Hi, I looked for a domain availability for a client this week and was shocked to find the plethora of new extensions available. The client is asking advice on which ones to buy and I want to be careful with my advice. For an under $10 million dollar a year firm with no plans for international expansion (possible English speaking population in a few years, AUS, UK etc) what would you recommend other than .com and .net for their main domain?
Thanks very much!
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Domain Extension Procurement - Where To Stop.
Started by
mfogel
, Sep 10 2008 02:04 PM
5 replies to this topic
#2
Randy
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Posted 10 September 2008 - 02:43 PM
I never register anything more than .com, .net and possibly .org Maureen. That last one only gets included if something may end up being a totally free non-profit. The .com is really the only important one IMHO. Many times I won't even reserve a .net if the domain name isn't going to a trademark, or going to be one. Even then, I know I ccan always petition ICANN to force someone to give up the .net if there's any trademark infringement.
#3
Randy
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Posted 10 September 2008 - 08:40 PM
Let me correct myself. 
If you're going to target a specific country, then having that ccTLD can be very helpful. As you can see from the pinned post in the International section of the forum in the Resources & Advice category. It helps with those searching from that country looking for local results. So in this limited case the having Country Code Top Level Domain (eg .co.uk) can be quite helpful.
That said, even with my .com domains I get a ton of traffic and sales from all sorts of places around the world. Without ever targeting a specific country. In fact, overall my International sales (for mostly web-deliverables) account for roughly 30% of my sales. Some from search, some from direct referrals. I've never broken down Search Only International, but I may have to now since I'm a math geek.
If you're going to target a specific country, then having that ccTLD can be very helpful. As you can see from the pinned post in the International section of the forum in the Resources & Advice category. It helps with those searching from that country looking for local results. So in this limited case the having Country Code Top Level Domain (eg .co.uk) can be quite helpful.
That said, even with my .com domains I get a ton of traffic and sales from all sorts of places around the world. Without ever targeting a specific country. In fact, overall my International sales (for mostly web-deliverables) account for roughly 30% of my sales. Some from search, some from direct referrals. I've never broken down Search Only International, but I may have to now since I'm a math geek.
#4
MaKa
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Posted 15 September 2008 - 05:48 AM
QUOTE(Randy @ Sep 11 2008, 02:40 AM) 
If you're going to target a specific country, then having that ccTLD can be very helpful. As you can see from the pinned post in the International section of the forum in the Resources & Advice category. It helps with those searching from that country looking for local results. So in this limited case the having Country Code Top Level Domain (eg .co.uk) can be quite helpful.
QUOTE
Research carried out earlier this year illustrates that British Internet users are six times more likely to choose a .uk rather than .com address when looking for information via an Internet search engine.
Source: See page 12 of http://www.nominet.o...report_2007.pdf
As these are the results of a survey I'm working on setting up an experiment in Google AdWords, to test this using a .com / .co.uk domain. As people in surveys saying that they do something aren't always an accurate reflection of what they actually do.
#5
Randy
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Posted 15 September 2008 - 06:40 AM
Now that's a very good test MaKa! You're 100% right that survey results aren't always as accurate and people would like them to be.
It'll be interesting to see if your test results match or diverge from the survey results.
It'll be interesting to see if your test results match or diverge from the survey results.
#6
noel_x99
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Posted 15 September 2008 - 10:34 PM
I have one client that INSISTS on buying all sorts of extensions for all sorts of variations for his three sites. Then he also wants product line names too. He wants the .com, .org, .net, info, .biz and some ccTLDs too. Essentially he gets nothing from it, but he doesn't want anyone else to purchase them. (Some are his trademarked names.)
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