I have a good business name, but the .com is taken (has been taken for ten years, but there's no website there).

I could put a word behind it, which indicates the kind of business I am doing...

... or I could go for the exact name in another doman.

I just wonder if most people still type .com, which would void this choice.

So:
.net is also taken.

.org
.biz is available.
.us (I want to avoid this, because there's no private registration for .us domains, and this would open me up for spammers and possible loonies & the goonies).

What's your opinion?

And: is .org better than .biz?

Thanks!

If it is for a business better to use .com

If I am not mistaken the .com has 75% of the domain market share.


If the .com and .net holder are already in the same kind of business as yours then you may be infringing on their trademark. Please get expert legal advice if you want to be sure of the legal issues.

You can check for the old website using archive.org and find out what the .com & .net sites were used for earlier.

If it is for a business better to use .com

If I am not mistaken the .com has 75% of the domain market share.


If the .com and .net holder are already in the same kind of business as yours then you may be infringing on their trademark. Please get expert legal advice if you want to be sure of the legal issues.

You can check for the old website using archive.org and find out what the .com & .net sites were used for earlier.

I'll go for the .com.

Since I posted I found a good longer .com name, which is not confusing.

I decided against a shorter name with underscores (but what if a potential client forgets these, or types dashes instead - he's gone).

The longer .com name only adds one word, which is actually the kind of service I am doing, so it will be easy to remember.

Thanks for the trademark tip. I actually spent the past seven weeks name searching, and this is my eleventh name, and this time it looks good.

I was searching my business name in the TESS trademark engine, googling my business name, checking the business name registry, checked alternative webaddresses in all variations (mostly parked sites of domain traders or very different businesses).

Other than than, it is the kind of business that is highly individual, a service, and therefore rather regional, and the only two other businesses I found are more than 2000 miles away.

So I gave myself the green light here.

.com all the way.

Did you try to contact the owner of the .com name? Maybe for a reasonable price for you, he will let it go, if it is really important for you

And: is .org better than .biz?
Of course NOT. And unless it's a very good keyword or keyword string AND your business is small and local (which in that case a .biz may work), I would definitely go with a longer .com.

If you choose another TLD, sooner or later you will change for a .com
I speak by experience...

I would stick to the .com - still the best but would find another domain or maybe a longer one with hyphens or something to keep the main theme.

I'd stick with dot-com, although I'm affiliated with a business who has had their domain registered for so long, back when dot-net = network, since they're an ISP, they took .net even though .com was available. Now .com is owned by a media company, but they've had no issues with people mistakenly typing <domain>.com because they can clearly see once they visit that the media company isn't their provider...

Did you try to contact the owner of the .com name? Maybe for a reasonable price for you, he will let it go, if it is really important for you

That sure is an option, but I need to spend my money on real things to do business with at this time.

I might put myself on the waiting list if the name goes back into the domain pool.

I found an entry in the yellow pages of that town that business is, and the domain was listed under the phone, so maybe the business closed down.

My second name is pretty good, so I'd rather notspend hundreds or even a thousand of more on the shorter one.

Of course NOT. And unless it's a very good keyword or keyword string AND your business is small and local (which in that case a .biz may work), I would definitely go with a longer .com.

By keyword string you mean parts of the name being treated as a keyword by search engines?

In this case, the longer name would be better than the shorter, as it exactly names the business I'll be in.

PS: what exactly is the difference between a keyword and a keyword string?

You made the right choice HG (from the facts we know).

By keyword string you mean parts of the name being treated as a keyword by search engines?

In this case, the longer name would be better than the shorter, as it exactly names the business I'll be in.

PS: what exactly is the difference between a keyword and a keyword string?
By "keyword string", I mean a key "phrase", i.e. a string of words in the exact same order as someone would type in to search, e.g. "webhosting.com" for "web hosting".

But if you can get the .com of your exact business name, make sure you register that, even as a secondary domain (for forwarding or whatever). Good luck.

Any chance of you telling us which domain you got? ;)