How important are .com domains?

[baegsi]

Hi,

I have a perfect name for a company/service.

The problem: www.myservice.com is taken.

Available are:

www.myservice.net
www.my-service.com


My question: would you take one of the options or look for a different name? How important do you think is it to have a .com domain?

[cliffski]

having .co.uk hasnt really hurt me, but then my whole company name is rubbish. I'd prefer the .com. if you are picking a new name, pick one where you get the .com.

[digriz]

I'd wanted to get the .com too but i don't think they guy who owns it is willing to sell it to me.

He's not doing much with it either...He sells 1 t-shirt design from it and that's it....Oh well.

I think .com is important because people tend to try that one first. That is my own assumption though and not based on any facts that i know of.

[Sybixsus]

I would definitely go with a dot com if at all possible, simply because it's the one people will try first, like Digriz said. If the name was so important to me that I was prepared to accept not having a dot com, I would definitely go with the Dot Net rather than the one with hyphens. I always forget which sites and hyphens and where they go, whereas I don't forget sites which are Dot Net. It's purely a personal belief, but I suspect that most people will find the Dot Net difference more memorable than one or more hypens.

[Savant]

Ask Puppy Games about it in regards to their latest press release. ;)

[princec]

Hahaa :) Actually it didn't hurt too much. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&hs=LDu&lr=&rls=en&q=link:WVRvu1ARBPUJ:www.puppygames.com/) (Hope that link to google works)

Cas :)

[baegsi]

Cas,

did you get any feedback about the missing .com domain?

Puppygames.com is parked. Did you try to buy it?

Edit: and the link doesn't work, you do I miss something?

[princec]

I didn't try to buy it, no. Maybe when I've got enough games together I'll start spending money on attracting hits to my site.

Cas :)

[SquareDanceSteve]

Why don’t you start spending money now to attract hits to your site? No matter how much you spend you won’t be able to saturate the internet. So don’t worry about alienating customers with games that you don’t approve of.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I spent several years in web-app/dot-com development before moving to games, and in my experience, .com definitely matters if you want to be big-time. That's not to say, however, that it'll be crippling if you don't get .com.

In my experience, it's best to look for an untaken domain when coming up with a company identity. (The fact that tinyhero.com was open was a factor for us.) If you find yourself having to go .net or to add dashes in your name, you're almost garaunteed that people looking for you out of the blue will find someone else's site first.

The upside is that if most of your traffic comes from direct links of any kind, then nearly any URL is fine. And for the other part of your traffic -- the ones looking for you based on name recognition alone -- my understanding is that they will often try the most obvious domain name first, and then usually fall back on a google search.

However, if they spend a couple of minutes on the problem and still have no luck, *then* you're going to start losing people.

I assume this is a non-option for you, but do you really need 'MyService.com'? Is 'My Service' your company name? If so, maybe you sould change it, since there's already a company called that and it has the domain already. If someone's looking for your company/product and ends up at MyService.com, would they immediately recognize they're in the wrong place? If you're in the states, are you sure you *can* operate under 'My Service' since someone is already registered w/ that name? Basically, if it is an option, I would consider rebranding to something original...

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Phil Steinmeyer]

People asked in the other thread why I chose New Crayon as the name of my new company... Well, I could get newcrayon.com, whereas these were taken:

