Which is Better?

xyz.us, xyzDeals.com, or xyzus.com?

[cabbagehead]

I have a great root-word .us domain and if it weren't for the fact that it is a .us domain, I'd feel like the luckiest person in the market niche. Still to date, people don't really seem to recognize .us as a valid domain. So, I have a choice of either using that domain and perhaps trying to re-enforce it with xyzUS.com ... to pick up any confusion slack, or I can try to go a different direction and try to use a root word plus a qualifier such as xyzDeals.com. What is the better approach here? I'd love to use the .us domain but I don't want it to be a stumbling block for me either.

Thanks.

[gpmgroup]

coming from outside the US we have grown up with .ccTLD and .com. ccTLDs are very logical and fit well with the average users perceptions of the world (i.e. my country & rest of the world (us and them etc.) ccTLDs fit much better than some of the newer and more contrived gTLDs .us is likely to be much bigger than .info and .biz together

I'd say forget the somethingname.com and brand with pure .us In the next couple of years when the multinationals have their American targetted pages on .us, .us will seem so natural.

[cabbagehead]

Thanks gpmgroup.

You really see .us taking off in the future? So far I've been really dissappointed with the commercial adoption rate on those. Almost every professional company here in the US still uses .com, a lot of my friends still think anything but .com is cheesey and people like my mom still think xyzus.com whenever I tell her I have xyz.us.

I agree with you that it would be appropriate to use .us more .. I just don't see the impetus to move the US toward that goal. It seems so much marketing has already been put toward .com that nothing can ever catch up at this point. You see it differently however?

[MamaDawg]

FWIW, I have a couple .us domains - some single-word, some two-word and one where I have both xyz.us and xyzus.com. In parked traffic, the xyz.us and xyzus.com are about equal, the other .us domains get varying amounts of attention, some are doing quite well... I'm planning to develop one soon, we'll see how that goes ...

I have to admit, my fingers always want to tag a ".com" on the end when I type those names - force of habit!

[gpmgroup]

Yes I think .us will really take off, (I don't own any!)

the size of the US economy compared to the rest of the world,
increasingly countries with restricted 2nd level ccTLds are opening up as per .us,
patriotism,
us & them outlook of the majority of people,
very short extension,
easy branding and positioning.

If I was in doubt I would do as you said and register yournameus.com. I would also register a psuedo name
yourname.us.com expensive for what it is but it covers all bases.

I would then brand on yourname.us and point the other two names to the site.