If you found the perfect 2 or 3 word domain but the .com was taken would you rather have a .net or just use the same 2 or 3 words with hypens and get a .com? like.....my-perfect-domain.com or myperfectdomain.net??? And what influences your decision??
I have always understood that .com is always the better choice - but hyphens are a no no too. Personally, I would choose the .com. Dean
I'd go the .net, everyone knows to jam all the words together with no spaces, and less people get the - or _ word breaks.
.Com without hyphens. .NET is hard to get respect with and hyphens just completely kill it. That's a large no no.
.com is much more common place. If someone told me of if I saw a web name and it said .net, I would remember - but the non-techs will not. Same goes true with all the root domain names such as .biz and .info. Dean
I prefer choosing .net version rather than .com with hypen. Domain name with no hypen will be easier to get ranked by search engine rather than hypen name. People would be easier to type name without hypen on their browser. There are many popular sites which is using .net version. It depends on how you make your .net popular.
I say the .net without hyphens. There are several caveats to this answer: 1) Is there an existing an competing developped site at the .com TLD or is it just parked? 2) How competitive is the phrase? - what about the .org / info / us etc. variants ? 3) do you have content ready to go (and update) for your .net site ? Rob
I don't see what's wrong with .net. Hyphens make the domain harder to remember anyways. Do what's best for your human visitors.
My vote is for .net. I'm simply not a fan of hyphens. As was mentioned above, users are accustomed to typing in the words as a single string. Introducing hyphens will confuse them. I have several .net sites. It's a fine TLD.
.net without the hypens is better. When choosing a domain name, people should consider how it sounds when verbally giving the URL to another person, does it take you half an hour to say it? Non web savvy people might find it difficult to remember correctly where to type the hypen. Also though it's a bit sad, some people don't even know what a hypen is, if given to them verbally. Does that mean - or _ or even / ??? I understand you're talking about 3 word domains with hypens which is pushing it but when you're reaching 4, that's a bit of a disaster. If your site was, www.this-is-my-domain.com, i wonder how users of this site would pass on verbally this URL to others? Do they speak it exactly as it's typed or just say "this is my domain with hypens between each word but after domain just type dot com" ??? The first is probably quicker to say but probably the latter way of saying it would help people remember more.
Both; Build on the .net, and forward the hyphenated .com. Hyphens, especially with (2+) in a domain looks extremely spammy to me (MY OPINION). If you're looking to go BIG with the domain, I suggest another .com, if it's something you just want to mess around with and hope it becomes a success one day, go with the .net. .net is extremely undervalued... my limit with .net though is with premium keywords... unless I own the .com and just don't feel like building a brand with the com and I take the net and build it on there... and awkward enough, the com doesn't get much leaked traffic (weird, but my experience...).
I prefer .coms but if it's only available with hypens I wouldn't get it. Plus if you got the hyphens that means someone else has the non-hyphened one so people might get confused and go there instead. Same problem with .nets. Even if you have the perfect .net name, people will go to the .com most likely out of habit.
Type-in traffic has nothing to do with it. You're not going to get any significant type-in traffic with a hyphenated .com OR with a .net domain. As far as search engine favorability, we can only really speculate about that here. But I have heard from a couple sources that hyphenated domains are actually good in some cases, because the SE's can more clearly distinguish the separate words.
I would chose the extension based on the type of site, .com for a commercial site .net for something techy like a web host .org for public service type site .info for an information site I dont mind hyphens, they can make the url easier to read.
No offense but that's crap advice. Here's the real story. .com: every website besides .org in some situations .net: if .com isn't available .org: as you said, for public service site. .info: for spam sites or for people who don't know what extension to get.