.COM vs. .NET - deciding suitable TLD for a website

[lucubrator]

Maybe someone here has some good hints concerning this question.

Lets say that you own 2 domains example.com and example.net.
You decide to develope a quality website of that topic to generate money
hopefully some day from content ads.

If the topic is very non-commercial (but still suitable for monetizing),
is it still better to use .com if you have both .com and .net acquired?

In my own opinion .net obviously sounds somehow better for non-commercial
topic. But are people really thinking about this kind of things or is .com
the king which is opened in search listings when spotted?

 

[Biggie]

i would put like this...

if you own both and use only the .net, then why leave .com unused?


or if you have .com, why do you need .net?


i would dev the com and redirect .net to it

 

[seoexperttools]

Agree, the best course of action would be redirect the unused domain to the other. Keep the domains is also a good practice to protect your brand name and image from being misused by other person.

 

[lucubrator]

Thank you both for the comments. I got 2 additional questions in my mind after reading your comments:

a) So apparently it's not confusing search engine then even though I would point .net/.org/.whatever to my .com?

b) How about if I had similar situation, which I described in the beginning but with .net and .org? Which one
is more "valuable" if the website is non-commercial but not organizational?

 

[Biggie]

how bout if you had .co and .mobi


or if you had .cc and .info

or if you had .me and .xxx

how bout just doing what you plan to do with what you currently have and see how it turns out...then come back and report.

 

[lucubrator]

Hey isn't the idea of a forum to discuss about whatever somehow related to forum topic? That's why you usually find
the things you need to know by Google because other people were talking things like this so I don't see why to stop
talking already now.

I am still curious to hear if someone has some hints or answers to the things I asked.

 

[PGB]

If you would like to develope the site in just one country, using the local ccTLD might be a good option because you can get a better position in google.
But if I had to choose between two gTLD I'd go always for .com. In my opinion develope the .com and redirect the rest ( .net, .info, .xxx, .whatever) to it is the best option.
Take in acount that most of the users don´t know the difference between them, people just think that .com is "the best". They dont know the difference between comercial, network or whatever.

 

[Biggie]

b) How about if I had similar situation, which I described in the beginning but with .net and .org? Which one
is more "valuable" if the website is non-commercial but not organizational?

the extension would have nothing to do with value initially, the website would make the domain that points to it valuable, depending on the content and visitors.

once the general public associates the domain name + extension to the website, then it would be valued as one.

imo...

 

[chipmeade]

If you want the site to be easier for visitors to remember and more intuitive to visit, use the .com. The .net is a fine TLD but it has no meaning to typical users other than as the stepchild of .com .org has some non-profit cache' but little meaning once visitors are on the site.

 

[lucubrator]

Big thanks for you guys for these comments. I find this interesting and useful information and hopefully also all
the others who maybe read this thread some day.

It seems that my journey is going to continue so that I develope all my future sites under .com (if I have one),
and forward the possible other extensions to that one. Anyway, I nowadays only am interested in .com/.net/.org
domains + my homeland's cctld.

 

[bwhhisc]

Invest in the .com name for your website. if you think you might have competition then try to get the .net and maybe .org too but build on the .com. If you use .net or .org, and someone else owns the .com you will lose traffic to them.