I'm trying to find a good name for a startup I'm working on and think I've finally found one that is really good. The problem is I've only managed to secure the .net domain for it. The .com is taken by a domain squatter who is not replying to my emails. Should I proceed with the name or continue looking?
Can we not call everyone who holds domains squatters? Just because they don't:<p>* answer your emails<p>* you don't see anything on the page<p>* there are currently advertisements showing<p>* won't sell for 10$ because that's registration fee<p>doesn't make them a squatter. A cybersquatter is someone infringing on your trademark. In almost every case I see, the people calling someone a squatter are simply pissed off that the domain they want is taken and they have no legitimate rights or claim to it, other than they thought of it just now and think they can do something <i>better</i> with it.<p>Thanks.
I discourage it. People will always look for you (and worse still, send you mail) at the dot com. And there are lots of decent dot com names still available.
I have multi-personality disorder on this question. The SEO in me says "I would take a strong, exact match .NET over a weak .COM every day of the week and twice on Sunday." For example, if you want to do restaurant scheduling, restaurantscheduling.net is better than servrschedulr.com or whatever the convention is these days.<p>However, I don't think exact-match domain names are the answer for everybody on this forum. I like them and swear by them, but a lot of y'all have goals which would be better served by something brandable, even if it does sound like twitpickr.ly.<p>PG mentions that people will always look for you at the dot com. This is true, but the dot com they're looking for you at is google.com, because direct navigation is dead. The ascendancy of search engines, broadening of the Internet away from technical Americans, increasing use of mobile devices, etc etc etc, have killed it convincingly.<p>As always, check your stats if you don't believe me.
Failure to secure the dot com cost us $400,000 at auction (plus legal fees over 10 years): I really can't recommend you try and build a brand without it. Even bit.ly owns bitly.com.
I'd recommend against it. I worked for a company that was named akin to "example.net" Nearly every week, we'd get a call from someone who went to "examplenet.com" and didn't know why we were suddenly selling skateboards.
I posted a similar question a couple of days ago here:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058437" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058437</a><p>I'm curious how much it really matters. I can see it being a big deal for email, but for organic traffic I'm not convinced. Most domain squatters don't have anything up on the site, have a adsense landing page or something extremely outdated. Assuming your site has even mild success, your search engine ranking will be much, much higher. Sadly, the email issue is probably a show-stopper.<p>Also, I don't think a lot of people actually type the domain in the address bar. They're either clicking a link or searching.<p>The real question here is, can you pull a dropbox? Trademark the name, launch your site, get popular, then just take away the .com if the owner somehow infringes on your mark. Is this a valid precedent or do you have to have boat-loads of cash to actually make this work?<p>In any case, it's probably just easier to choose a different name. I just emailed someone yesterday about a .com domain name and he wanted $20k. Seems like the dropbox method might be easier.
On the premise that you are expecting your start-up to be a success you should look for another domain and you should register the .com, .net .org .info etc... Besides your application you will be building a brand don't share it with a domain squatter and don't pay for a name over what is reasonable.
If your product is a development tool targeted at .NET developers, then yes. Otherwise No. It looks bad, and nobody will remember it.<p>If you want to be a real business, you need a .com domain name. That's just the way it goes. Register the .net and .org variants of your name if they're available, but definitely run your site off a .com.
I'd go .com whenever possible, at the cost of choosing a slightly different name.<p>37signals <a href="http://campfirenow.com/" rel="nofollow">http://campfirenow.com/</a> (instead of <a href="http://campfire.com/" rel="nofollow">http://campfire.com/</a>) is a typical illustration.
When you are a startup with no money, I would say buy the .net first only if you could foresee buying the .com in the future when you do have the money. Example of this would be if the .net was available and the .com domain was owned by a squatter and is willing to sell it for $2k to $5k.<p>I wouldn't by a .net domain where the .com is already owned by an established company because you probably won't be able to buy it in the future.
If you decide to look for another domain, someone posted a pretty cool app to Ycombinator called nxdom.com it is worth taking a look.<p>In my personal experience, I say go for a few domains and direct them to an alpha of your site with no branding. Then ask your alpha testers what they prefer, and if they can remember your url. There are some popular .net sites boingboing is the first thing that comes to my mind.
The short answer is no.<p>The only time you should use the .net is if you have secured all the other TLDs and the .net is the best choice for branding or marketing.
In a nutshell, nope. If your startup takes off, part of your traffic (the type-in kind) will go to the .com, where it'll be a parked page full of Google or Yahoo ads, and will make the domain owner money.<p>Move on and find something else.
I can help you with finding an alternate domain.<p>I've had the exact same problem very often and always ended up with something more imaginative, and practically better each time, once I start brainstorming.<p>Try combining two short normal words.
You could try using Sedo (domain name buy/sell website) to make them an offer for the domain name (or they may even have it listed there), or use Namejet to try to grab it once it expires.
I can only add that yes, it's a good idea to get the .com as well.<p>If you look at Slashdot, they didn't even bother with the .net (or they're struggling to get it), but they did register .org and .com
If you really want the domain, then I would suggest that you go ahead with .net now, and later try to get the .com and link them to the same page.<p>To cite an example, Darren Rowse of Problogger initially started with problogger.net since the .com was with someone else ('squatter' as you call them). He started off the blog with the .net and later went on buying Problogger.com