A common problem in selecting a name is that someone else has already picked the name you want. You can go with a different top level domain (TLD) as I discussed in an earlier post. In addition to the reasons I already mentioned why you might not want to do it, there's one more reason. You could run into legal problems.
If your domain name is the same as someone else's trademark, attaching that name to a TLD other than .com does not eliminate the risk that you're infringing that trademark. Trademark law is not something to dabble in at home. It's quite complex and still evolving with respect to the Internet. You could seek legal advice. A competent trade mark attorney would guide you through the minefield that this area has become.
On the other hand, you could save your money and considerable aggravation by thinking up a different name.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Should I Consider Top Level Domains (TLDs) Other Than .com?
Conventional wisdom mandates selecting .com as the top level domain (TLD) to accompany your domain name -- especially if establishing a commercial site. The .com TLD wins the recognition contest hands down. Site visitors will assume that your site is something.com when they know you have a web site. Dot com is the most widely TLD used in domain names. So why even question using it?
Many desirable, potential .com names have already been taken. You wanted something.com, but somebody else has already registered something.com. What should you do?
You could use another TLD such as .org, .net, .info, etc. This approach could work -- especially if the other TLD could be part of your marketing strategy or sales pitch.
For instance, you're going to establish a web site about micro mosaics (very tiny mosaics). You've decided that you want "micromosaic.com," but "micromosaic.com" is taken. Take a look at micromosaic.com and determine the focus of the site. If it's a commercial site and you want a site devoted to sharing information about micro mosaics, then a .org domain name might yet work. Your site would be devoted to people who want information or who have information about the mosaics and the .com site is where someone else sold micro mosaic-related products.
On the other hand if your site is to be a commercial site, then merely changing the TLD to .org or .info is likely to cause confusion. Many of your potential customers would go to the dot com site. While your marketing aims to drive traffic to your site, instead you might benefit a competitor more than yourself.
Another potential way to use the site name you want along with the .com TLD is hyphenation, using hyphens to separate the key words in your domain name. Continuing the micro mosaic example, you could check the availability of micro-mosaic.com. If micro-mosaic.com were available, you could use it. Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom disfavors this approach, although I've never seen a rationale for the dislike. For me, it's actually easier to separate each keyword with a hyphen, but that's likely a minority view. Since most domain names don't take the hyphen approach, hyphens seem the less desirable approach even if available.
The third approach is to look for another name to register with a dot com TLD. Keep looking until you find a name that's available.
If your desired domain name is available with the .com TLD, register it and stop looking. If unavailable consider one of these other approaches. In my own search, I decided to keep looking.
Many desirable, potential .com names have already been taken. You wanted something.com, but somebody else has already registered something.com. What should you do?
You could use another TLD such as .org, .net, .info, etc. This approach could work -- especially if the other TLD could be part of your marketing strategy or sales pitch.
For instance, you're going to establish a web site about micro mosaics (very tiny mosaics). You've decided that you want "micromosaic.com," but "micromosaic.com" is taken. Take a look at micromosaic.com and determine the focus of the site. If it's a commercial site and you want a site devoted to sharing information about micro mosaics, then a .org domain name might yet work. Your site would be devoted to people who want information or who have information about the mosaics and the .com site is where someone else sold micro mosaic-related products.
On the other hand if your site is to be a commercial site, then merely changing the TLD to .org or .info is likely to cause confusion. Many of your potential customers would go to the dot com site. While your marketing aims to drive traffic to your site, instead you might benefit a competitor more than yourself.
Another potential way to use the site name you want along with the .com TLD is hyphenation, using hyphens to separate the key words in your domain name. Continuing the micro mosaic example, you could check the availability of micro-mosaic.com. If micro-mosaic.com were available, you could use it. Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom disfavors this approach, although I've never seen a rationale for the dislike. For me, it's actually easier to separate each keyword with a hyphen, but that's likely a minority view. Since most domain names don't take the hyphen approach, hyphens seem the less desirable approach even if available.
The third approach is to look for another name to register with a dot com TLD. Keep looking until you find a name that's available.
If your desired domain name is available with the .com TLD, register it and stop looking. If unavailable consider one of these other approaches. In my own search, I decided to keep looking.
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