Dot Net and Dot Com

Why do some companies use both?

[JoeHouse]

I have noticed that some companies go by both Dot Com and Dot Net. Is there any advantages to this? For example Dmoz uses .net, .com, .org. There are many more popular websites doing this.

Why? Is there something I am missing here?

Very curious.

Please Advise.

Thanks!

[pleeker]

Most companies register the different versions of their name for the sake of protection. If you own bluewidgets.com and develop it into a successful web business, you wouldn't want someone else to come along with bluewidgets.net and start taking business away because the names are so close.

We just met today with a prospect who owns the .net and .com versions of a certain name, and he wants to make the .net the main domain simply because it sounds better than the .com version. So we'll do a 301 on the .com and everybody's happy.

[RedWolf]

Also if you domain is multiple words, you may want to look at getting both the hypenated and regular versions(bluewidgets.com and blue-widgets.com). There is debate over whether the keywords in hypenated domains still help in search engine placement, but if you use that as your main domain name, most people who just heard the name or are typeing from memory will probably omit the hypens when they try to go to your site.

[Robert Charlton]

For example Dmoz uses .net, .com, .org.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I typed in www.dmoz.com and it did not redirect to www.dmoz.org. These duplicates, with different tlds, are known as "mirrors" or "mirror sites."

I don't understand why dmoz has set itself up this way. They're large enough that they can get away with it, I suppose. But this is not the way I suggest that anyone else do it.

I would recommend that a site be set up with one, and only one, default domain... and that any domain variants (used for reasons described above) be redirected with a 301 server redirect to this default.

When a site is properly set up, if your default is http*www.mydomain.com, and you type in http*www.mydomain.net, the .com, not the .net, should end up showing in the address window.

Otherwise, the engines will see the mirror sites on separate domains as dupes. The smarter engines will eventually default to the domain with the most inbound links. The engines won't always keep the domain you want them to keep, though, and some will penalize mirrors for having dupe content.

With mirror sites, you are also "splitting the vote" when it comes to inbound links. Dispersing your inbounds over mirrors on multiple domains costs you PageRank.

That's my take on it, anyway.