Domain registration: how many extensions to register
When it comes to selecting a domain name, people are often inundated with various questions. One of the most important is which extension I should choose: dot-com, dot-net, or dot-biz.
There are circumstances when you may think it is appropriate to register more than one extension. This article aims to help you make the right choice.
A common problem is that people tend to type .com all the time on the web and land on various other sites. This could be problematic for both the company and the customer.
These extensions can help you specify the type of products or services you offer online or your geographic location.
To start this article, I am giving some basic definitions of the extensions that you can choose from:
- .com stands for "commercial". It is the best known and preferred extension for all commercial companies. The acute shortage of unforgettable .com domain names has led to the creation of several other extensions.
- .net means "network". It is generally used by Internet service providers, web hosting companies or other companies related to the Internet or network services.
- .org stands for "organization". It is commonly used by non-commercial websites. But these days, many companies register their .org extension corresponding to their .com domain names.
- .biz means "business". It is used for commercial websites. There is a better chance that you will get this extension due to its low current penetration.
- .info stands for "information". It is generally used for information exchange websites. This also like .biz is gradually growing in popularity and you are more likely to get it.
Your first goal should be to get a perfect domain name for your business. Once you've done that, you should consider registering other extensions for the same domain name.
It is up to you to decide which extensions are the most relevant to your business. It depends a lot on your customer base, range of products / services and also on your brand image.
You should always use domain forwarding service to redirect visitors from your other domains to your main domain. This is very important as visitors can get confused about your website address and may land on your competitor's website. For example, your domain name is home-appliances.net and your potential customers can reach home-appliances.com, which is your competitor.
Therefore, rather than buying a rival domain name from someone (at a high cost), it is always preferable to register that domain name yourself (at a low cost).
We found that name protection and increased coverage are the two key forces driving the need to register more than one domain name. The accessibility of the site is increased by registering more than one extension for a domain name.
There are other advantages of registering multiple domain names. It helps create a demand for similar domain names due to people realizing that there are so many domain names available related to the main one.
But some industry observers have a different point of view. They think that having more than one domain extension is very confusing for the visitors of these sites.
In conclusion, I would like to say that your main target should be .com and from then on, find out the extensions relevant to your business and try to register them as well. I recommend that you register all relevant extensions to ensure maximum coverage and minimum deviant competition.