Ask HN: Is a .net domain good enough?

[klon]

I'm trying to find a good name for a startup I'm working on and think I've finally found one that is really good. The problem is I've only managed to secure the .net domain for it. The .com is taken by a domain squatter who is not replying to my emails. Should I proceed with the name or continue looking?

[ohashi]

Can we not call everyone who holds domains squatters? Just because they don't:

* answer your emails

* you don't see anything on the page

* there are currently advertisements showing

* won't sell for 10$ because that's registration fee

doesn't make them a squatter. A cybersquatter is someone infringing on your trademark. In almost every case I see, the people calling someone a squatter are simply pissed off that the domain they want is taken and they have no legitimate rights or claim to it, other than they thought of it just now and think they can do something better with it.

Thanks.

[j_lagof]

I agree, it is the same thing as buying a piece of land and waiting for the area to become more popular and sell later...

The issue comes from the fact that buying domains are very cheap and easy, but that's other problem.

*btw, I am not saying that I approve people with 1000s of domains just waiting for someone interested, but the business idea is the same.

[adrianwaj]

they thought of it just now and think they can do something better with it

It's not hard to do better than a landing page. "Domainers" make the web a less usable place overall - they've caused the growth of non .com domains and weird spellings and names, eg flickr.

Who here has ever clicked on a landing page?

[josefresco]

There's a fine line between being a 'prospector' and 'squatter'. What would you call MerchantCircle who is registering domains with local business names and setting up their own mini-sites that divert traffic from the real site and confuse consumers? I think there's an even worse term reserved for them.

[Murkin]

Same discussion as Patent squatters (or land/copyright/or many more).

They take over a resource that can produce value and prevent that value to be passed to people. All in the hopes of monetizing on it.

I can only hope that in the future, holding a resource hostage without exploiting it, will cause it to be revoked.

[klon]

Alright maybe I didn't word that very well but the current owner has a boilerplate ad page with related keyword ads which leads me to believe he has no plans to make anything of the name. What do we call those?

[sabat]

I've always thought of a domain squatter as someone who holds domains for the sole purpose of selling them (and maybe selling generic ads on them while they wait for a buyer). I'm not saying that's all bad, but it can be a little annoying.

[pg]

I discourage it. People will always look for you (and worse still, send you mail) at the dot com. And there are lots of decent dot com names still available.

[driax]

It depends on who your audience is. Few of the python programmers I know realize that python.com is a porn site. Remembering that it is python.org a not .com is not that hard, and if in doubt most people use Google anyway. EDIT: okay, maybe not that unbeknown given the amount of comments below.

[decadentcactus]

Wouldn't that also depend on the target audience of the site? If a site was targeted at the same people that use HN for example, I doubt they'd have a problem with the site using a .net

[jeromec]

I agree with pg. If your site is targeted to mainstream, as opposed to geeks or early adopters, you would have to fight really hard to go against default mind-share people will have for dot com. Remember, many people still don't know "what is a browser?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

[patio11]

I have multi-personality disorder on this question. The SEO in me says "I would take a strong, exact match .NET over a weak .COM every day of the week and twice on Sunday." For example, if you want to do restaurant scheduling, restaurantscheduling.net is better than servrschedulr.com or whatever the convention is these days.

However, I don't think exact-match domain names are the answer for everybody on this forum. I like them and swear by them, but a lot of y'all have goals which would be better served by something brandable, even if it does sound like twitpickr.ly.

PG mentions that people will always look for you at the dot com. This is true, but the dot com they're looking for you at is google.com, because direct navigation is dead. The ascendancy of search engines, broadening of the Internet away from technical Americans, increasing use of mobile devices, etc etc etc, have killed it convincingly.

As always, check your stats if you don't believe me.

[icey]

This is something that I started noticing a few months ago myself. Almost all of the non-technical people I know have stopped using their address bar in exchange for using Google's search box when they want to go somewhere.

If I say to go to foobar.com, they'll open their browser, either go to their home page or type in google.com, then type foobar.com into Google's search box, search, and then click on the first link.

When I've asked, they've almost all said that it was "easier" than typing in the address. I'm talking about tens of people... it's very strange, but I've certainly been seeing what you're talking about first-person.

[ohashi]

direct navigation isn't really dead at all. As someone who has been involved in buying domains for 7 years, I can attest it still exists. However, this is only true of your real generics. Anything you hand register today won't be a type in, far from it.

Furthermore, there is always a tradeoff between generic/brandable. A few large companies have gotten away with the generic (Hotels.com for example) but most take the brand route because in the long run there is more value/protection. You need to decide based on your goals and timeframe.

[qeorge]

Exact match domains are overrated, unless you're going for long-tail keywords with little competition like Patrick.

Spend a few hours with AjaxWhois.com and find a workable .com. You'll be glad you did later.

[astrec]

Failure to secure the dot com cost us $400,000 at auction (plus legal fees over 10 years): I really can't recommend you try and build a brand without it. Even bit.ly owns bitly.com.

[healsdata]

I'd recommend against it. I worked for a company that was named akin to "example.net" Nearly every week, we'd get a call from someone who went to "examplenet.com" and didn't know why we were suddenly selling skateboards.

