Many people have the belief that a .com TLD is the only extension worth purchasing because it is the one most internet users assume when entering URLs into their browsers. It is true that .com is very popular and makes the best first choice, but there are many individuals and businesses using other TLDs with great success. What you have to do is think about how potential visitors and customers are going to access your website. If you believe that most of them will type the nane of your company into their browser bar, obtaining a .com extension is a must. On the other hand, if you can brand your website with .us or .net domain, it really will not matter how users go about finding you. To prove that .com isn’t necessarily the holy grail, we will introduce you to some of the other options you have for TLDs.
.Org and .Net TLDs
When your preferred domain name is not available in .com, .org and .net make the next best options. At one point in time, .org extensions where limited to non-profit organizations while .net was intended for internet and IT companies. However, because there is no regulation, those intentions flew out of the window very quickly. These days, anyone can obtain a .org or .net domain name to use for virtually any purpose. The only real downside to these extensions is that some domain registrars charge a bit extra for them.
Country-Specific TLDs
Country-specific domains are supposedly designed for a website that markets products or services available in a particular country. Examples of these extensions are .us (United States) .ca (Canada) and .de (Germany). Some of these domains can only be registered by companies that operate in those specific countries. Others are freely available to anyone who wants to pay the cost of registration. For instance, most people don’t really that .tv is actually a country-specific extension because several television networks use it for their domains. You should keep in mind that using such an extension may not be a good idea depending on where you are located. Some might assume that your business is only available in that particular area, when it is in fact a global outlet.
Niche TLDs
There have been numerous TLDs introduced and proposed for various reasons. Two examples are .biz and .info. The .biz extension was designed for business purposes while .info is intended for sites that provide information on a varying topics. Just like the TLDs mentioned above, there is really no regulation on how these are to be used. Domains with these extensions can be quite tempting as they are often available when the more popular options are no longer around. Even though they can still be used effectively, you may want to consider these extensions as a last resort.
Conclusion
Slowly but surely, other TLDs are making a name for themselves and serving great purpose to the fast growing community of internet users. While .com remains the most desirable, these alternatives could become far more prevalent over the next few years.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:32 am
There are alternatives to .com, although everyone would love to get what they want in a .com it’s nearly impossible, especially if your trying to capture a niche market. You need the specific keyword phrase, so you must accept what’s available or find a different niche. I have even gotten .info and subdomians to number 1 in google, it just takes more work. I’m looking to capture searcher traffic, I don’t care about users trying to enter my url.