Lately there have been a bunch of articles out there advising people to abandon .COM and start using a New gTLD. Articles like this and this. Usually the reason is that there are no more “good” .COMs left to register and because the new extensions add “meaning” to the domain. There is some truth to that thought, but what do you expect when there are over 121 million registered .COMs in the world, vs .XYZ which has under 900K. It’s common sense – of course, you’re going to have less keywords to choose from.
I think there’s a few ways to approach this:
- You can think like the New gTLD camp.
- Or… you can accept the reality that .COM is the cream of the crop and you must have a .COM even if it means sacrificing a bit on the keywords.
- Or… you can accept the reality that .COM is the cream of the crop and buy a decent .COM in the aftermarket.
Remember that a domain name is an investment for your business just like any other business expense or equipment.
The New gTLD camp does give some thoughtful reasons as to why you should make the move to the new extensions, such as adding “meaning” to the domain and being able to choose from a wider variety of available names. Despite that, I believe there are stronger reasons why .COM should be your first choice.
- .COM isn’t just a domain extension. After 30 years in existence, it has literally become a part of the brand itself. Would Hotels.com be Hotels.com without the .COM? What about Expedia when they used .COM in their TV commercial jingles?
- .COM is engraved in the minds of consumers. People automatically think of .COM when they think of a website. This is good news for .COM site owners because when new domain extensions are used for new websites, you may receive some trickle-in traffic from typos.
- .COM is the best neighborhood to be in. I previously wrote about how the domain industry is similar to the real estate industry. Where are you going to buy your next house? In Beverly Hills (.COM) or Compton (.WHATEVER)?
Do you agree or not? Let me know your thoughts.