Domain for Business

Snorlaxx

Just wondering in today's environment.
When it comes to business names and domains, is it .com or nothing today?
So take it you have a business that can potentially become global, is not having .com but having .net or .club etc more damaging to the business than having the .com domain?

mneylon

If you can't get the .com the question would be whether or not the existing domain is being used and if so if it's a potential competitor or not

Snorlaxx

mneylon wrote: »

If you can't get the .com the question would be whether or not the existing domain is being used and if so if it's a potential competitor or not

No, no business in existence with the name, but the domains are bought and for sale. But you're talking six figures as per the seller, so the only alternatives are use another domain or change the business name

Darc19

I see .com as a negative as anyone can get one in a few seconds

.ie is a positive in that you are signifying you are based in Ireland and for most people, Ireland has a very positive image.

Business is worldwide these days, so something to identify you as different to others is a positive.

Atlantic Dawn

.com or .ie, anything else is amateur hour. Try to get something that doesn't require it to be spelt out every time it's advertised.

supersonic21

if you're setting up something like a global or even European software or tech company for example, I'd consider a .com a must. But anything just national for the time being I would go with .ie. I couldn't get a .ie one for my business so I had to go with .com for a business that is strictly national

JMR

For me, .ie for a business whose market is solely Ireland and .com for an Irish business with a global market.
If you deal with consumers in the UK, a .ie domain name can be a drawback - we're not as big and important as we think we are!

mneylon

Darc19 wrote: »

I see .com as a negative as anyone can get one in a few seconds

Sure, but does the average punter know that?

Darc19 wrote: »

.ie is a positive in that you are signifying you are based in Ireland and for most people, Ireland has a very positive image.

Perception is everything. The same perception is held in most European countries with regard to their local ccTLD even if the registration rules etc., are completely open

Darc19 wrote: »

Business is worldwide these days, so something to identify you as different to others is a positive.

Agreed, but does the average user know the difference between a .ie and a .com or a .media or whatever?

.com all the way. It's annoying that there's an industry around domains but that's the reality of it. I gave it a go briefly and the namepros forum is a good resource.

Look at Steam or Nissan. They went .com even though they couldn't get the proper name. Add -global or something to your business name and it is infinitely better than some of the new shlte you might be tempted by.

badboyblast

I'm actually trying to buy a dot.com off a company who are looking for 950 bucks , mad money

Snorlaxx

Someone quoted me six figure sum for the same, crazy

mneylon

badboyblast wrote: »

I'm actually trying to buy a dot.com off a company who are looking for 950 bucks , mad money

That's a fairly low number for a .com
The average would be in mid 4 figures

sabrewulf

A couple of notes that might help with the decision.
If it's a local Irish business a .IE is the best choice, buying the matching .COM and redirecting it to the .IE is a strong plus.

If there is ANY desire for the site to rank outside of Ireland, a .IE has several disadvantages:
- low/no recognition of the extension
- the geolocation is hardcoded from Google's perspective making it extremely difficult to rank outside of Ireland.
(For generic ones, like .COM, the geotargeting can be either set to a specific country, or can be left at "global" via Google search console.
Google has opened up some country specific extensions to be treated as generic, like .CO (originally Columbia, but used as "Company" by all type of startups) or .IO (originally Indian Ocean Territory, but used for Input/Output by tech startups).
A .IE is permanently locked to Ireland though.

With all other metrics contant (content quality, backlinks, etc.) an exact match domain can deliver a ranking advantage though: Even if Google is relentlessly saying they don't, there is plenty of exact match domain ranking case studies that prove it's still working. This could be anything like .NET, .CO, .CLUB, etc., however the good phrases are usually taken as well in these extensions or come with hefty premium price tags.

Niche domain names like the ones offered by Altocom or names.of.london offer a low cost option to acquire exact match domains for competitive keywords, and they can be set to global or any preferred region.

mneylon

sabrewulf wrote: »

Niche domain names like the ones offered by Altocom or names.of.london offer a low cost option to acquire exact match domains for competitive keywords, and they can be set to global or any preferred region.

That's not true
Names of London are just selling sub-domains which aren't real domains at all and open up another can of worms

jmcc

If your target market is Ireland, use a .IE.

If your target market is global, use a .COM.

If your target market is another country in the EU, use their ccTLD if possible. It is possible to use a .EU but only as a gateway TLD that redirects the customer to the relevant ccTLD (or .COM) website.

