.com domain name taken, should I buy a .net one?

[gldemo]

Hi everyone,

I'm not from UK but I just stumbled upon this forum and found it very interesting and useful.
Im new to biz in general and online biz and have a question. I am planning to build a website and going to buy a domain name/hosting services for it. The problem is that the domain name I had chosen was taken. Trying browsing that internet address brought me to a web page saying that its "under construction".

The .net version of the domain name is available, should I use that version? or should I try to contact the .com version's owner to buy it from him?

thanx a lot.
Dan

[ozbon]

Personally, I'd just try finding a different domain name.

If you offer to buy the .com, the owner knows it's worth some money to you (that's the whole point of buying up buttloads of domain names, the hope of making some money off it at some point)

You could use the .net - but you're likely to lose customers who will forget the extension and try the .com first (and/or the .co.[country]).

It's your choice at the end of the day. Me, I'd look for a different name.

[SneakSMS]

I'd be going for another domain as well. You never know, the company with the .com might develop their site and at some point in the future, demand the .net off you for trademark infringement.

[gldemo]

Thank you all,

Seems that I should go for another domain name.

But will it make SEO more difficult? Since (as far as I know) domain name does has an effect on SEO result, I think my site will do better if I choose the targeted keyword as domain name. E.g. car.com will have a better chance of reaching people who search for 'car' than 4-wheels.com, does that make any sense?

Thanks

[DanHarrison]

Keywords in a domain do help rankings, but you can only target very limited numbers of keywords with a domain. Therefore considering branding is pretty important, especially as there's an impact on trust too. (Also, forget using hyphens in a domain).

e.g. I would trust VelvetCars.com, but I wouldn't trust VelvetCars.net, Cheap-Cars.com

I've created some advice on this site of mine: http://www.puredomains.co.uk/ (UK bias, but still applicable).

Dan

[fisicx]

I really would worry about keywords in the domain name. If it's a niche market then it's going to be pretty easy to rank well for your main keywrods. If it's a highly competitive market then a domain name keyword is just a very small drop in the ocean.

In any case, more and more searches are longtail so the number of one and two word searches is decreasing as people get used to asking the right questions on a search engines.

[eukhost]

I don't think domain name will matter here if the business of both domains is different. What do you all think ?

[ozbon]

I don't think domain name will matter here if the business of both domains is different. What do you all think ?

It's more about advertising, making customers aware of the proper site + extension. If they remember the brand name (remember - not all customers come to a site via a search engine!) but not the extension, they'll go to the .com as a matter of course. They might try the .co.[country] extension if they *really* want the site. But they're not going to go through .org, .net, .eu, etc. etc. - they'll go elsewhere.

So it's easier to have a .com if you can - it's simply the one that most people recognise as being "The Internet".