The only difference is the extension. The price of both is the same (under $10). But over the long term, if you can make a site quite reputable and have substantial traffic, how much value would a .com provide over .net? I read a recent piece about domain real estate and in it they were saying that a .com has far greater value for people dealing in domain names; in fact, a net was worthless a s far as these people dealing in domain names were concerned.
This can be a very long response If I include all the reasons, hence I won't; my advice for what it's worth is as categorical as they get: choose .com over .net every time.
.com, .net, .fm, .us...who cares. What really matters is the look of the site. Besides, a few years from now, this will no longer be an issue. .net will be the same as .com.
For the longest time, I've always thought that .net sounded cooler than .com. Anyway, what I think doesn't matter. Here's the bottom line: As far as search engines go, the domain extension means nothing. Your biggest problem is that most people associate websites with a .com extension, and so they may go to your website.com instead of .net, which could make you lose a lot of visitors. With that said, I suggest that you use your URL throughout your site. For example, don't just title the index page "My Website." Instead, title it "My Website.net"
Mainly it's better to have a .com address because that's the most popular version - if all someone remembers is your domain name and not your extension, they're going to try out .com first. So if you want to purchase a domain but they don't have it in the .com extension, I'd strongly recommend picking out a variant of your domain name so you can get the .com - it matters none in the search engines, but matters a lot in people's brains.
Spot on! And in many people's brains IMHO .net says something along the lines of "Sorry we couldn't afford a decent .com, we aren't really that successful and/or this is just a temporary/side project anyway"
I think we start using the domains for what there for.. .com =commericial .net = network org =orgraniztion .info = informational site heh...heh
Also the average surfer is used to .com sites. Often when people do direct type-in they add a .com in the address bar. If you don't own the .com, you could be losing traffic to whoever do/will own it.
Good point, If you don't want to use a .com for your site and register a .net etc..make sure to get the .com also becuase someone could reg afterwards and then profit on getting mis-typeins from your site.
I think your question was not if you should choose .com vs. .net domain but rather how much more is a .com worth. Correct? If so, I would check a site like Sedo.com to see the prices that .coms are selling for vs. .net domains. Good luck.
Makes sense. The link to the one you suggested is actually in my signature but I think there are other resources that are at least as good in that respect. In addition to that (since the question appears to be about the longer term) it would make sense to take a view on the future prospects of market prices for .net. Many people still believe what they were told about the time of the first dotcom boom - that there are really three extensions: .com, .net and .org. It will take time for the importance of that perception to fade away, but as it does it seems that the value of .net cannot hold for long unless a new purpose is found for it. If one is really serious about a site/business they start, it appears important that they should find a domain that doesn't carry the so called 'second-best stigma' (and IMHO .net may not even be second for much longer).
Agreed, many people see it that way. But when new .info registration is offered at around a $1-$2 and new .biz for around $6-$7 in my mind at least there is little doubt which one is the poorer value for money. And at least .info has branding potential in the long term - it means the same thing in so many languages. .biz doesn't, just like .net - these days everyone is in business (in one form or another) and everyone's business is on the net (obviously exaggerating for emphasis here, but hope you see what I mean).
I read on Aaron Walls seobook that .biz is bad for business and I believe it. If you run a business run it a .com not .biz. People have bias for "business" For example wal-mart is a Business. How about if there site was wal-mart.biz or even wal-mart.corp? (fictional domain name) Its doesn't look good.
"I think your question was not if you should choose .com vs. .net domain but rather how much more is a .com worth. Correct? If so, I would check a site like Sedo.com to see the prices that .coms are selling for vs. .net domains." Worth repeating. Also note that it is the site itself that really sells. To think that it is just about an extension is foolish. Would forums.digitalpoint.NET be any less of a value to the posters here? Even .FM's are worthwhile, if the site and marketing is good. Think outside the box. Unfortunately practically all don't.