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surferboy · Aug 6, 2006, 04:52 PM

I am planning a few new websites that are professional in nature. Unfortunately, for the names I want, the .coms are already taken, but .net, .org and .info are available. Just curious what people think about the various extensions? I think .org brings a little sense of professionalism, but I'd love to hear your opinions.

TheIceMan · 12:29 AM

I went through this dilemma about 6 months ago. Try to stick with .com because it's easiest for people to remember. Usually nonprofits use .org. And it's mighty difficult to remember .info. So stick with .com, if not go with .net. You said you want to start a professional website. This means that you'll want a name that will be easy for web surfers to recall. The advice that was given to me was to use .com or .net unless you are a nonprofit agency, then .org. Hope that helps.

[Edit:] Correction for grammar.

Love Calm Quiet · Aug 8, 2006, 07:56 AM

Originally Posted by TheIceMan

The advice that was given to me was to use .com or .net unless you are a nonprofit agency, then .org.

Yes. Exactly. Most users ASSUME the suffix is .com (unless they think of you as a nonprofit/service company). So being anything else is second-best.

Notice, however, that telecom companies seem to favor .net -- probably for arcane historical reasons.

surferboy · Aug 8, 2006, 09:07 AM

I agree, but there are no domain names even close to what I want- so rather than come up with a funky name, I am considering .net

TheIceMan · Aug 9, 2006, 02:14 AM

.net is ok. Good luck with the name. Let us know what you come up with.

surferboy · Aug 9, 2006, 02:22 AM

I came up with .coms that were reasonable:

yourkneecare.com
yourshouldercare.com

as opposed to yourshoulder.net and yourknee.net

What do you think?

Love Calm Quiet · Aug 11, 2006, 03:15 PM

If you're examples are real - they sound good to me. I rather like having the "care" word in there. All depends on whether it fits in (or can) nicely with how you plan to market.

TheIceMan · Aug 13, 2006, 12:27 AM

yes, i agree. so your website is about providing medical care/equipments for knees and/or shoulders?

surferboy · Aug 13, 2006, 08:34 AM

Medical care for knees and shoulders. I got four domains: yourkneecare.com, yourshouldercare.com, kneeandshouldercare.com and shoulderandkneecare.com.

I am using Joomla to develop the sites. Obviously there will be overalp of material on the websites. I can literally clone a site and use the same site with two different domains, or I can park a site or redirect a site.

I wonder what the SEO repercussions are of the above options?

skalie · Aug 13, 2006, 08:44 AM

Look into "301 redirect seo", in my day I think it was pretty seo friendly.

surferboy · Aug 13, 2006, 09:01 AM

That's a good tip. Thanks. I have a main domain and several add-on domains. The 301 redirect seems to work when I redirect my main domain to my add-on domain, but not vice versa- get a message saying there are too many redirects?

skalie · Aug 13, 2006, 09:56 AM

er, you haven't set up a loop have you?

It's a permenant redirect, best used to have all add-on domains point to one main domain, at least that's how I've used it in the past.

I believe that google frowns on duplicate websites, btw, but seo is really a (everchanging) science in itself, so don't quote me on that.