I am doing a few long term legitimate website projects for finance and related industries. These websites will provide information/articles as well as be connected to a few professionals where they can business leads.
Most ,coms that I would prefer are long gone. However I still need to create these websites. Do you think it is better to use ,coms using hypens (example-site.com) or use ,org (examplesite,org). This is going to be a high quality and long term site that is for real store front financial professionals and they will most likely use the domain name for their offline/online marketing.
Please let me know. I really appreciate you thoughts and time.
It makes no difference whatsoever. Seriously. Go with the one which you think will be easier for your clients to remember. The use of a hyphen is something I tend to look down upon but irrespective of that, the .com extension is more popular and recognised (to some extent than a .org), so it pretty much balances itself out.
Thank you for your replies. I have no problem with the .org however I have so many clients tell me they do not want a .org no matter what.
Sometimes i build spec sites with the intention of selling sites later on down the line. Everyone is usually hesitant of .org because they hear “this” or “that” from someone…maybe this is because .org its not commonly used as the .com.
COM extension is something people use by default and with eyes closed. I suppose if I tell you: “visit sitepoint for more information” you will rill type in the address bar: sitepoint.com
Yes, but if you said site-point.com, do you think i would go to sitepoint OR site-point.com? Im still in the middle of all this, Im still not sure which direction to go. i might experiment and try a few of everything and see the reaction of people out there.
Hi, personally think .org is better option, because there are two hyphens “-” and “_” (at least in most keyboards) and can make some confusion which one to use.
And at the end, I think most of the visits will be generated through search engines, so maybe it’s not so relevant which one to use, as long as you have good content on the site.
To be honest, I don’t know that it makes much difference… I too tend to avoid hyphens in domain names, but that is purely personal preference. The domain names have different meaning as well - generally .com is used for ‘commercial’ / for profit websites, whereas .org is for organisations or non-profit things, but the boundaries seem to have blurred somewhat and people don’t generally go with those reasons now (I own several .co.uk domains for personal sites rather that a ‘UK company’)
What you should also consider is that you may risk customers confusing your site with the other site. This can be a PR nightmare if the other site for some reason get negative publicity, or if their site disappears and the domain is bought by someone with less honorable intentions. Furthermore, you might also face legal action if the name you chose is a trademark held by the other site.
There are so many .com names that aren’t taken. The name doesn’t have to make sense to be popular, as long as it’s easy to remember. Words like Twitter and Skype are nonsense, but are easy to remember and type.
I had registered my domain name as a dot com with a hyphen for a few years before the un-hyphenated version became available. (I had the dot com or nothing mindset & still do).
It was a PITA .
It seems that 50% of Americans don’t know the difference between a hyphen, an underscore or a tilde. I dreaded trying to tell someone my web or e-mail address.
Luckily, I finally scored the un-hypenated version a few years ago and never looked back.
Thanks for pointing that out, spanish is my primary language, and I didn’t knew that.
Here they have the same name, and it’s very problematic because every time you need to explain which one to use!
Americans often don’t know much of anything. I know, because I am one!
I personally would shy away from the hyphen, and the underscore is so 1996. I also prefer the .net ending, but that’s a personal preference considering I don’t, as a rule, do commercial sites, but help/resource sites for a variety of Net-based things, and I understand the .net extension isn’t very popular. I still have the idea that .org means non-profit organization, though that is apparently not always the case any longer.
I’m still waiting for the .oaf extension that I can force certain sites to use…!
You absolutely should not use a .org domain name for anything that is in any way commercially motivated. These domain names are for non-profit organisations, and to use them for commercial activities would be misleading and immoral.
And so far in this thread no one has even mentioned the .info extension!?
If it is a high profile financial institution there is always the new .pro TLD. $299/yr. Yikes!
I would choose a short decent hyphenated .com over a non-hyphenated .org any day. However if the non-hyphenated .com is taken my second choice would be a .net domain name.
Although not as popular, you could use .biz (business). I would not buy the .org. Even when the boundaries are blurred, I still associate it to non-profit organizations so I think it is misleading. I would go for the hyphen version (as I did for my sites)
Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Sure, .com is better because it’s what we all use but if someone is going to want to go to your site they’ll get there through a search engine or a backlink. If they’re going to go through your domain name then they’ll already know it.
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I know, because I am one!