Which is best .com or co.uk or .biz

[rossilinni]

I am involved in a training company.

We are considering setting up a "mirror" of our present website presently a .com (with a few small changes) in some other domain names

The training service has a fairly global sort of demand - most training done in Australia at present.

My question is this - is it worth setting up a mirror website under .co.uk , .asia , .com.au , .biz

Would this be a legitimate sort of strategy to attract more work. What would search engines think of this - help or hinder. We are not into playing "tricks" just trying to expand into different sectors and geographic areas. We may also change the name in front of the "." as we try to move into different sectors.

If it is worthwhile what domain names are worth going after ? There seem to be so many available now?

Thanks for any tips ?

BTW - I am halfway thru reading the book sex.com - an interesting yarn to say the least.

Thanks

Rosso

[Bushfiva]

Buyiing more domain names doesn't really expand you anywhere, other than in the way you may be ranked in the local versions of some search engines, but it does prevent others leveraging your brand or damaging it. This is is more of a concern for large companies than small ones. I've bought 200 domains on behalf of some clients, including mis-spellings of their names. But for a small organization with a .com, I recommend the .net and .org. If you're a UK company maybe the .co.uk emphasises it. Same for .com.au.

But .biz is a naff domain, pretty much turning into the stomping ground of scam artists. Don't bother with it, no-one's going to look for you and be impressed by a .biz site (except Turkey).

And you don't have to mirror your site, simply have the domains aliased to your existing site.

Finally, don't go overboard with lots of domain names: it's a recurring annual cost, and if you choose not to renew a domain one year, or forget, that's when scammers will swoop and use the domain against you. Better never to have owned a domain, than to own it and give it up.

[rossilinni]

Probably a stupid question Bushiva but why a .net or .org - is it because these have been around longer ?

The .biz always sounded pretty slick to me - interesting what you say that the tricksters have flocked to it.

Cheers

Rosso

[Bushfiva]

is it because these have been around longer

Pretty much. Early on, what type of site could get what domain was controlled, but that's fallen by the wayside now. Since you already have a .com, maybe the .com.au is the only other domain you want, if it's available.

Be warned, once you start checking for domain availability, you may see them getting snapped up if you don't immediately proceed to purchasing them.

Anyway, most people find sites through search engines, so it's more important that you rank well than that you have several domains. It's even more important that if someone explicitly searches for you, you rank higher than others trying to spoil the search!

[Salusa]

To be honest I find .biz a bit cheesey.

From a UK point of view I would go with..

.com
.co.uk

and if in aerospace business...

.aero

Just have the one website and have the other domains redirect to it.

[Whirlygig]

Concur with bushfiva! This is really a marketing/PR question based on image.

.com, .com.au and .co.uk all give the image of a professional business. .biz is truly naff and, to my mind, .net and org imply smaller organisations mainly because it was only groups and organisations who used this domain, not limited companies.

Cheers

Whirls

[planecrazy.eu]

Well you can never go wrong with a .com domain name, pretty much universal.

As for the rest, you better of sticking with what applies to the company or organisation.

If you in England, or Trade here, then .co.uk is fine. Same applies to companies trading in other countries, get the extension that applies to the country in which you trade.

.biz looks a little tacky as said, but some seem ok to me, like .ws and .cc, even though these are supposed to be country extensions.

.biz websites always remind me of scam websites, as a fair few of scam and get rich quick websites use .biz at the names are available usually.


Using a second domain name might have 0% effect on search rankings, may help a little on a local search, but wouldnt hold your breath.

If you want to get seen, then SEO is the best way, rise up the search engines and get seen.

[Keef]

Agree with the views above, but would be stronger against .biz.
ALL the mail I've had from .biz has been spam. I now have a filter that dumps e-mail from .biz addresses straight in the "deleted" box.

.net is mostly little companies doing webstuff.
.org .com and .co.country are the way to go.

[Capot]

.aero is nice, but expensive.

So it stays relatively exclusive, and they do try quite hard to keep it like that.

[Genghis the Engineer]

My tailor in bangkok uses ".biz" and the quality and reliability are excellent! (At least, the suits are - they've never really got the hang of punctually replying to Emails).

But, googling "tailor bangkok" I don't get them until page 5 - so that's not a great recommendation.

G :suspect: