In a flash of genius I thought of the perfect name for the website I’ve been mulling around in my head for the past few months. Unfortunately, the .com is taken by a squatter who is demanding a usurious amount of money. No problem, that’s why god created other URL extensions, right? Except, I can’t think of a single successful gaming website or blog that uses a .net extension. In fact, I can’t think of any successful websites period that use a .net extension. (OTOH .org, which I’ve always thought of to have a lower status than even .net, brings to mind plenty)
So, here I am appealing to SDMB. Should I pull out the coat hanger and abort my brain fetus? Are .nets really that much harder to market? Are there any successful non-ISP/programming .nets?
It’s rather depressing how every major .net site needs to buy up the .com version of their URL. Boingboing, Pokerstars, and even Manhunt… Oh well, I’m going to give it a shot regardless. I’m going after the cheeto-stained shirt demographic so hopefully they’ll be able to tell the difference.
Most of the .net sites that dopers have mentioned also co-own the .com domain. The most popular .net site is sourceforge.net, which ranks #133 in traffic (according to Alexa). The most popular .net site that does not also own the .com domain name is php.net at #315
Unless you are going to spend money on branding, the domain name doesn’t matter. Folks are much more likely to find your site through a search engine and/or bookmarking it than by typing in the URL.
It used to be #1, it fell behind Adam4Adam.Com. That’s because A4A is free and Manhunt is limited. I remember when Manhunt.COM was an employment service, then it was a Christian site,now it redirects to Manhunt.NET
This is very true. As long as the other site is not active, it won’t be an issue. The trouble is if the .COM name is active people may get lost and go there first and get lost and never try to find your site. But if it’s just a placeholder it should be obvious and people will seek your site out if they go to the .COM name by error
I have a .org domain. A company has the corresponding .com domain. I have no problem with this.
I’m surprised that the OP thinks that .org and .net have a lower ‘status’ than .com; to me, they’re simply different. If anything, .com has a slight air of hucksterism that the others don’t. But for real hucksterism, get a .biz domain.
Originally, .com was supposed to be used for for-profit companies only, .net was supposed to be used for network infrastructure providers only, and .org was supposed to be used for non-profits, but that distiction was lost early-on. Pity; I think it would still be useful.
I had to get the .org domain because they weren’t yet selling .ca domains to the general public–to get one, you had to demonstrate a presence (usually corporate) in more than one Canadian province, otherwise you’d go under the subdomain for that province. And I think that similar rules held for each provice. At any rate, it was much much easier for me to get a .org domain in 1996-7.
It’s true that people will find your site if they know what they’re looking for, but the TLD can have a subtle effect on how people perceive the company. You’ve already seen on disparaging remark above on .biz. And I will never understand small businesses (especially 1-person companies) that have a domain name and web site but use an @aol.com email address.
There are lots of other options. There are other gTLDs as well, and every country can manage its own ccTLD, which matches its ISO two-letter country code. I got a .us name for my band. The island nation of Tuvulo has sort of made an industry of its .tv TLD.
PokerStars (and most other long-running online poker sites) started with .com. They later added the .net when television networks became nervous about the legality of advertising online poker. They create the legal fiction that “This is not a gambling website.” which keeps the network lawyers happy.
Another thing to consider is that if you start with a .net address and become successful, the price the guy wants for the .com version is only going to go up.
airliners.net is THE message board website for airline enthusiasts. Not necessarily frequent flyers, though there are those too. (Frequent flyers have their own board, flyertalk.com.) airliners.net is where people who love airplanes and airlines talk about airliners, airline routes, airline finances, show pictures of airliners and airports, etc. It’s very busy.
Actually, in fairness, the *.net site is not a gambling site. It’s a play-for-free online poker site. As you suggest, this allows them to build branding while allowing the networks to sidestep the issue of promoting gambling. This also makes it easier to block visitors from locales that require it and redirect them to the non-gambling site.
PartyPoker and all of the other major gambling sites have done the same thing.
I bring this up only to draw the distinction between having separate *.com and *.net sites and simply having the *.net redirect to the *.com
Yeah. I only brought it up to point out that poker sites are not good examples of .net businesses that became successful and switched to .com. Instead, they were successful .com sites that later created .net as a means to attempt to avoid legal complications.
They still make all the money on .com. The .net site with play money games is just an advertising hook to lure players to the real money .com site.
The biggest issue you will face with a domain name other than .COM is people assume it is a .COM name
So if you have Markxxx.net people are going to go to Markxxx.com and get frustrated if you’re not there. It’s even worse for emails, especially if your site depends on email communication. You’ll have emails bouncing back and forth as they were incorrectly addressed.
