I want to buy some domains that attract users outside of the US Does .com work well outside the US or should I go for something else?
infact thats the only domain name work outside usa .. because most peoples donot understand meaning of .net/.org etc (i mean common peoples visiting on internet not techies like on this forum).
dot com works well, and should be your first choice unless your target market is confined to a single country. And even then, if you can also get the dot com, do. Peopel do understand net and org, it's just that com is much better liked.
For UK definitely .co.uk - for Germany definitely .de - the rest all too small a market so I'd also stick with a .com - maybe a .net
coming to think of it, I was in Germany for a week and noticed that every webadress advertised offline was .de, maybe one in 50 was a .com. I wonder why that is, probably them being overly nationalistic over there.
oh you can book .co.in or .in for future because indian market will be bigger than uk or germany very soon .
Not 'overly nationalistic' IMO. It's just that they have a big enough country to be able to have enough quality websites in their own language on any topic. Unlike a country like Holland or Luxembourg, where you find a lot more .com etc. due to the fact people are so used to having to venture out of their national comfort zone. (You wouldn't easily find a good site on a niche subject in such countries.) Germany being so big, they stick (and have plenty of incentive/reason to do so) to German sites more. How many Germans do you see here on DP? Proportionally very few; they have plenty of their own big webmaster boards. And why struggle in a foreign language if you can do it in your mother tongue. And why then use .com if you can use .de? Seems logical to me. Nothing to do with nationalism.
I agree TOPS, what you said did make sense. It is also probably to do with the fact that not many Germans are very fluent in English because it isn't their first language and there are good enough WM boards with traffic in Germany as Johan said.( I may be wrong here about the language part cos I have never lived in Germany) And coming back to the domain thing, dot com has and will always rule. However it could get saturated and others like.us or .info could get prominence. In countries where internet literacy is relatively low, dot com is the first thing they do learn .
Definitely go for .com, I am from the UK and I tend to buy .com and .co.uk whenever I can as dotcom is what's known all over. If you are going for a specific country then I would also purchase theirs too.
If the site is going to be in english go with the .com, its universal for sure. (unless your targeting UK specificaly then go with .co.uk) My take on why germans are more into .de domains is that they know the site would likely be in german whereas they would assume a .com is likely english. OR even if it is in english they know it is targeted to them and not mainly the US. People, outside the US, trust country specific domains when they are looking for something specific to them and their needs as it realtes to their country. To target mainly europe i would consider a .eu though you need to be based in europe to purchase one. I wanted to by a .eu but i can't cause im in Canada. Perhaps i should ask someone here on DP to help me out with getting it, though i'm not sure if they are allowed to transfer it or not????
My Humble Opinion Germans - contrary to popular belief many Germans do speak English as a second language especially the younger generation. I lived in Germany for three years and found that the German government is very supportive of it's own infrastructure. eg. All German government agencies that need to purchase vehicles (police, fire, ambulance etc) must buy German made vehicles. The same applies to taxis. (this may have changed as I lived there over 10 years ago) It doesnt strike me as odd that they would go with a .de. Being from the UK if I see two similar websites .com and .co.uk I would always go for the co.uk one first. Not necessary because of national pride - but more so because it will probably be more local and relevant (and if I am buying something I will not incur import tax) .eu I don't know about other European countries but many Brits would not bother with .eu, because a lot of us feel that this whole "United States of Europe" thing is being forced upon us and I think most of us want to stay independent with our own money and the ability to make our own laws. But as regards the original question "Does .com work well outside the US or should I go for something else?" I don't think the rest of the world sees .com as a "United States thing". I think most people see it as a global thing (which I know is technically incorrect) but thats just the way it's evolved.
I'm from Belgium and many belgian sites use the .be instead of the .com version. If you target the international market it's best to use a .com or .net (or both like most people do) Didier
I'm from the Netherlands and if you see a country specific tld like .nl for dutch you know it's a local site with dutch information a .com is regarded as normal too but if I build a site targeting dutch ppl I would go for a .nl first and if it's not available for the .com ...is also cheaper as a .nl is only $4,80 (hey I am dutch )