
Ask HN: Is a .net domain good enough? - klon
I'm trying to find a good name for a startup I'm working on and think I've finally found one that is really good. The problem is I've only managed to secure the .net domain for it. The .com is taken by a domain squatter who is not replying to my emails. Should I proceed with the name or continue looking?
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ohashi
Can we not call everyone who holds domains squatters? Just because they don't:

* answer your emails

* you don't see anything on the page

* there are currently advertisements showing

* won't sell for 10$ because that's registration fee

doesn't make them a squatter. A cybersquatter is someone infringing on your
trademark. In almost every case I see, the people calling someone a squatter
are simply pissed off that the domain they want is taken and they have no
legitimate rights or claim to it, other than they thought of it just now and
think they can do something _better_ with it.

Thanks.

~~~
j_lagof
I agree, it is the same thing as buying a piece of land and waiting for the
area to become more popular and sell later...

The issue comes from the fact that buying domains are very cheap and easy, but
that's other problem.

*btw, I am not saying that I approve people with 1000s of domains just waiting for someone interested, but the business idea is the same.

~~~
dkarl
Intentionally provocative question: So you think domain squatting is ethical
if it's done occasionally and unsystematically, but not if it's done in an
efficient and industrious manner?

~~~
ohashi
If we use the real definition, it doesn't matter, if you break trademark law,
you break trademark law.

~~~
dkarl
Your definition doesn't match how I usually see the term used, so I don't
understand how it's the real one. Sure, it's written into law that way, but
legal jargon doesn't supersede actual widespread usage except in a legal
context. When people say "domain squatting" or "cybersquatting," they mean
speculatively buying and holding a domain with no intention of using it,
hoping to sell it later when it becomes valuable to someone else. (And no,
putting up a generic advertising search page does not qualify as "using" it
for the purposes of this definition.)

~~~
ohashi
Then what is 'using'? Please define it and think about the implications for
domain name registrations at all levels.

------
pg
I discourage it. People will always look for you (and worse still, send you
mail) at the dot com. And there are lots of decent dot com names still
available.

~~~
decadentcactus
Wouldn't that also depend on the target audience of the site? If a site was
targeted at the same people that use HN for example, I doubt they'd have a
problem with the site using a .net

~~~
davidw
What if they only sort of peripherally remember the name? It's about finding
it, rather than using it.

~~~
zepolen
Most people (even geeks) use google to find a site they don't remember the
exact url for, and google does a very good job at finding that url, regardless
if there is a .com with the same name.

Eg. searching for 'python' gets you python.org as 1st result. You don't want
to go to the .com

~~~
davidw
Because a ton of people link to python.org. Your startup most likely will not
have that advantage.

Also, I wonder how many people (say, someone's boss), heard about this cool
Python language and just tried python.com. Oops.

------
patio11
I have multi-personality disorder on this question. The SEO in me says "I
would take a strong, exact match .NET over a weak .COM every day of the week
and twice on Sunday." For example, if you want to do restaurant scheduling,
restaurantscheduling.net is better than servrschedulr.com or whatever the
convention is these days.

However, I don't think exact-match domain names are the answer for everybody
on this forum. I like them and swear by them, but a lot of y'all have goals
which would be better served by something brandable, even if it does sound
like twitpickr.ly.

PG mentions that people will always look for you at the dot com. This is true,
but the dot com they're looking for you at is google.com, because direct
navigation is dead. The ascendancy of search engines, broadening of the
Internet away from technical Americans, increasing use of mobile devices, etc
etc etc, have killed it convincingly.

As always, check your stats if you don't believe me.

~~~
icey
This is something that I started noticing a few months ago myself. Almost all
of the non-technical people I know have stopped using their address bar in
exchange for using Google's search box when they want to go somewhere.

If I say to go to foobar.com, they'll open their browser, either go to their
home page or _type in google.com_ , then type foobar.com into Google's search
box, search, and then click on the first link.

When I've asked, they've almost all said that it was "easier" than typing in
the address. I'm talking about tens of people... it's very strange, but I've
certainly been seeing what you're talking about first-person.

~~~
ElliotH
I have the same experience. It seems strange in the age of address bars with
searchable history and automatic search that people are still going out of
their way to go to a URL they already know.

------
astrec
Failure to secure the dot com cost us $400,000 at auction (plus legal fees
over 10 years): I really can't recommend you try and build a brand without it.
Even bit.ly owns bitly.com.

------
healsdata
I'd recommend against it. I worked for a company that was named akin to
"example.net" Nearly every week, we'd get a call from someone who went to
"examplenet.com" and didn't know why we were suddenly selling skateboards.

~~~
patio11
On the flip side, I host net-benefits.net as a favor to friends in the
debating community, and every week _I_ get an email from somebody attempting
to get into, e.g., Prudential's online insurance portal Net Benefits, because
they Googled the name on their benefits statement. (There are about four
places on the Internet that thought this would be a clever name for their
insurance/investing portal.)

------
flooha
I posted a similar question a couple of days ago here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058437>

I'm curious how much it really matters. I can see it being a big deal for
email, but for organic traffic I'm not convinced. Most domain squatters don't
have anything up on the site, have a adsense landing page or something
extremely outdated. Assuming your site has even mild success, your search
engine ranking will be much, much higher. Sadly, the email issue is probably a
show-stopper.

Also, I don't think a lot of people actually type the domain in the address
bar. They're either clicking a link or searching.

