

Ask HN: Non-".com" TLDs - stevenklein

What are your opinions of startups whose domains end in .ly, .tv or .io (or the many others)? Do they seem less legitimate to you or does it not affect how you view them?<p>If you do think differently of startups with whose domains end in something other than ".com" what are your reasons? Of the more popular TLDs, which ones seem the MOST legitimate (which are the "least bad")?
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kurtvarner
This question can be highly debated, but here's my take...

Yes, alternative TLDs are cool for us nerds, but it's horrible for any startup
in the consumer internet space. Most "regular" people are not familiar or
comfortable using them. More often than not, people will meet you with a blank
stare when you tell them your website is example.io.

I once spoke with the founders of Vol.ly (since acquired) and they said their
name choice was a nightmare. Their company was pronounced Volly, but every
time they would have to take time to explain their domain was v-o-l dot l-y.
This is annoying for the founders and instantly forgotten by the user.

There's a reason why most startups that begin with non-.com domains eventually
switch if they gain enough traction.

All that being said, I don't think it's logical to purchase an expensive .com
before your company proves its success (or raises an absurd amount of money).
Take your time, and get creative to find a workable .com, or get a domain that
will still make sense if you ever want to purchase the .com. For example,
served.io (no disrespect to them) could never change to servedio.com.

However, if your not in the consumer space, then I think alternative TLDs are
a much more viable option. You're not depending on eyeballs for your startup's
success. And if your target market is technology folk, it's even better.

~~~
richf
I agree, but in our scenario, served.com is available for purchase - price?
who knows.

~~~
richf
Oops, I meant served.co/.net/.org. But, like I said earlier and others have
mentioned.. no need to go after those big names unless you get some decent
traction.

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cobrabyte
We are in the process of building our startup for QR codes at QR.io.

Being an SEO/SEM guy for years, I was worried about Google snubbing a .io
domain in SERPs. In the two weeks that the new site has been online, we've
floated up from page 50+ to about page 5 for our most-targeted keyword phrase
(QR code platform).

You do lose the ability to tell Google that it a US-targeted domain in Google
Webmaster Tools like you can for non-country TLDs.

We went with it because data payloads of QR codes can be quite small
(especially in MicroQR codes) and every character saved is potentially an
exponential gain where it comes to unique identifiers in a URL shortener.

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gesman
Short 2-letter TLD's are practical and shorter. .TV is cute. .LY is fun but
could feel too "political" to some. Also - registering and relying the whole
business to domain registered in unstable political jurisdiction could be
prone to "blackouts" :)

I registered: C.GG a few years ago because i wanted to make my own shortener
that would be very easy and fast to type on the keyboard (letter C and G are
conveniently on the left side of keyboard, and dot on the right). But never
got to use it though yet.

Each one has it's own reason!

Gleb

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kls
This question comes down to marketing, if the largest portion of your growth
will come from search, social links, and web advertising then I think they are
fine. They are really bad for national branding campaigns like radio and TV,
where linking is not an option. It is interesting that Overstock is pushing
hard for a re-brand to O.co. It's a great name, if they can pull it off and
change consumer habits it will help other brands gain legitimacy in branding.
As such though they have their work cut out for them.

~~~
sagacity
> if the largest portion of your growth will come from search, social links,
> and web advertising then I think they are fine.

Bingo. Such novelty domains can be a dog to promote via any non-clickable
medium.

On my whim in March last year, we went and created <http://getlocalne.ws>

In the early days, getting the word out about it was like a chore (and a
half). Shortly after launch, a local newspaper, a popular magazine and a
national TV channel here all wanted to cover it. Between them, I remember
confirming and re-confirming the domain/URL about a dozen times ! :)

Even during and in the immediate aftermath of all that coverage, the traffic
was hardly anything to write home about - peaking to just about 1500 per day,
slowly tapering off to stabilize at around 250 or so. I attribute this low
impact to the facts that 1) the domain is not a .com and 2) all 3 media that
covered it were non-clickable.

Interestingly, once the search/social and other online sources started kicking
in, the traffic levels started rising steadily, almost week-on-week (presently
at about 5k/day).

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sagacity
Quite an interesting point, thanks for bringing it up.

I'd say most domain extensions other than .com, .net, .org (and .edu, .mil,
.gov) would fall under either ccTLD (country-code TLDs) or vanity domain
categories.

If memory serves me right, the first creative use of such a domain that
achieved good visibility and large-scale commercial success was del.icio.us,
or am I missing any others before that?

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hm2k
If your marketing is mostly online and you're targeting more geeks, then a
cool foreign domain is fine.

If you're targeting the masses, and marketing in print, then you need
something more obvious which is easy to phonetically speak.

Having said that, I've seen some awful "dot-coms" read out on TV ads and radio
ads over the years...

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cyrus_
Careful with .ly, the website you serve on a .ly domain name must conform to
the laws of Libya. A URL shortener, vb.ly, was seized in the past for linking
to adult materials: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370354,00.asp>.

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leslyn
We use .me - first because it makes sense for our name and because it was
available. At the time, the .com version was held by a broker but fortunately
for us, he let it expire and we were waiting! We still use the .me but direct
the .com

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richf
I use a .io for my startup (served.io), and the reason why I picked it is
because of its "coolness" factor. No need to spend thousands or millions to
obtain the .com at this time.

~~~
stevenklein
Yeah .io definitely has that "coolness" factor right now. Nice landing page
BTW. How are you liking launchrock?

~~~
richf
I think it's fantastic - meets my requirements and is free - I'd probably pay
a small fee for it though, very useful.

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GB_001
I just bought PostWith.Me a few months ago. I think that this domain is alot
easier to remember as it's a play off the domain extension.

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adrianwaj
I really like the possibilities with .it

~~~
sagacity
.es can provide some great plural possibilities too.

Even .info (that was considered to be spammy some years ago, don't know now)
can offer some great ones. A throw-away reg fee of $1 to $2 (first year) makes
it all the more attractive. :)