[patio11]

On the flip side, I host net-benefits.net as a favor to friends in the debating community, and every week I get an email from somebody attempting to get into, e.g., Prudential's online insurance portal Net Benefits, because they Googled the name on their benefits statement. (There are about four places on the Internet that thought this would be a clever name for their insurance/investing portal.)

[flooha]

I posted a similar question a couple of days ago here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058437

I'm curious how much it really matters. I can see it being a big deal for email, but for organic traffic I'm not convinced. Most domain squatters don't have anything up on the site, have a adsense landing page or something extremely outdated. Assuming your site has even mild success, your search engine ranking will be much, much higher. Sadly, the email issue is probably a show-stopper.

Also, I don't think a lot of people actually type the domain in the address bar. They're either clicking a link or searching.

The real question here is, can you pull a dropbox? Trademark the name, launch your site, get popular, then just take away the .com if the owner somehow infringes on your mark. Is this a valid precedent or do you have to have boat-loads of cash to actually make this work?

In any case, it's probably just easier to choose a different name. I just emailed someone yesterday about a .com domain name and he wanted $20k. Seems like the dropbox method might be easier.

[yannis]

On the premise that you are expecting your start-up to be a success you should look for another domain and you should register the .com, .net .org .info etc... Besides your application you will be building a brand don't share it with a domain squatter and don't pay for a name over what is reasonable.

[hh]

I disagreed with this statement because there are plenty of successful sites that has other dots besides .com. It's all depend on your application. If your application is useful, then people will come. For example, when I registered my website, http://www.mathmaster.org, the .dot com and everything else were taken but now I am still doing ok in term of visitor counts. Majority of my users come from either bookmarked or search engine anyway.

[shykes]

It could be interesting to look at Dropbox's story. Didn't they secure dropbox.com only recently?

[ironkeith]

Yes, but prior to that they used getdropbox.com, not dropbox.net (or something of that ilk). I do believe they were able to lawyer a squatter into releasing the dropbox.com domain after they were proven successful.

[cdr]

I never had a problem remembering Dropbox's URL, but that's because it was the somewhat unusual get<whatever>.com rather than a more easily confused .net.

[araneae]

I would go to dropbox.com, then realize it wasn't there, then Google it. Your customers may do the same.

[jasonkester]

If your product is a development tool targeted at .NET developers, then yes. Otherwise No. It looks bad, and nobody will remember it.

If you want to be a real business, you need a .com domain name. That's just the way it goes. Register the .net and .org variants of your name if they're available, but definitely run your site off a .com.

[thibaut_barrere]

I'd go .com whenever possible, at the cost of choosing a slightly different name.

37signals http://campfirenow.com/ (instead of http://campfire.com/) is a typical illustration.

[KWD]

Or consider Dropbox that started at getdropbox.com before obtaining dropbox.com.

[markkoberlein]

When you are a startup with no money, I would say buy the .net first only if you could foresee buying the .com in the future when you do have the money. Example of this would be if the .net was available and the .com domain was owned by a squatter and is willing to sell it for $2k to $5k.

I wouldn't by a .net domain where the .com is already owned by an established company because you probably won't be able to buy it in the future.

[thinkbohemian]

If you decide to look for another domain, someone posted a pretty cool app to Ycombinator called nxdom.com it is worth taking a look.

In my personal experience, I say go for a few domains and direct them to an alpha of your site with no branding. Then ask your alpha testers what they prefer, and if they can remember your url. There are some popular .net sites boingboing is the first thing that comes to my mind.

[pierrefar]

The short answer is no.

The only time you should use the .net is if you have secured all the other TLDs and the .net is the best choice for branding or marketing.

[kls]

-- the .net is the best choice for branding or marketing.

I agree which is why, we need more information before making a recommendation as to what is the best course of action. If you are going to rely on word of mouth and a grass roots ground swell then you need a memorable name and I would say that the .com is very important.

If you are going to rely on advertising buys and blogger who will be linking to your site then the domain name is less important.

The comment about the squatter uploading porn to strong arm you is a very valid concern. If you are in a business where there could be confusion and that could reflect poorly on you then I would avoid the name all together.

[krav]

In a nutshell, nope. If your startup takes off, part of your traffic (the type-in kind) will go to the .com, where it'll be a parked page full of Google or Yahoo ads, and will make the domain owner money.

Move on and find something else.

[adrianwaj]

I can help you with finding an alternate domain.

I've had the exact same problem very often and always ended up with something more imaginative, and practically better each time, once I start brainstorming.

Try combining two short normal words.

[profquail]

You could try using Sedo (domain name buy/sell website) to make them an offer for the domain name (or they may even have it listed there), or use Namejet to try to grab it once it expires.

[jrgnsd]

I can only add that yes, it's a good idea to get the .com as well.

If you look at Slashdot, they didn't even bother with the .net (or they're struggling to get it), but they did register .org and .com

[Tawheed]

What're your thoughts on .IO domain names? e.g. http://braintrust.io

[kebaman]

Have you tried the .us domain? I always suspected it's the next big landrush as so many of the .com names are gone.

[kebaman]

[added] one example: script.aculo.us

[visakhcr]

If you really want the domain, then I would suggest that you go ahead with .net now, and later try to get the .com and link them to the same page.

To cite an example, Darren Rowse of Problogger initially started with problogger.net since the .com was with someone else ('squatter' as you call them). He started off the blog with the .net and later went on buying Problogger.com