipated to be used by Internet-only companies, but this never really panned out as expected). With the advent of the Dotcom boom, .COM as an extension quickly skyrocketed ahead of all other alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, over three decades later, it has become the go-to for nearly all major brands. In fact, investors and companies alike continue to pay tens of thousands and even well into the millions for premium .COM domain names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because \nof the overwhelming market share of .COM, particularly with major \ncorporations, most of the Internet-using public (including your would-be\n customer-base) has grown accustomed to assuming a company\u2019s website is \ntheir brand name followed by .COM. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, \nGoogle\u2014the list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, according to this list of Fortune 500 companies from 2016, 495 of them use a .COM for their domain name. Only 4 used a .net and 1 used a .org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\n are over 134 million .COM registrations at the time of this writing. \nThe next closest is .net with 14 million, which puts the extension soundly<\/em> in second place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a few companies, such as Nissan, who don\u2019t own their brand as a Dotcom, but those are the extremely rare exceptions. If you ever wanted to find Nissan\u2019s website, for example, chances are you\u2019ve had to backtrack to Google to learn that their website is actually https:\/\/www.nissanusa.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back before it went out of business, Twitter\u2019s popular video app Vine existed on Vine.co. Vine.com itself appears to be registered to Amazon. The domain simply redirects to their homepage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\n Internet has embraced over a thousand alternative domain extensions by \nnow, but many people still aren\u2019t familiar with the new ones. Of course,\n this is in some ways due to such a disproportional amount of the big \nbusiness being done online through a select few top level domains such \nas the Dotcom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you see .COM next to somebody\u2019s brand, it \nrelays a sense of credibility. Arguably, this supposed credibility is \nentirely misguided and largely superficial, as there are plenty of .COM \nwebsites that are used for less than credible purposes, however, the \nstigma remains: \u201cDotcom is more legitimate and others are the cheaper \nknockoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Segueing\n off of the credibility point in #3, it\u2019s no secret that .COMs can be \nworth substantial money. If a business is willing to fork out the money \nrequired to purchase a .COM (perhaps from an existing smaller company or\n from a domain investor who bought it years ago), it can be assumed on \nsome level that they\u2019ve had some success financially. On the other hand,\n if a company has been around long enough to have hand registered their \n.COM back before they were harder to come by, longevity is also \nnoteworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, these are perceived implications of owning a\n .COM. From a technical standpoint, using a .net or even .xyz is just as\n secure and just as reliable. But as marketers and branding experts \nknow, perceived value is often times even more important for making \nmoney than actual value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it possible to go register a .COM \ntoday for $15 and have no reputable history at all as a company? Of \ncourse. Owning a .COM doesn\u2019t mean a company actually is more \nestablished, but again, due to it\u2019s overwhelming use, the familiarity of\n a .COM can mean the difference between a customer visiting your website\n or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\n is definitely not always true, however, search engines like Google have\n been known to rank non-country-specific domain names better in \nuniversal search results than specific country code domains, which are \nsometimes assumed to be more specific to certain regions of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The domain extension .io, for example, is an exception. It\u2019s growing in popularity in the app and tech world due to its\u00a0input\/output\u00a0<\/em>abbreviation,\u00a0but it\u2019s\u00a0technically the country code domain for the British Indian Ocean Territory. In this case, however, Google understands that many website owners are using this ccTLd generically and not specifically to the British Indian Ocean Territory, but it\u2019s important to keep in mind that certain extensions will be ranked differently if the majority of their use is region specific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While\n this fact is also true for many TLDs including gTLDs (again, generic \ntop-level domains) and ccTLD (country code top-level domains), some \nTLD\u2019s come with strings attached. For example, if you wanted to register\n a .us or .ca, you\u2019d have to actually live in the United States or \nCanada, respectively. If you wanted to register a .nyc, you\u2019d have to \nprove your residency in New York City. Other domain extensions have \nAcceptable Use Policy agreements that you must abide by. These can \ninclude content restrictions or limitations. Always research your \ndesired TLD rules (if any) before making a major brand decision around \nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why\n are you reading this article? Is it because the .COM for the domain you\n wanted was available, but you\u2019d rather register it only as a .BIZ? Of \ncourse not. You\u2019re reading this article because you searched for your \nbrand name as a .COM and came up with nothing available. Now you\u2019re \ntrying to talk yourself into buying a non-dotcom domain and you\u2019re \nlooking for reasons to either talk yourself into it or out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typically, .COM is the first search people do when shopping for a new business domain name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\n truth is, there\u2019s a reason for that. Whatever that reason is for you, \nthat reason is why .COM is still king\u2014and that\u2019s not expected to change \nanytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some argue that .COM feels old \nor outdated. They claim that the newer TLD extensions are more trendy. \nThis is, of course, a strict matter of personal opinion. But even if a \ncompany chooses to operate their website from a non-dotcom domain \nextension, why not just buy the .COM as well and redirect it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In \nsome cases, we realize that buying a .COM can be cost-prohibitive and \nthis very advice can conjure up frustrating comparisons to \u201cLet them eat cake\u201d<\/em>,\n but honestly, there really are still many great options available under\n the .COM extension. With some time and creativity, you can come up with\n a great name for your business that is either still available to \nregister or at least available for purchase at a reasonable aftermarket \nprice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you just can\u2019t justify spending the money, you have \nto ask yourself this question. After reading the points in this article \nand looking at the facts, how much money will you have to spend in \nbranding to overcome the pitfalls of not owning a .COM? That\u2019s not a \nhypothetical question. It\u2019s something really worth pondering for your \nspecific situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can argue that there are several \nsuccessful companies that don\u2019t use .COM and you\u2019d be right. There \nabsolutely are. But would owning the .COM (even as a redirect) have made\n growing their business easier or more difficult? HINT: It sure wouldn\u2019t\n have hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also always exceptions to the rule and outliers. For example,\u00a0Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet, while leading the charge into the non-Dotcom era with their official domain name of abc.xyz<\/strong>, does not own its Dotcom counterpart\u00a0abc.com<\/strong>. Unless you\u2019ve been living under a rock, you probably assumed (and rightfully so) that this domain is owned by Disney\u2019s ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, does Google wish they owned that .COM domain name? You better believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: https:\/\/www.nurv.com\/why-com-domain-names-are-best-for-your-company\/<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the years, we\u2019ve worked with many clients who are just starting out or rebranding. This means we often consult with companies about choosing a domain name. With the recent explosion in gTLD (generic top-level domains) by ICANN (the entity that basically controls the Internet), domain registration options have never been more plentiful. Starting a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,16,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-report","category-news","category-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.buyerstreet.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Stat.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n2. Most people will assume your website ends in .COM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3. Owning a .COM domain lends credibility to your brand<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4. Owning a .COM implies that you are more established<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5. Search engines can sometimes favor .COM domains over others<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
6. The .COM has no TLD specific rules tied to it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. The fact you\u2019re even reading this article proves .COM is King<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In closing\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n