Dot COMs vs. other Domains?
 

Hey guys, Newbie here, so I apologize in advance if this subject has already been flogged?

Most of the adult sites out there are dot COMs, and I?ve only seen a few dot NET and dot ORGs. All the good domain names were snatched up years ago. It seems that if you really want to have a winning dot COM. name, you end up spending top dollar. Otherwise you?re stuck with the sloppy seconds of multi-word names, underscores, hyphenations, or stupid spellings.

Has anyone had success promoting any of the new gTLDs like dot CLUB, dot ADULT, dot XXX, etc?

I picked up several domains with dot PHOTOS and dot PHOTOGRAPHY extensions when those domains were released. My belief was, (and still is), that these extensions themselves are a logical and descriptive fit for the world of digital online porn. I suspect that the biggest industry challenge is just getting the audience warmed up to the idea of stepping outside of the dot COM box?.?

When I picked up the names, my intent was to resell them once they gained acceptance, and perhaps pocket some cash. Obviously the domains have not made it to mainstream yet. Now my thought is to perhaps develop sites with a couple of the good brandable names. Sadly, however, I?m not sure I have the time or the expertise to design, develop, and promote meaningful websites myself?.

Will the generic TLDs come to be accepted by the public within the next year or two? Five to ten years? Ever? Can/will the adult entertainment industry be instrumental in helping generic domain names gain acceptance? What are your thoughts?

Dot xxx has been released three times first as a Netscape plugin first New.net then Registerfly.com and finally as a TLD. New.net were the first to trial new extensions in their browser. Like today many people used alternative to explorer so they could type in the address so it would appear. I used to own promote domainextensions dot com trying to market this. The release of new domains including dot xxx is a money grab and has only encouraged squatters. The whole idea was to try clean up the net and force sites that gave no indication of porn in name to use the extension. The dot adult extension is going to allow more variance in order to sell more. Find a single or two keywords that have 100,000 searches. Search yourself and see when you find the first domain that isn't geographical or a dot com net org. There are new domainers springing up on forums like NP that have invested loads of money into these new extensions. The problem is they don't have domain experience. There are 1400+ new extensions coming onto the market. The first hype we all went for was dot TV plenty of domainers lost out big time. We all had our dot tv address till the $50+ renew came along. Then there were other islands to buy their extensions. Well thought two three word dot com domains will get more traffic tomorrow than your obscure odd TLD domain. Since all the domain forums are selling new TLD's they don't like domainers questioning the future. People are going to paint a picture of a new internet. Recently i was offered a great deal on traffic from a new TLD domain they have no reputation so the new TLD actually put me off doing business. Buying a great domains is not so easy but in reality the domains that sell for really high prices are not just domains they are full websites sold as domains. Domain appraisal tools and dnsales.com don't match ever tools are only tools.

My thoughts are you will be able to buy any parked dot xxx or dot adult name again the moment the two year turns over as no generic traffic and the renew fee only cost the owner.

With all the new extensions coming on stream you'll be lucky if customers EVER adopt them. More likely they'll type nudegirls.xxx.com etc. Rather than just nudegirls.xxx.

As you say the coms are pretty expensive but if BDSM.com sells for 300k you can probably buy our BDSM.ca (canada) for about 10% of that price so sometimes the country code where you live can be a great deal.

Overall so many of these extensions are just going to crash and burn. The number of clients needed to fund all theses extensions exceeds the population of the earth. .berlin (highly touted) has just suffered about 1/2 of it's initial registrations lapsing in the last week so you could buy something like that and have everything you've put into it disappear when the extension closes. I'd rather work with a 3-4 word .com adult domain or the Country code (cctld) than one of those extensions.

I've made a boatload of cash since 2003 selling .Com domains but the funny thing is I've never paid anything for my own sites .Coms as I've had good luck either thinking up a decent .com available to register or have been able to scoop up an expired domain on the cheap.

