Digitalization in the past decade has been surging at an unprecedented rate. More and more websites keep on adding themselves to the World Wide Web. Businesses have been shifting their operations on the internet to cater to different sets of audiences and stay in the competition. Building an appealing website for your organization is one of the first steps in constructing a digital presence. Choosing the right domain name is one of the first steps of building a website and setting a business online.
Wait, we might know what you’re actually thinking. You would most likely want to prefer the .com domain name. But it’s good to be aware of all the domains available and choose the best depending on the type of your organization and the website you are building. Every business has different requirements and analyzing all the options before picking one without second thoughts is often risky. Let’s look at the different domain names available to choose from while building a website over the internet for your business.
.com extension
The .com extension is hands down the most popular over the World Wide Web. It has always dominated the website building process over the web and retained its value ever since. It is the most used domain name and the first choice of companies developing a new website. This is because the searchers are highly plausible about remembering your website if it comes with the most used domain name. One can easily recall your website to be ‘(your business’s name).com’ and easily look for it on the web.
Additionally, search engines such as Google prefer ranking websites with .com domain extension in organic search results. This is also because of the popularity of the .com domain amongst internet users who consider .com to be the default extension of any website.
.org extension
The popularity of one does not mean the complete abandoning of the other. It is true that a .com domain has an upper hand in the market. But .org domain extension is also familiar to the internet users and has established itself as a trustworthy domain on the World Wide Web.
Mostly Non-profit organizations (NGOs) and other charity workers use .org extension while making a website. People on the internet associate this domain name with those working for a noble cause and social welfare. Hence having a website with .org domain extension attracts more people looking for charitable and other related services over the web.
Therefore, because of its popularity between NGOs and related organizations, businesses working for profit do not go with this domain extension as a preferred option. If you do want to pick .org domain for your company, make sure your marketing techniques are successful. If not, you might lose in making your place in people’s minds. This is because they would by default assume your website to be having a .com extension.
.net extension
Another domain name that is well known among the people over the web is .net extension. It is usually a trusted and established domain extension over the web although it is not as popular as the other two mentioned. The companies providing internet services initially used this extension. But today it does not belong to a particular set of organizations, unlike the .org extension. Rather profit-seeking companies and any organization that would like to go with it can use .org extension.
Customers definitely consider a .net extension as an authoritative domain. But it does not match up to a .com or a .org extension. Hence .net extension can be your ideal choice in case your preferred .com website is not available.
Other domain extensions
We have already talked about the three most commonly used domain names for making websites. There are some other extensions as well that you can find on several websites on the internet. These include .info, .gov, .edu, .co etc. Let’s talk about each of them in very brief.
.gov – One can very easily find this extension on websites related to the Government and public service portals use this domain name in their website links. Also, a .gov extension ensures that this is the official portal of the particular government organization you were looking for.
.co – This is as relevant for commercial or any other type of website as a .com extension is. People tend to associate the two of them very closely and thus easily click on the websites with .co domain name. But this can also be a negative aspect as people might not remember it well and end up adding .com to the link while searching for your website.
.edu – This extension is popularly used by educational institutions, be it public or private sector institutions. Searchers can easily identify an educational institution looking at its link having a .edu extension.
. info – This domain extension is used by informational websites but does not come with restricted use. This information can be about anything- some research, event, report, or even products or services.
Some other domain extensions are .biz for businesses and .ly for unrestricted use but these are not used very much.
Significance of choosing the right domain name
These extensions are more than just an addition to your website link. They play a crucial role in making customers over the web make an informed decision. One needs to consider a lot of things while choosing the best for their company or organization. Whatever you choose should be user-friendly and make a prolonged impact on people’s minds.
It should in accordance with the services offered by your organization. It should be SEO-friendly as well and assist in building your brand reputation online.
