.net versus hyphenated .com

[Patrick Taylor]

I'm starting a new website on which I want to sell products online. My preferred domain name (eg: onetwothree.com) isn't available. I have a choice between (eg) one-two-three.com and onetwothree.net. I will probably buy both, but which one should I actually use for a business site? I've heard that hyphenated domains can be a disadvantage SERPS-wise (though I've heard opposing views too), and that a .net suffix is not really appropriate for a commercial site (or didn't used to be). My gut feeling is to use one-two-three.com. Does anyone have any views?

Regards,

Patrick

[dmorison]

I think the trouble with non ".com"'s is that less technically minded people tend to assume that a website is a .com.

Say somebody discovers your onetwothree.net website one night whilst surfing. They think the site is cool, and next day at work they want to tell a friend about it. The trouble is; if you have put emphasis on the "onetwothree", they are quite likely to tell their friend that the website is onetwothree.com.

So having said that, of your options I would go with one-two-three.com; although second only to choosing something else alltogether!

[georgeek]

I would use one-two-three.com in preference to onetwothree.com anyway based on my own experience. But there are many here who would take the opposite view. If you do a search here on hyphenated domains you will find lots of interesting thoughts on the subject which may help you decide.

[Patrick Taylor]

Thanks for the replies. The trouble is sometimes those "interesting thoughts" are simply too interesting! I'll take another look. I'm inclined to the one-two-three.com but my main worry was something I read regarding Inktomi and how they handle them, though hyphenated domains seem to feature strongly enough in MSN.

Regards,

Patrick

[BlueSky]

I'm more a believer in using and developing an easy to remember brandname. I've lost count on how many sites I've gone to that use keywords in domains and couldn't find them again because they got lost in the sea of others doing the exact same thing. If you think someone can't remember .net over .com, do you seriously think they'll remember to use dashes?

[rsequin]

What's easier to verbally pronounce? When you tell someone on the phone or in person, say one dash two dash three.com or onetwothree.net.

[georgeek]

What's easier to verbally pronounce? When you tell someone on the phone or in person, say one dash two dash three.com or onetwothree.net.

I used to quiz clients' staff about this in the early days because it is an interesting question. The answer was always something like this "one two three with a dash between the words" and I guess the alternative would have been "one two three all as one word". A surprising number though would say something like "search on Google for one two three and we are number one" which I liked because it verbally tied in their company with a well known brand.

[Patrick Taylor]

hmmm... the verbal thing is a tricky one. When I give my own domain on the phone I say "onetwothree.com with no spaces in between" which isn't much different from "one-two-three.com with hyphens in between". But I was thinking more in terms of SERPS. I would imagine very little traffic comes from the phone.

I'm still researching this and will post back when I'm done! Thanks for the replies.

[knotty]

I would probably chose onetwothree.net. Easier to tell someone .net than the hyphen business and .net is pretty common now. But do get both names. You don't want someone to take your other very similar sounding name. Maybe you can redirect the other one your not using.

Just what I would do.
knotty

[moltar]

I would get both :) And put a redirect on one of them.

[kriskd]

I was/am in a similiar situation. All that was available was the .net version of my desired domain name. However, I've lucked out in that the .com version is no longer an active website. Therefore when you type in the .com version into IE, it says that site isn't available, but suggests mine instead. Pretty cool, eh? I've gotten a lot of hits that way.

As far as people communicating my site correctly, I feel I am struggling there. It is still real easy to say dot-com instead of dot-net. Still, I feel .net is being recognized more.

The dashed version of my domain name (in this case one-two.com) wasn't available anyway at the time I was domain shopping. I prefer to keep things "clean" so I probably wouldn't have chosen it anyway.

Kris

[Patrick Taylor]

I've given it further thought. I don't think there's much difference in kudos these days between .com and .net. It also seems there might be a keyword advantage in a domain with keywords separated by hyphens, though it would appear that more than three words (more than two hyphens) could be vulnerable to some kind of filter penalisation. So a domain such as (eg) "three-blind-mice.com" would be a good one compared to "threeblindmice.com" which only makes sense in terms of domain convention and not in terms of user-benefit. There is an issue where a domain consists of a catch phrase, where the hyphens become even more meaningful in allowing the phrase to stand out in a SERPS page.

I can't find any hard evidence that a two-hyphen domain will perform less well in SERPS than its nohyphen counterpart. If anything, it's the reverse. I'm starting to think that had (eg) threeblindmice.com been available (although I would have bought the domain just as I've now also bought (eg) threeblindmice.net) I would be using three-blind-mice.com. As it is, I'm going to use a two-hyphen-domain.net - (eg) three-blind-mice.net.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Regards,

Patrick