Why should we buy the dot net? If we just buy the dot com isn't that what everyone goes too anyway. Now let me turn this around to a predicament I have with a customer now. Typically, I have got the dot net and that will redirect to the dot com. In one case the dot com and net are city names and "point" to the business name dot com.
In another case another company own the dot com *but* not the dot net. I have commonly got the dot net just to tie it up and not used as a web page, just redirect it to another "main" dot com name the company is identified with! How can I use this dot net effectively when the "other" company owns the dot com? Am I just wasting my time and money?
Is there any reason to just get the dot net because it resembles your company or product name, but someone else has the dot com?
I own both dotcom and dotnet for some of my sites, but I never promote the dotnet as I believe it's a waste of my time. In the US, the only justification I'd have for acquiring a dotnet or dotorg for a commercial site would be to protect the dotcom brand from competition. This is a marketing decision, however, not necessarily a matter of whether the SEs prefer one top level domain over another in the algos.
How much traffic is the dot com going to get if I own the dot net (and the other guy owns the dot com) and try to promote the dot net. I sorta know the ans, but would like to hear your response. I know their are angles I have not thought of yet. This is why I like this forum. Let you hair down and have someone point out the obvious.
Rcjordan's comment abt protecting a "product" also makes sense.
I have only been promoting the Com myself, but if a visitor should try the Net (or any other domain owned buy the client), you will end up at the Com. The exception would be for product name domains. They would have a link of some sort to go to the "main" dot com of the company name, but be abt that product.
The purpose of this thread is that I am abt to purchase a bunch of domains to protect the product and the customer is going to question this in meetings down the road. Some of them are dot net's that are a very close derivatives of the product name. Several of the dot coms in question are apparently parked.
Bring on your opinions guys and gals, I flunked the water walking test recently.
Also, let's suppose that I spend ten minutes a month dealing with the .net site's email and other problems. That's two hours a year. A domain costs <$35, so compared to my hourly rate, I save a whole lot a year.
