.com or .dk domain for hosting software?
Community Forums/General Help/.com or .dk domain for hosting software?
| ||
| I'm about to choose a domain for hosting a few homemade apps. Is the general consensus, that a .com domain is best, or will I be just as well of with a .dk domain? In other words: Will I loose sales because of not using a .com domain, or does it not matter nowadays? Site text will be in english. Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this. |
| ||
| I'd say .com is the better option. Whenever I see a link that points to a domain that isn't .com or .co.uk then I often think twice before visiting as I half expect the page to not be in English. |
| ||
| If it's in English, go for .com. Not that I know anything at all about the subject, but if both are available, I would consider pulling a BRL and buying both and redirecting one to the other. That way you won't suffer competition from someone buying the other one as an auto-generated annoyance page or something. |
| ||
| Good arguments. .com it is. Now off to think of a name... :-) |
| ||
| .com is probably the best option, followed by .net. Country-code domains like .dk aren't bad, but if you're trying to target a global audience then .com/.net have a much wider recognition. I'd stay away from things like .info and the gimmicky '.ws' and '.cc' and the likes, which are mostly used by spammers. |
| ||
| There's also the new .co domain which is becoming very popular. It's expensive though; I paid £30 for my amon.co domain. |
| ||
| Go with .com - still has the most kudos, it seems. |
| ||
| .co isn't new at all, it's the country code for Columbia. They opened up their registry to foreign companies now... Many of which are typo-squatters for popular .com websites. :-? (There's other countries that opened up their registry and market it accordingly: .ws = Western Samoa, but they'll tell you that it's short for "website". .sr = Surinam, which was actively marketed for "seniors" a while back. Now Columbia is trying to cash in on the .com shortage as well by opening up .co) I'd advice against it, though -- when I first saw Amon's URL the other day I assumed he had just mistyped .com, so this can cost you some traffic. :-? |
| ||
| When I first saw your .co I thought you had forgotten the .uk or the m from com at first. That's a point why are we not .gb or .uk rather than the long and boring .co.uk |
| ||
| We are .uk, not .co.uk. You'll occasionally see other specifiers like .org.uk, .nhs.uk, .gov.uk etc. They're not directly connected to the country code; I think Japan is the most notable other example where people do this a lot (I certainly encounter .co.jp a lot more than .jp by itself). I imagine it's cultural imperialism giving people the immediate expectation that the British and Japanese will have a bigger internet presence than other nations (which in fairness we probably did until recently), except for the Americans who obviously would never need to use their country code at all, since other countries don't have electricity. EDIT: What am I saying, "most notable"? This website has .co.nz right here! Last edited 2010 |
| ||
| That's a point why are we not .gb or .uk rather than the long and boring .co.uk It's a choice that was made in the past: co.uk = commercial UK ac.uk = academic UK gov.uk = government UK Which adds another layer of organization, plus reduces the likelyhood of colliding names (a school and a company can both have the same name and both get their 'proper' domain name) by comparison: in the US they also have the .us ccTLD, which used to be used strictly for geographically oriented domains: cities could be found under: www.ci.cityname.state.us counties would be under: www.co.countyname.state.us this has since been dissolved, and even though most of the legacy .us domains still exist, you can now get <anything>.us But if you think that the co.uk is stupid, it's not nearly as epically mindblowingly stupid as what the Dutch .nl registry imposed years ago. Originally, only registered companies could get a .nl address: and in order to get one, you could only obtain it through an associated reseller (most of the large dutch IPS's were, but noone else), and had to prove your eligibility by producing your proof of registration from the countries business (tax) register. When the internet became more popular and private citizens started demanding access to .nl domains as well, they eventually grudgingly agreed by allowing them to pick a 3rd level domain name (after submitting proof of Dutch residency): if your name was joe smith, they'd be willing to sell you joe.smith.123.nl (the 123 was any numerical sequence between 000 and 999. Until then, all-numerical domains had always been prohibited) Since this was such a stupid and unappealing scheme, most of the authorized registrars (the large ISP's) boycotted it, and in the end only a few dozen 'personal' domains were ever registered. Eventually the registration authorities caved, and now anyone can register a top-level .nl domain. (it's now the 4th most popular country code domain, after china, germany, and UK) That whole personal domain business did have a tail, though: a few years ago when the national emergency dispatch services wanted their own domain name, they wanted www.112.nl (112 being the European emergency phonenumber, compare with 911 in the US) ...only to find out that someone else had registered his 'personal domain' under the name 'www' in the '112.nl' branch -- so it was already taken. |
| ||
| Thanks again guys. Found a nice .com + .net pair that was free. |
| ||
| We are .uk, not .co.uk. no were not. Our commercial domain is .co.uk@xlsior i agree. |
| ||
| We are .uk, not .co.uk. You'll occasionally see other specifiers like .org.uk, .nhs.uk, .gov.uk etc. They're not directly connected to the country code; I think Japan is the most notable other example where people do this a lot (I certainly encounter .co.jp a lot more than .jp by itself). And Australia is .com.au (sic). |
| ||
| Our commercial domain is .co.uk True in itself; that doesn't make .co.uk the country code though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.uk |
| ||
| I'm not sure what you mean by .co.uk and org.uk not being "directly connected to the country code." They're second-level domains, while .uk is the first-level domain they belong to. To me, that's a pretty direct connection. |
| ||
| I was responding to the comment by D4NM4N that .uk isn't the UK top-level domain, which it is. Poor choice of wording on my part. |
| ||
| Ah, ok. You're right. .co.uk and .org.uk are not top-level domains. |
   |