.com Domain Advantages And Disadvantages (All You Need To Know)
You are about to start a website and you listen that .com extension is the number 1 option for a domain name. But why people suggest using a .com domain? I will explain in detail all the benefits of having a .com and some downsides.
Here are the advantages and disadvantages in short:
Advantages:
Instant Recognisability
.com is the number 1 choice from its birth for businesses and individuals. Because of that fact, online users are used to seeing the .com ending for most of the websites. It is easier for them to remember a website that ends in .com rather than any different extension.
Even now .com domain registrations are at least 5 times more from the second extension! We can see that stat from 2 different sources: domainnamestat.com/statistics/tldtype/all , research.domaintools.com/statistics/tld-counts/. Although there are more than 1000+ domain extensions, .com is still the king and no other extension seems to threaten it at least for the near future.
Even my own survey shows that more than 80% of the startups choose a .com domain. You can read more here: Startup Naming Trends (Domains,Length,Words Count,Suffixes,Prefixes) From 2015 and beyond many new TLDs (domain extensions) were introduced but people still prefer the .com because of the reputation it has.
Type-in Traffic
.com domains tend to have more type-in traffic than the other extensions. When people type a domain on their browser they will always add .com in the end. Type-in traffic was a very strong point in the past for .com domains but as the years pass, more people visit a website via a search engine like google instant of typing the domain directly.
Despite that fact, .com domains still receive this type of traffic and you can consider this advantage especially if you own a domain that contains 1-2 keywords such as insurance, real estate, buy cars, etc. When you choose a different extension you should expect that you will always lose some traffic to the .com equivalent.
Better Click-Through Rate
If you search on google for some information and you see one website with .com domain and one with .biz or .net what would you choose? We are assuming that you don’t know anything for both sites. I guess you would click on the .com version if all other factors are equal.
People are more familiar with .com and they choose it easier compared with other extensions. It is not the number one factor for clicking on a search result but it affects user decisions for sure.
Resale Value
Buying a .com domain is an investment too since the resale value is 5x – 100x more than the equivalent keyword in a different extension! Even if for any reason your business fails you can get some money back by selling your domain. Especially if it is a catchy combination of commercial keywords in demand.
A .com domain is an appreciating asset over time. You can read here why .com has so much value: 9 Reasons Why .com Domains Are So Expensive.
Global Appeal
If you target an international audience, .com is by far the number 1 choice. People understand that the product, service, or information you share on your site, probably appeals to many different countries.
Trust
People assume that a .com website is more secure and trusty than anything else. It’s been around for more than 30 years and many reputable websites exist with a .com domain. Spammers tend to use other extensions for spammy websites.
Many people choose to block emails from certain extensions because of spam emails! So, by using a .com domain your emails will have better deliverability.
Easier To Brand
If you decide to use some other extension then it is harder to brand since people add .com at the end of a domain. They don’t remember easily anything aside .com and maybe their country extension (.fr, .uk , .es etc).You need to put a lot of effort to make your brand stand out if you don’t use .com.
Setting Barriers For Competitors
If you buy a good domain you are doing 2 things at the same time. 1.)You secure a great brand and you make your life easier. 2.) You stop your competitors from buying a great domain for themselves.
That way you get an advantage for online marketing and your competitors start from a worse position. I will present an example: Let’s say that you secure the ownership of insurance.com and your competitors choose a longer domain such as abcdinsurance.com or a different extension such as insurance.net.
If you devote the same effort and similar budgets you will always win the battle for web-based traffic and customers!
Disadvantages:
Limited availability
Limited availability is the number one problem when you try to register a .com domain. The chance is that whatever catchy combination of keywords you think will not be available. The same happens for any short word or phrase that makes some sense. So, people tend to register very long domains or try some different domain extensions.
People get frustrated when they try to find a .com for the first time if they don’t know what is happening. Some users don’t buy a domain for building a website or using a professional email but with the purpose of reselling that domain for profit. This move contributes to the limited availability of .com domains.
They know that there is a demand for good keyword-based or short .com domains and they are keeping the domains until they find a good offer.
Expensive In Some Cases
Because of the limited availability of good .com domains, the prices have skyrocketed in the last years and the trend will continue. It is very common that for a premium .com domain you can pay some thousands of dollars or even millions, for one-word domains!
Final Words
I hope that the post helped you to understand why a .com domain is usually the best choice. Please share the post on social media if you like it!