The real question here is, can you pull a dropbox? Trademark the name, launch
your site, get popular, then just take away the .com if the owner somehow
infringes on your mark. Is this a valid precedent or do you have to have boat-
loads of cash to actually make this work?

In any case, it's probably just easier to choose a different name. I just
emailed someone yesterday about a .com domain name and he wanted $20k. Seems
like the dropbox method might be easier.

------
yannis
On the premise that you are expecting your start-up to be a success you should
look for another domain and you should register the .com, .net .org .info
etc... Besides your application you will be building a brand don't share it
with a domain squatter and don't pay for a name over what is reasonable.

~~~
hh
I disagreed with this statement because there are plenty of successful sites
that has other dots besides .com. It's all depend on your application. If your
application is useful, then people will come. For example, when I registered
my website, <http://www.mathmaster.org>, the .dot com and everything else were
taken but now I am still doing ok in term of visitor counts. Majority of my
users come from either bookmarked or search engine anyway.

~~~
niyazpk
What happens when the domain squatter decide to persuade you (to buy the .com
domain) by uploading porn?

Risks should be properly taken care of when building a brand.

~~~
toothcomb
I saw that recently on an innocuous kids site. A domain with a different tld,
was a hard core porn site. Ouch.

I don't think that was a squatter it was just rather unfortunate. Unless that
is a trend?

------
shykes
It could be interesting to look at Dropbox's story. Didn't they secure
dropbox.com only recently?

~~~
ironkeith
Yes, but prior to that they used getdropbox.com, not dropbox.net (or something
of that ilk). I do believe they were able to lawyer a squatter into releasing
the dropbox.com domain _after_ they were proven successful.

~~~
shykes
You would think that being successful makes it _harder_ to get the domain
back, since the squatter knows the real stakes.

What are the legal grounds for "lawyering" him into releasing the domain?

~~~
ironkeith
I guess Dropbox ended up taking legal action against dropbox.com when they
started placing ads for Dropbox's competitors. As a result, the domain holder
ended up handing the domain over (no mention of purchase in the article).

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/13/dropbox-acquires-the-
do...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/13/dropbox-acquires-the-domain-
everyone-thought-it-had-dropbox-com/)

------
jasonkester
If your product is a development tool targeted at .NET developers, then yes.
Otherwise No. It looks bad, and nobody will remember it.

If you want to be a real business, you need a .com domain name. That's just
the way it goes. Register the .net and .org variants of your name if they're
available, but definitely run your site off a .com.

------
thibaut_barrere
I'd go .com whenever possible, at the cost of choosing a slightly different
name.

37signals <http://campfirenow.com/> (instead of <http://campfire.com/>) is a
typical illustration.

~~~
KWD
Or consider Dropbox that started at getdropbox.com before obtaining
dropbox.com.

------
markkoberlein
When you are a startup with no money, I would say buy the .net first only if
you could foresee buying the .com in the future when you do have the money.
Example of this would be if the .net was available and the .com domain was
owned by a squatter and is willing to sell it for $2k to $5k.

I wouldn't by a .net domain where the .com is already owned by an established
company because you probably won't be able to buy it in the future.

------
thinkbohemian
If you decide to look for another domain, someone posted a pretty cool app to
Ycombinator called nxdom.com it is worth taking a look.

In my personal experience, I say go for a few domains and direct them to an
alpha of your site with no branding. Then ask your alpha testers what they
prefer, and if they can remember your url. There are some popular .net sites
boingboing is the first thing that comes to my mind.

------
pierrefar
The short answer is no.

The only time you should use the .net is if you have secured all the other
TLDs and the .net is the best choice for branding or marketing.

~~~
kls
\-- the .net is the best choice for branding or marketing.

I agree which is why, we need more information before making a recommendation
as to what is the best course of action. If you are going to rely on word of
mouth and a grass roots ground swell then you need a memorable name and I
would say that the .com is very important.

If you are going to rely on advertising buys and blogger who will be linking
to your site then the domain name is less important.

The comment about the squatter uploading porn to strong arm you is a very
valid concern. If you are in a business where there could be confusion and
that could reflect poorly on you then I would avoid the name all together.

------
krav
In a nutshell, nope. If your startup takes off, part of your traffic (the
type-in kind) will go to the .com, where it'll be a parked page full of Google
or Yahoo ads, and will make the domain owner money.

Move on and find something else.

------
adrianwaj
I can help you with finding an alternate domain.

I've had the exact same problem very often and always ended up with something
more imaginative, and practically better each time, once I start
brainstorming.

Try combining two short normal words.

------
profquail
You could try using Sedo (domain name buy/sell website) to make them an offer
for the domain name (or they may even have it listed there), or use Namejet to
try to grab it once it expires.

------
jrgnsd
I can only add that yes, it's a good idea to get the .com as well.

If you look at Slashdot, they didn't even bother with the .net (or they're
struggling to get it), but they did register .org and .com

------
Tawheed
What're your thoughts on .IO domain names? e.g. <http://braintrust.io>

------
kebaman
Have you tried the .us domain? I always suspected it's the next big landrush
as so many of the .com names are gone.

~~~
kebaman
[added] one example: script.aculo.us

------
visakhcr
If you really want the domain, then I would suggest that you go ahead with
.net now, and later try to get the .com and link them to the same page.

To cite an example, Darren Rowse of Problogger initially started with
problogger.net since the .com was with someone else ('squatter' as you call
them). He started off the blog with the .net and later went on buying
Problogger.com

