Hi All
If you're a small wannabe business on a budget which TLDs would you prefer? Say your company is called 'doorbell', then your main URL would be doorbell.com, and, at this time, you would probably like to have also doorbell.net, doorbell.org, doorbell.biz and doorbell.info. Indeed, you would like also the corresponding plural versions, i.e. doorbells.com, etc.

My question is, if you are to pick out only 4, 6 or 8 URLs, which ones would you go for? The 4 most obvious, I guess, would be, doorbell.com, doorbells.com, doorbell.biz and doorbells.biz. Or would it be preferable to stick with just the company name (here 'doorbell') and have just doorbell.com, doorbell.net, doorbell.org, and doorbell.biz?

The wise answer to all this is of course, the more the better, including misspellings, hyphenated versions etc., but for reasons of economy I will restrict myself to a maximum of 8 URLs.

Best regards
Anders

If I would to only get 4 domains, I would get:

1. doorbell.com
2. doorbells.com
3. doorbell.net
4. doorbells.net

If I would to get 6, I would get:

5. doorbell.biz
6. doorbells.biz

Then if I had to much money to spend, I would also get:

7. doorbell.org
8. doorbells.org

Everyone knows that .COM/.NET are the main and successfull business TLDs right now. .BIZ is to new and will probably take a while before people will get used to them. .ORG is mainly free/open source projects, organizations, clans, and/or warez sites.

Offcourse, this is my personal opinion and how I think most people see things. I could be wrong.

Not sure I would invest heavy in the plurals, I would concentrate on covering the most popular and the proposed "most popular."

doorbell.com
doorbells.com
doorbell.net
doorbell.org
doorbell.biz
doorbel.info

But .at rules! :D
Just think of all play on words you can make with that...

That was fun - and inspiring: made me invest in some plural versions. Thanks a lot, guys! I'm starting to focus now on three domains, two of which I can realize almost to perfection as regards the suggested variations. I regret that the important .com-plural is lacking in one as are .com-plural and .net-plural in the other. I must admit I'm currently on a bit of a domain shopping spree. When the .biz race is over, I intend to let go of the domains that don't fit the scheme of having a maximum of 8 domains. Where is the best place to advertise and sell domains? I know only of ShoutLoud.com.
Thanks again
Anders

Originally posted by cybahomie
Where is the best place to advertise and sell domains? I know only of ShoutLoud.com.

Some are
http://www.urlbuyers.com
http://www.afternic.com

Originally posted by Scott
Not sure I would invest heavy in the plurals, I would concentrate on covering the most popular and the proposed "most popular."

doorbell.com
doorbells.com
doorbell.net
doorbell.org
doorbell.biz
doorbel.info

How do you feel about door-bell.com and door-bells.com? Are there any advantages from including the hyphen (-) in terms of generating hits via search engines? I wonder also how many users would in fact include the hyphen (<3%)?

Best regards
Anders

I guess the hyphen really depends on the domain name and your gut feelings. IMO not many people use hyphens or remember to use them when trying to call up a web site. I only use them as a last effort to locate a site, otherwise I never do unless I know for a fact the URL has one in it.

I don't think there are any advantages in having a hyphen in your domain with regard to search engines, marketing, design, etc. with the exception of being able to use a word that you may not be able to otherwise without a hyphen. I have the feeling the disadvantages of a hyphenated domain could be considerable.

stuck with doorbell.com because you know its not about how much you can purchase it is about how much you can digest.

for each domain say doorbell.com you need to do marketing search engine submission hosting etc. and say if you keep 5 domains then you will be paying much more and people are very familiar with .com's so if they find you useful they will always bookmark you.

Also who cares what is your web site name. People care about the contains and service of your web site and not name of your site. How many people guess infosys.com is web site of one big software company.

Believe me you will not get more then 0.01 % visitors by guessing your name on there browser. They will come from ads, directory and search engines.

However if you have extra money to spent on 4-5 domain i can give you very good offer on this - if you contact me personally. I am in this business and guys like you are very good for us.

best of luck for you online venture ...
:wavey:

Thanks, Scott. I agree completely that the central URL must not be hyphenated. What I'm concerned about, however, is if one ought to include it as a backup, a redirect, for the sake of catching all potential traffic. There's also the consideration that you don't want a hateful site too close to you. Micro-soft is registered by Microsoft, but doesn't redirect (not right now at least).

In rare cases, though, I feel you may want to include the hyphen in your central URL. I would have liked opus.com, which was taken as early as 1992. Alternatives would be e.g. eopus.com, e-opus.com, xopus.com, x-opus.com. Here, I actually feel the hyphenated alternative looks superior to the non-hyphenated, but inless you have both I wouldn't depend on it. Surely, there must be studies on this? It would be very interesting to know more about this.

Until I know more, I'll choose to pay for the extra URLs. Safety first. Now that these blasted new TLDs are coming up, I cannot stay within the 8-URLs-max frame. However, I refuse to consider country codes, including .tv. I mean, where does it stop? To say nothing of the extentions offered by the likes of new.net . . . Because of the general confusion (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19916.html) over .biz and .info, my guess is the value of .com, .net, .org will remain unchanged. Personally, I have begun to think about these TLDs as representing the time before the flood. As I see it, their value can only increase.

Best
Anders

Thanks for your reply, md201. Interesting to hear it from a guy in the business. Price is not that bad, though. I have most of my domains with Stargate: $8 a piece. You're absolutely right in terms of not attempting to market more than one URL. URL guessing is a fact of life though. A while back I bought creambabe.com, just for the hell of it. The name only redirects and, to my knowledge, cannot be found in search engines, still it generates hits. Well, I got tired of the name and put it on Afternic's auction, after advice in this forum. That was the day before yesterday; and just yesterday, someone in the adult biz appraised it at $9,000. This has really wetted my appetite for domain names!
Cheers
Anders