TLD Option 1

[damber]

I'm starting work on a new, personal (though business focused) web project, and have a preference question...

For my selected domain name I have 3 TLD's currently owned: .co.uk, .org and .biz

Initially the project was to have a for-profit arm (.biz / .co.uk), and a not-for-profit arm (.org) - however it doesn't make architectural sense to split these areas up - as the backend is so closely involved and the UI should really be integrated. So...

I wanted to know what your thoughts were on which to use as the primary TLD (leaving the others as aliases). As this is a commercial site .org doesn't seem to cut-it. The domain name is only 4 char's in length and sounds phonetically great with .com - though this has been hijacked by a rather useless link farm... so, as this will initially launch in the UK, I am torn between .co.uk and .biz - .biz sounds snappier, though as it's less commonplace, would that lose the site credibility? Would .co.uk make better sense in terms of localisation and SEO ? I don't expect this to stay a primarily UK service, so is the .biz a winner or is .co.uk the better choice ?

Appreciate any comments / thoughts..

Thanks

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[pmonett]

If your domain name has already been hijacked in the .com arena, I'd be wary of using it in .biz or anywhere else.
After all, you could very well be accused of domain hijacking yourself, and from what I've read, it is most difficult to demonstrate one's innocence and retain the domain when that happens.

I would choose another domain name. After that, I'd use .com as the front-end, and sign up all the others to point there.

But I'm just a programmer.

Pascal.

 

[damber]

The .net and the .com are owned by different organisations - the .net has been owned by its current occupier for several years and doesn't do anything at all (1 page with picture)... the .com was up for renewal earlier this year and we were looking to purchase it (to add to the existing set of TLD's for the domain) once the existing owner - who did nothing with it - completed their term.

However, through what seems like unscrupulous channels (we found this out as we have contacts in the domain name sales area), the domain name was picked up by another company, who is a link farm (useless 1 page site with affilliate links on it - they buy up thousands of domain names for this purpose - kind of like spammers of the domain name world) - by that time we already had the other TLD's, and should have had the .com - so I don't think your assumption is appropriate in this case... There is evidence that we own the other TLD's outright, and it will be (soon) the name of the company (fully registered etc) - as the link farm doesn't use this as a company name, the legal side would favour us (especially as we had the others registered before the .com). Besides, getting a good 4 letter domain name is nigh on impossible these days...

Any other thoughts on which to use ?

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[chiph]

If you're not on .com, you'll never be seen. I would suggest you find a new name that you can get the .com TLD for.

Having .co.uk and .biz are nice-to-haves, and not requirements.

Chip H.


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[damber]

If you're not on .com, you'll never be seen.

Thanks for the input, it's interesting to hear you say that (and probably very disappointing for the millions of sites that aren't .com's...); I live and work in the UK and find succesful .co.uk (only) based companies regularly, and in my own approach to surfing - which all of my co-workers and friends seem to share - I would use Google as a first point of reference, and as far as I know, Google's algorithm doesn't exclude .co.uk or .biz or any other TLD... nor do any of the search engines, in fact for local search I believe .co.uk would be better than a .com...

However, I do agree that the .com is a very nice to have TLD: it adds credibility to the site and makes it easier to remember for users that hear it by word-of-mouth and guess at the TLD when they retype the url etc. We will continue to work on getting the .com - but I expect it will be a while before we can resolve it.

Unfortunately there are not an infinite number of useful names that span the necessary TLD's; mainly due to kids and the frontpage brigade buying up anything useful and not really understanding that .com is for commerce not for a personal home page; or link farms / domain resellers holding the internet names hostage either for 'the right price' or to spam the world with useless ads on single page sites that people only visit via SPAM links.

But back to the point, which would be better: .co.uk or .biz in terms of credibility and ease of rememberence?

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[chiph]

If you're targeting the UK market, I would go for .co.uk, if for no other reason that every cab in London seemed to have URLs ending in that TLD, the last time I was there.

Let the folks like Oracle do your customer education for you.

Chip H.


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[rvnguy]

damber,

I agree with the posts on trying for a .com in the current state of the net.

But as you have noticed, there are many names that are taken and then not used or .com's used for personal reasons.

To this end I do see this changing, and in the computing world these things happen fast.

As you have also noticed, the link farms do the redirection thing to get you to their site.

Take note as I have. I could not obtain the short list of names that I really wanted. So I set my site up on one that I had, as things progressed I hit upon another name that was available but now the site was set up else where. I redirected & masked it so that all calls to this site get redirected to the actual site but masked so the user sees the URL they entered. Just as the link farms do, I don't care how they get to me as long as they do.

If ever the time comes that a name I really wanted is available I will get that and redirect it to the functioning site.

Back on point: As the .com has been abused I see the .biz coming of age. I only hope that there is some self regulation in the community for this so we do not end up in the same place as with the .com's.

Just my opinion.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[damber]

rvnguy,

Thanks for the post - that is pretty much my thinking - it would be ideal to have the .com, but realistically having a .biz or a .co.uk with a (although I say it myself) really good domain name (4 chars) - compared to a .com like: this-siteis-difficult-to-find.com or irrelevantname.com -- I know which I would prefer as a consumer.

I'm still in two minds whether to set-up redirects or aliases for the different tld's - both have benefits and negatives.

OK, so I think I'm convinced - .biz it is, with the others (.co.uk, .org, .eu) aliased or redirected.

Thanks again,

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[rvnguy]

damber,

Maybe we can help start the .biz revolution!!

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[damber]

Hopefully...!



A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!