picking a DOMAIN name

[Beth29]

What are your opinions between .com .org .net . . . . . . . .

For instance when searching for a site, would it cross your mind to try .org or .net if .com didn't find you the site you were looking for?

Meaning - how important is it to secure that .com over the other 'dot' options when purchasing a domain?

[dan_nc]

It really depends on how the website is marketed.

I generally do a google search on whatever item/group/company I'm looking for, and scan the first page of results. It wouldn't matter if it were a dot com, dot org or dot net. If it is an official government website, I would expect it to have a dot gov. If it didn't, I'd be suspicious.

[sjean423]

I generally search information out using google, so the <dot> extention doesn;t really matter. But even so I do think of <dot>com first. Say I had made a mental note of a website, and when looking for it later I might very well type in Beth.com instead of Beth.net. So there is probable some slight advantage to having a <dot>com domain name. Particulary for a fledgling business.


Edited to add .... OK Dan, even though I have taken you off ignore, I wasn't copying off your paper! Honest!

[mingo]

You think ".com" pretty much by nature. If your site takes off, you don't want the .com sitting there for someone to grab some traffic you were going to get by name recognition.

The search engines will list them in order of most usued/clicked on/ most content/most linked to.

I'd get the .com even if it was more a .org thing.

[LaoziSailor]

Just get creative, here's a whole bunch you may have never heard of.

The official body (and slightly less exciting to read) is ICANN.



.

[Patonb]

At the cost of a domain, take all 3, and redirect it to the dot com.

[nide44]

Originally Posted by Patonb

At the cost of a domain, take all 3, and redirect it to the dot com.

My 30 yr old, non-profit, volunteer organization, does just that.

We had a time when our webmaster forgot to pay to re-up the .org name, and it got stolen within 2 days, by a sleazy marketing web site for about a year, but we got it back ..... eventually.
Our web master then got all 3 and we redirect it to our .org site now.
(It gets paid automatically thru a cc now, too!)

[Beth29]

Thank you everyone for the input.
LaoziSailor - those were very helpful links explaining the .*** meanings

I purchased the .org of the domain name I like that fit the purpose of the website I have in mind.
If it never gets off the ground - the amount invested so far is pittance in the grand scheme...
The person who already owns the .com (snapped up the .com, .net, and .us at the same time in 2003) but isn't using any of them.
He wants $3,500 for the .com

yeah - right

My experience behind the scenes as far as webpages is very limited.
Never schooled in the "stuff".
Questions about a movie led me to the fan page of the lead actor.
My question was about the historical character he portrayed not the actor.

I had looked for sites about the historical figure - none offered interaction.
The only people offering answers from the variety of locations I posted the question at - were girls from his fansite location.
In their posts answering my question they asked questions in return (i.e. what did you think of the movie? Have you see him in this movie or that movie).
Compelled to reply since I'm not a rude person, I ended up spending alot of time at this site seeing the films they recommended and discussing them in intricate detail.
I am a good 15-20 years older than this site's core age so we didn't have that much in common and certainly had different points of view.
Not much is more strange than listening to a younger group discuss something using statements of "when I was younger" referencing themselves 3 years earlier or "I'm so old now" and really expressing they feel old because they've turned 23 or something like that.
It's hard to bite your tongue and let it ride when you think their statements are silly. But in their reality they ARE old - they are the oldest they've ever been.

Their interest in my input lead the 19 year old webmistress to ask me to moderate the film review section. Later she asked me to help her rewrite HER rules to make them clearer (she wrote them more like her personal pet peeves). Then due to certain coinciding events in our respective lives she gave me administrative access to edit her front page (non forum) teaching me how to use her "cute news" account - her idea not mine.

This started to get me focused on seeing her site rise above the other fan sites in search engines and when we ended up surpassing wikipedia I felt quite proud for her accomplishment.

My concern is not so much for my site to be first but rather address frustration issues. Like having your mother call you in tears because she can't find her new e-mail account (after she switched from wowway to gmail) and a few weeks later the teary eye call is dealing with I typed a long e-mail and I lost it because I can't find how to send it. It's not that easy to teach the almost 80 age group the concepts behind the internet or train them to use the scrollbar or follow the breadcrumbs. All the while, keeping in mind their bi-focal issues that you have no personal experience with.

When I get a spare $3,500 that I can't think of a better way that money can be spent - I'll buy the .com

[mingo]

Originally Posted by Patonb

At the cost of a domain, take all 3, and redirect it to the dot com.

While redirecting all the names to one hosted account does give you a presence to the casual observer they don't rank well.

Consider going a couple of bucks higher in the hosting package. You can then subdivide space in the hosting account by "alias".

I host at bestlittlehost.com and have several domains running out of the one hosted account. You can then run several differently themed sites for the price of the domains (maybe one get hit more than other...or you could recoup some cash by letting someone host an alised domain on your account. But you would either have to trust them absolutely or maintain their site. I have thought about one page sites for city businesses...

It would work like this:

mydomain.com-
/hardwarestore.com (alised)
/drugstore.com (alised)
/houseofpancakes.net (aliased)
/localcoffeebarn.org (aliased)

In other words each business or domain goes to a subdirectory and each subdirectory gets the DNS routings for search engines.

It sounds complicated, but is actually just a few clicks.

More than you asked for... for sure.

[Beth29]

Originally Posted by mingo

Consider going a couple of bucks higher in the hosting package.

I didn't see your post until after I wrote my #10.

I also didn't see Patonb's either - that is in fact where I went to buy the .org

My next hurdle is the webdesign itself and choosing a hosting site.

Many options - -

pay for someone to design and host could be cheap or as costly as $600/month.

$600/month could easily be a drop in the bucket if the purpose of the site was a business that had an income and profit in mind, therefore having a budget to cover costs like this as well as tax write off capabilities for the smaller sized entities.

I'm not "there"

So...
Do I invest in a formal education on webdesign/hosting?
Do I read yellow and black colored books named, "Webdesign & Hosting for Dummies"?
Do I just cough up the money and blindly trust the design and cost is the best I can get?