blueturtle jellydonut babybumper bigocean dogbelly dontbeblue fishfight fivefish fivefrogs fourfrogs funnymonkey furryfrog greencrayon happyhappyjoyjoy jellybear mamabear maybebaby mississippimud mudbug onegoodgame purplepenguin quack quackers redbear redotter ripemango rivermonkey rubberducky softstone turtleshell waxworld wonderwell friendlyfrog mamallama bigmoose bighippo bigfrog electricboogie leapinlizard onewhale whalebone indiaink printingpress babybear twofish fastfish fishstone grapejelly funion sweetcake olivebread stonefish wideriver monkeytown babybear babyhippo bestbear bigbear bigblueocean bigoak bitbear bitmotor bluebear bluebug bluecat bluefrog blueotter brownbear browncat catbelly cattoy cattoys clearfrog cookiejar creekline doubledog fastfish fastfrog fastsnail fastturtle flyingpig fourfish freshdonut freshdonuts frogbelly funfarm funnyfarm funnyfish funnyfish funnyfrog furryfish gatewaygamer gatewaygames glassfrog glassgorilla goodgame goodgames gooseberry gotgame gotgames grayseal greencat greenfrog greenstone greenturtle greyseal happymonkey hattrick heartland honeywheat hothouse joyberry joytoy mango manicmonkey manymonkeys muddyriver nightlight nitelight oneocean oneriver passionfruit purplecat purpleparrot quickcat quickquack redcat redcrayon redfrog redriver riverfish riverotter roundcake roundhouse rubberbaby rubberduck singingfrog smalldog somefun toycat toydog toyjoy turtle twinturtles walkingfish wellspring whitestone yellowfrog zebrazoo supergenius funmachine gamegarden greenlight greenlightgames gorillagames bananafarm bananatree coconuttree coconuts coffeehouse friendlyfish mamamoose mommamoose dodo dodobird redeel greeneel bigdodo bigrhino bigbug electriceel bodyelectric electricdonut lemonlizard purplepanda papapanda lionsandtigers doubleeagle mcmoose mcmonkey leapinglizard leapinlizards leapinglizards minimouse fishinabarrel redraisin realdeal frogbog luckylizard anteater aardvark quarry spoken print redclay purplepuffin puffin wishfish fishfish slowfish gofish fishcandy jellybowl jellycake funone honeybread olivetree stonefrog donutfactory lighthouse goodgames coffeeshop ninetynine dogwood onefish redfish bluefish fishburger purplecrayon flyinghippo cookiefactory happyhappy joyjoy Brainstorm Lightbulb RubyRed StoneSoup GreenEgg Gumball Ink Opus Graphite Garden Green Gadget RedRuby Grand Egg Gumbo Gooseberry Strawberry Wax BrownEgg Acorn Eureka Blue Bard Glow Gemstone Gimick Gogo Gorilla Granite Graphic Gringo Manymore Rooftop Bounce Bowwow Zoom Glib Garbanzo Pinewood Maplewood Oakwood BigBell Puzzlement Fuddle Agog BigBook Gatepost Gazebo Gesundheit Glass GoldFish Graceful Grapevine Grapefruit Grassland Greenbelt Lampshade PlusPlus Twig Warm Beeswax Bowow Bark WoofWoof Woof EggYolk EggWhites Zookeeper Gaffer Iguana Gaga Glowing Gambit Greenhouse Gaucho Getaway Glide Greenwood Muchmore Pulp Ruby Pure PrePaid Sumo Verb Zoo IceCream Head Grape Automatic Good Neon BigIdea AcornGames EurekaGames BlueGames BardGames GlowGames GemstoneGames GimickGames GogoGames GorillaGames GraniteGames GraphicGames GringoGames ManymoreGames RooftopGames BounceGames BowwowGames ZoomGames



yes, I spent a bit of time to come up with a good name with an available url...

[Jim Buck]

You could always just ask the guy if he's willing to give up the domain and for how much. I am currently naming my company entity and came up with a name that everyone I asked unanimously chose (out of a list of 4 names).. unfortunately, this was the only one of the 4 with the .com already taken. I emailed the guy, who wasn't using it yet, and it looks like we might have come to a deal where I can get the domain. He has, and will keep, the co.uk version of the domain, but it's not some official company site, so all should be perfectly fine.

[HairyTroll]

Back before the internet bubble I thought about registering crook.com as it was available at the time. I changed my mind because back then domains were $70 a pop. Two weeks later the domain was taken. Now I could kick myself.

[Didier]

A .com domain is hard to register these days.
Most of them are taken :o


The person who owns my .com address is charging $15.000 (with no traffic at all) ;)

I called him nuts and that's where our conversation ended :D

Didier

[Mike Wiering]

At first, I only registered wieringsoftware.nl and then http://www.laporteholdings.com/ registered wieringsoftware.com and put all kinds of "useful" search links for phrases from my own page. But I'm not going to negotiate with them, and I wish nobody would. Then they would be out of business in no time.

[HairyTroll]

So far I've let three .com domains that I have owned expire:

robato.com
flowfish.com
synchrosmash.com

robato & flowfish were snapped up by someone else as soon as they became available.

- robato was a take on roboto (Mr. Roboto, the song)
- synchrosmash was a take on synchromesh (mechanism in a manual transmission)
- flowfish I made by slapping random words together.

Of these I think only one would be a suitable name for a games company... "Synchrosmash Games"; which is why I just re-registered it like 5 minutes ago.

If you want a catchy .com domain, try the following:

a) Try searching for the phonetic spelling of the word.
b) Spell the word incorrectly.
c) Put different words together.

Take for example my balooga.com domain. I think most people trying to spell 'beluga' (the whale) will spell it incorrectly as 'balooga' the first time round. It's also pretty catchy.

I try for the shortest .com if I can. For example I own tuster.com. Dunno why, but it's a 6 letter .com domain that sounds like a word so it has to be worth something.

It's probably also a good idea to register your name as a .com; just in case you make it big some day.

[Jim Buck]

Too bad Jim Buck is also the name of a retired gay pornstar (who used to have a page at jimbuck.com .. now it's just a placeholder for whatever).

I'm not sure if misspelling a word is the way to go since you really want someone to easily find your site.. it should be easy to remember and spell.. or, worst case, register common misspellings of the word(s).

[FlySim]

c) Put different words together.
Spent alot of time doing this and came up with HyperFog.com for
our casual games (working in progress). Its really tough to find decent .com names....

Got lucky with FlySim.com - I was very suprised it was available.