Don't use a .CO as your site will lose a high percentage of traffic to the equivalent .COM. Even though the .CO has been open for about 10 years, it is still very much a niche TLD. The .IO has similar limitations in terms of recognition.

Don't waste time on the new gTLDs unless you are willing to do a lot of promotion and explaining to customers why the can't reach you on examplenewgltd .com when they should be typing example.newgtld.

Don't get hung up on trying to get generic domain names in .COM. Most of them are long gone. Remember that you are building a business and it is the business name that distinguishes your site from all the others. Make it memorable, easy to spell and easy for someone to say over a phone.

Regards...jmcc

Snorlaxx

jmcc wrote: »

If your target market is Ireland, use a .IE.

If your target market is global, use a .COM.

Your absolutley right with everything you said JJMC, I guess the main one is that we're running out of .com's and I think that presents a problem for business's going forward.

Also if you are "Global" and have specific business branches for each country, rather than have the .countrydomain i.e. .ie .co.uk etc, are you better having one global .com and sub domains per country i.e. Boards.com/Ireland, Boards.com/spain etc

tricky D

There are 3 ways to do this:


using Germany as an example

companyname.de
de.companyname.com
www.companyname.com/de

Unless the marketing activities are quite different in each country go with the last with www. as it will hold all your cookie-based metrics (eg. Google Analytics) together instead of spreading them across domains/subdomains. [disclaimer; last time I checked]

jmcc

Snorlaxx wrote: »

Your absolutley right with everything you said JJMC, I guess the main one is that we're running out of .com's and I think that presents a problem for business's going forward.

The myth that we're running out of .COMs is just that - a myth. There are more deleted .COM domain names than there are active .COM domain names (about 143.5 million active).

Also if you are "Global" and have specific business branches for each country, rather than have the .countrydomain i.e. .ie .co.uk etc, are you better having one global .com and sub domains per country i.e. Boards.com/Ireland, Boards.com/spain etc

The .COM is a quick way of getting started being global but people in various countries generally identify with their own ccTLD and the most important thing is to make it easy for them to remember your business. They remember websites in their own ccTLD in a way that they don't in .COM or the other gTLDs. The ccTLD is their TLD and the extension (the .IE, .UK, etc) becomes psychologically invisible so the brand at the left of the dot becomes far more important.

What a lot of people don't realise is that the .COM is actually losing market share to ccTLDs in most countries where the local ccTLD is dominating the market. The US market is the biggest single market in .COM and that is were most of the gTLDs growth is happening. If you are targeting the US as one of your markets, you have to have a .COM.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

tricky D wrote: »

There are 3 ways to do this:


using Germany as an example

companyname.de
de.companyname.com
www.companyname.com/de

Unless the marketing activities are quite different in each country go with the last with www. as it will hold all your cookie-based metrics (eg. Google Analytics) together instead of spreading them across domains/subdomains. [disclaimer; last time I checked]

And of course you can do all sorts of funky stuff using geoip in combination with your favourite web server technology

Just don't do assume that a user on a German IP is a German speaker (Looking at you Amex!)

mneylon

mneylon wrote: »

And of course you can do all sorts of funky stuff using geoip in combination with your favourite web server technology

Just don't do assume that a user on a German IP is a German speaker (Looking at you Amex!)

Browser language is generally a better way to serve a site in my opinion.

mneylon

Deleted User wrote: »

Browser language is generally a better way to serve a site in my opinion.

No it isn't.

The default language for some browsers is EN-US, so by that logic the site should serve American English with pricing in US dollars

alex_r

For local business .ie is still way better. SEO wise and User experience.
However, if possible I'd buy .com right away as well. you just set up a redirect from .com to .ie.
if it is a SaaS like business and later you start expanding outside the island then you can add subdomains like apple does apple.com/ie, apple.com/uk etc

I think if I remember correctly, BlackNight used to be .ie as the main TLD and later when they got bigger changed to .com

mneylon

alex_r wrote: »

I think if I remember correctly, BlackNight used to be .ie as the main TLD and later when they got bigger changed to .com

Correct.

We are an Irish company, but we have clients from the four corners of the globe so the .com made more sense

alex_r

way to go lads. Been with you since the old days. seen 4 or even 4 website redesigns keep up the good work

mneylon

alex_r wrote: »

way to go lads. Been with you since the old days. seen 4 or even 4 website redesigns keep up the good work

Thanks - more stuff in the pipeline