Are .US domains worth it?

As the title says. I own a few myself, and they're pretty nice, but the thing is.. My friends saying they're not worth it, and I keep paying for them, so I wonder if I should stop paying for them, or save them for later use or auction.

I own Hotsale.us and Gamewire.us, a friend of mine said that .us domains are good, but I started doubting it. Both domains are soon to expire. Actually only hotsale. Gamewire got a while before it does.

So what you think guys? .US domains worth it? Worth to use compared to .net .org etc?

 

.com is the unofficial standard when it comes to domain names. When someone hears a domain, the first tld they will think of will be .com. Facebook does not use .net, .us, or anything other than .com. There is a reason for that. So I would agree with your friends that your .us domains are not worth it if you are not using them for a production website. If you are squatting or waiting for a potential buyer to come along you will be waiting a very long time. As far as .net and .org, they are not worth much either.

 

Ah, I see. That's sad... Been paying for those in like three years now :S

 

The .US is actually a good TLD for the companies focusing on US market.. Hotsale.us and Gamewire.us domains are good but to increase its worth, you need to make a blog or use those domain names and then list for sale if that is what you intend to do.

 

Hate to say it, but I don't think those names are worth it in the .US extension. If you've bought them and are developing them into websites than that would be different, but these likely wouldn't sell undeveloped. For parking/flipping .US domains it's probably best to keep them to premium one-word names.

 

If its making you money keep it. I prefer .com's but I have bought a few single word .net domains.

 

I guess it depends on the purpose, for resale its not that good, but might be good for developing if you have an exclusive american market, since the TLD is not that good outside us, as an European i'd rather go to a .co.uk than a .us for instance.

 

Whatever the domain extension, if you build a good site on it, and don't do anything stupid, one will rank as well as another. While there may be a slight advantage to a .com site, that advantage is made out to be much more than it actually is. In fact, depending on the nature of your site, people will tend to view a .org extension as being one of an organization rather than a commercial business, and might be more likely to trust it, and if you are developing regionally oriented sites, a .us extension will appear to be an official domain, and might generate more clicks than a .com would. However, if you are buying a domain for the sole purpose of reselling it, then a .com will do more good, if only because the popular myth that they are better serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

.US is a region specific Domain so if you want to focus only in US then keep it. Even its going to help you in local SERP rankings in US. But if you want to spread your business to all over the globe then .Com is the best option.

Hope you get, what you want.

 

Would love to get news15.us =P
Just sayin' lol

 

Yeah, I wouldn't buy .US personally. checkout .io it's already booming...

 

I won't say that .US domains are totally irrelevant or even not worth it. They are. If choosing a domain has a strategic reason they it makes sense.
For instance, if you are a US-based business in the US and the business you are in is around the world, but you want to show the authenticity of US make then it makes sense to have a .US domain.

Additionally it also depends how you use the .US domain. For example, yapp uses it in the form of yapp.us (us meaning the word us). So, first is the purpose of the website and then the usage, for branding/uniqueness is what makes a domain relevant. I always tell my clients to pick a domain from BigRock, whether it is a .COM or even a ccTLD or a gTLD.

Remember that all domains are unique. It is up to you as a user how you would want to leverage it to make your website's name look and sound different.

 

I think .US TLD has authority by itself just because its associated with the geographical region on the United States of America. That alone has clout and a .US specific TLD I could see ranking quickly and highly because of this. Some businesses only operate in America, it would makes sense for them to own this. Some businesses only want to sell to American buyers, so they could isolate those particular sales this way too.

 

I would prefer .com because its standard domain extension name based on US but don't think that it will affect your website's performance because its still depends on your site's activities in related niche online.