Using Affiliate Skills to Pay The Bills!

Blogging Tip: Dot Com or Bust

Posted by Kyle Eslick on October 22nd, 2007 | Category and Tags

One of the most common questions I get asked by my readers is how I came to name this site Kyle’s Cove. Actually, now that I think about it, it would probably make sense for me to add this information to my About page. Anyway, I digress. When I started this blog, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about, so I wanted a general name that would fit a technology blog, a personal blog, or a sports blog. The natural choice was Kyle’s Korner, or Kyle’s Corner as an alternative, as they seemed to be the perfect fit for my soon to be determined blog. Unfortunately, both domains were registered, so I went with Kyle’s Cove, which cove means the same thing as corner.

The reason I bring this up is because I’m trying to demonstrate just how important I felt it was to have a dot com domain name. There are all sorts of great dot net and dot org domain names available, but it just isn’t worth the hassle of dealing with. When someone enters a domain name into their web browser, that person’s instinct is to use dot com.

Not to long ago, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net was having this problem because he chose dot net. His content is very good, so the blog was extremely successful. The problem is he had to work harder to build his name, and he probably sent hundreds if not thousands of hits each day to ProBlogger.com. This can frustrate readers trying to find his site, as well as cause him to miss out on some traffic. He has since purchased the ProBlogger.com domain name to try to remedy this problem, then redirecting those readers to the ProBlogger.net domain that he has built up. The purchase of the dot net domain name seems to have worked out for Darren in the long run, but it cost him close to $5,000 to purchase the rights to the dot com version of his domain. And I also believe he is one of a few exceptions to the rule.

If you have already purchased and built up a dot net or dot org domain name, there are a few things you can do to promote your website. Daily Blog Tips recommends adding the full address to your blog’s banner. This is a good thing to do, as it will help to remind readers that you aren’t a dot com blog. I would also recommend placing a back order on the dot com version of your domain in the hopes of eventually acquiring the rights to it.

I personally will never purchase a domain name that isn’t a dot com and I always recommend new bloggers keep searching until they find an available dot com name that will suit their website. Would you ever consider purchasing a dot net or dot org domain name?

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Comment by Techlicious.tv on October 22nd, 2007:

You’re wrong about the $10,000 figure. Darren bought the dot com for a little over $4000.
Comment by Kyle Eslick on October 22nd, 2007:

Techlicious – Okay, thanks for the correction!

I did a search for his post that talked about it but couldn’t find it to get the exact figures. I thought I remembered him saying that he paid more than 7,000 and less than 10,000, but wouldn’t disclose the actual figure.

I stand corrected. I’ll continue to try to dig up the link for the post!
Comment by Techlicious.tv on October 22nd, 2007:

I’ll make it easy for you:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/03/23/probloggercom-sold/

“but it was higher than $4050 and lower than the original auction of $7000 USD.”
Comment by Kyle Eslick on October 22nd, 2007:

Thanks Tech! Post was updated for accuracy.
Comment by Rhys on October 22nd, 2007:

What’s your opinion of .co.uk’s? I always buy them, partly because they are a lot cheaper than .com in the UK. A number of top websites (i.e. bbc) are .co.uk’s, especially UK websites.

I feel I’m going to do a blog post on this
Comment by Ryan Wagner on October 22nd, 2007:

That “banner” idea is a great example of what you have to do. Just look at the OpenOffice program. Technically their name is OpenOffice.org which makes it easy for people to remember what the website address is since the openoffice.com is a domain squatter.
Comment by Michael on October 22nd, 2007:

I have always wondered whether it was a mistake for getting the .org domain but I’ve also thought about buying the .com domain. CyberSurge.com doesn’t seem to be in use at all, it is just a blog that was never updated. I think I may find out who owns it and offer to buy it.
Comment by shijirou on October 23rd, 2007:

So its better to get a dot com domain? I’m on a dot net domain and its been hard to get traffic into my blog (and the whole site as well). Could it be because of the dot net thing?

And also I love that sort of captcha thing you got on the comments asking me the sum of two numbers. Is this a plugin?

Thanks!
Comment by Kyle Eslick on October 23rd, 2007:

Rhys – I don’t know much about .co.uk’s. No domain is technically better than another domain. The problem is that most people’s instinct is to use dot com if they are manually typing the URL into the web browser. If you don’t have a dot com name, you could be missing out on some traffic or causing frustration for your readers who have to Google your site, etc, because they use dot com when trying to access your website. Do most people in your area have a .co.uk address?

In the link I did above, they talk about adding the full domain to your blog’s banner to help remind readers of your correct domain name. So, instead of your banner showing Rhys, it should show Rhys.co.uk (for example).

I look forward to reading your post about it!
Comment by Kyle Eslick on October 23rd, 2007:

Ryan – Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I personally won’t buy any domain’s that are not dot com, but if I did, I would use a banner with the full name.

Michael – If it is available, I would snatch it up, then just redirect it to your .org address. I think that is the best solution for people that have built up a domain name and don’t want to lose all that search engine juice. Domain’s at GoDaddy are $8.00 with the coupon code BLAUGH, so is it worth $8.00 for the rights to the dot com version of your blog name? It was worth more than $5,000 to Darren Rowse

Shij – When you say trouble getting traffic, that could be a variety of things. Is your site optimized for search engine traffic? How established is your domain? Are the search engines indexing it? Those are the first questions that jump out at me. Also, your domain includes a hyphen and a subdomain, which is fine, but might be hard for people to remember. In that case, you probably don’t have a lot of visitors from typing the URL directly into the web browser.
Comment by Techlicious.tv on October 23rd, 2007:

Not agreed… dot com or bust is passe… You should only worry if you have a .net or .org type of uncool domain names. The new TLDs are pretty hot and help in contributing towards the uniqueness of the blog. Take for example .fm & .tv domains. The only thing is that one should promote the TLD.. take for example last.fm! Take a look at http://www.techlicious.tv – The overall appearance and banner of the site makes it look memorable, which, i think, wud not look that cool with a dot com tld.
Comment by Hair Removal on October 23rd, 2007:

I agree that dot com are more frequently searched and even search engines give more value to a dot com rather than a dot org or others. But dot com domains are more expensive then the others.
What are your views over a dot info, Kyle?
Comment by firefox indir on April 4th, 2008:

thank you nice blog