.net or dash .com

[TheLBC]

Hello,

I have a choice between:

bright-blue-widget.com

or,

brightbluewidget.net

Any thoughts as to which one i should develop on?

Thanks

[bakedjake]

Which one is easier to read on the side of a bus?

[TheLBC]

For readability, the .com would look better.

[bakedjake]

That's what I would go with, then.

[TheLBC]

How about from an seo standpoint, any thoughts?

[bakedjake]

It doesn't matter enough to screw with readability.

There is indirect credit given to the words if someone links to you with the domain name only, but it's so minor that I wouldn't worry about it.

[TheLBC]

Thanks bakedjake :-)

[etechsupport]

I think brightbluewidget.net is better.

[ScratchDisk]

Most people only type in urls of sites they REALLY like. Most likely people get to your site by clicking on SERPs... so domain names will be less and less important in the future. For marketing purposes, short cool sounding names are best, but for companies just looking for $$ from web traffic... the cool name is less important. If you are doing lots of off line promotion like print ads, opt for the dot com and short and sweet name. If your marketing through serps and pay per click don't worry so much about it.

[John Carpenter]

IMHO, one dash is acceptable, two dashes are not. Word1-word2-word3.com looks like a scraper site or some spammer's experiment.

However, register both (cybersquatters never sleep). If I were you I would decide for the .net option.

[edited by: John_Carpenter at 7:13 pm (utc) on Aug. 4, 2005]

[cphillips]

I agree, 2 dashes are too much.

[John Carpenter]

Also, I'd probably consider a shorter name. IMO, three words are too many for a domain name. The only exception would be one-syllable short words.