Personally I'd try to find a decent .Com and if the site becomes profitable can always upgrade to a better .Com later. :2 cents:

Go .com all the way man! .net and .org wont get you far..
.xxx is a cheat

Go .com all the way man! .net and .org wont get you far..
(.xxx is a cheat)

.com should be top of your list, IMO. I've read in the news that TLDs such as .adult and .porn has gained popularity with celebrities like Taylor Swift and companies like Microsoft buying their adult namespace

I think it's going to take time for the average joe to be able to mentally grasp like someone already said whatever.xxx instead of typing something like whatever.xxx.com but eventually, it will be commonplace.

And by then, all the good .xxx .porn or whatever will be taken :P

There is no difference what domain to use, the most important its content.

Says the guy with a .biz.

No offense but if you think there is no difference in what domain you use, then you really don't understand the very serious and quite profitable game of domaining. I won't even get into the marketing aspects of a dot com versus the others, because they I hope would be obvious to even entry level guys.

But seriously what you said is wrong - so so wrong.

That's like saying there is no difference between living in Beverly Hills or living in Compton.

I suggest .com all the way, other TLDs are for special sites/use most of the time

Unfortunately that is a common attitude around here. Even when they consider a domain it's some piece of hyphenated junk LOL.

You can lead a horse to water......

for example have you heard of domain collision occurrence? Google anything and see if you can find a non tld in results. Not all domains are equal.

You can do SEO and rank any domain with any extension, just that your typein traffic (direct, the traffic that people type directly to the browser) may be lost because people may type automatically the ".com" extension instead of your entire domain, that is why the .com domains are so desirable.

It has been assured by Google representative that Google doesn't give special preference to neither TLDs, in terms of SEO ranking power.
Users may trust or value some TLDs more tho...

When other search engines offer the same keyword domain different extension then the backlinks may actually work in google. Submit a dot com and a dot other into all the exact same promotion same keywords same everything use identical sites and watch the dot com rank faster and better all round. Why because not every site will except other extensions giving less backlinks giving lower ranking. Assured or not whether SEO works the practicality is the result.
Just the ping results alone will show that some other extension may fail translates to less backlinks, On obscure keywords and odd subject anything will rank but on popular keywords the difference will show.

Well, I've seen that .XXX domains outrank .COM ones way faster.... Why? Because there are better chances for you to get a keyword rich domain in the .XXX domain than in .COM.

But yes, .COM is more trusted and higher authority TLD in the eyes of many site visitors and if two similar domains are standing one by one on a SERP, the .COM probably has more chances to have their click.

so you agree dot com is better.

I state, that technically, for SEO .COM domains are equal to other TLDs.
But from the marketing point of view, .COM might be a better bet, but it really depends.

fuck.me domain will probably be better than fuck-me.com but worse than fuck.com

What extensions to use are less important now days.

Look at Twitch.tv. Sold for almost $1 billion usd.

While you will lose a few people to the dot com. You will gain some recognization I believe. By standing out. It's like that purple cow example by Seth Godin or whatever. If you use a tld no one else uses. And it fits your market. Then you can get an edge I believe.

But overall. It's all about providing value. Look at The Pirate Bay. They change tld every 6th month or so because of legal reasons. And the people follow them.

The major reason for using a dot com is to get type in traffic. But I admit. I haven't always thought about it like this. I was a huge pro dot com a couple years ago.

Also. Minecraft haven't bought the dot com yet. And are using dot net. They sell like 8,000 copies of their game each day for 19,95 EUR. They make boatloads.

So... it's about marketing first and for most. And creating a valuable business.

But if we are talking top generics. Sure. I rather own Laptops.com than Laptops.social. Just because of the type in traffic. And the overall recognization.

But overall I don't believe a TLD make or break your business. It's what you do with it that matters.

.com

:2 cents:

If you really need to ask, then you already know the answer

Without doubts .com the best domain for business