.org

[NosajiX]

I am curious to know if there is any law about registering ".org" domains. Must these be for non-profit sites or may I treat it like any other .com?

[Leading Names]

There are no legal restrictions regarding use, use it like a .com if you like. Question is whether the extension would suit your intended use? Possibly not.

You could also consider using your ccTLD, .us

- Rob

[NosajiX]

why wouldn't it? if you don't mind me asking. is a ".org" inferior in some way?

[stock_post]

unless you are targetting a specific country .com is the best

if you are targetting UK for example .co.uk is best.

if you are targetting any one in the world .com is the way to go.

your .org will fetch lot more visitors to .com

[NosajiX]

so will .us fetch primarily users in united states?

when you say:

your .org will fetch lot more visitors to .com

do you mean that .org is country specific or it will work like .com in that it will be "world wide"

[jberryhill]

All top-level domains work just fine anywhere (with exceptions that aren't worth discussing for people in countries that run their own root servers). If you want ".tv" to stand for "television" instead of "Tuvalu", that's fine.

The point is simply one of perception. If I sell doorbells and my business is called "Ding Dong Bells", then I can use DingDongBells.org, just fine.

The problem is that I can spend zillions of dollars advertising my business in magazines and on TV as "DingDongBells.org". No matter what I do, a significant proportion of internet users in general, and this is very true in the United States, are going to see my advertisement, and then dutifully type in DingDongBells.com. It is simply a fact of life that people expect internet domain names to end in .com.

.Org was originally established, along with .com and .net, by Jon Postel who had sole authority over the root at the time. It was simply a decision by one person who thought that it would be a good idea to separate "commercial", "network infrastructure" and "other organizations" into different top-level domains. Today, PIR, which runs the .org registry, promotes and markets the TLD's to non-profit organizations, which desire to distinguish themselves from "commercial" organizations. Marketing aside, anyone can register and use a domain name in .org for whatever purpose they would like.

Cowboy boots are boots made for cowboys. Can you buy and wear cowboy boots even if you are not a cowboy? Surely you can. Can you wear cowboy boots and play tennis? Yes, if that's what you want to do. The point is that while you certainly can play tennis in cowboy boots, and nobody is going to stop you, most people prefer to wear shoes intended for playing tennis.

[NosajiX]

jberryhill - you rock! Thanks

[Jagusa]

your .org will fetch lot more visitors to .com

Is this just domainer's conventional wisdom or has there been an actual study of this?

[Acro]

Don't visit sex.org as it's not a sex education organization web site

[DomainBuyerBroker]

Developing on the .org may imply to your visitors that you are a non-profit or charitable type organization or maybe giving away free advice or something like that.

[Acro]

Developing on the .org may imply to your visitors that you are a non-profit or charitable type organization or maybe giving away free advice or something like that.

That's so 1999'ish.

[katherine]

That's so 1999'ish.

I tend to think the same way. I am so 1995ish

[DNQuest.com]

Is this just domainer's conventional wisdom or has there been an actual study of this?

There is a reason they say .com is king.

[myst.erio.us]

I see all sides to this conversation, but just like most of us on here, its hard not to because we've been in and around computers and the internet for years. I guess my take on it is if you're marketing a website at a .org, few people care what it ends with, but as mentioned, other people might type in the dot com version. Others might just wonder why you're not using the dot com. I do house calls for computers and you'd be amazed at what people don't understand about the internet and websites, etc.

It comes down to how you're marketing. If you're advertising just your company name, you will get a lot of people trying out the dot com domain, however if you're always marketing your companyname.org url, then you're forcing people to remember as a whole and you will most likely lose less people to the dot com.

My advice would be that if you can't get the dot com version of your company name, then you better keep shoving that .org tld in everyone's face every chance you get!

Ultimately, its hard to guess how people will translate your web address in their head.

[NosajiX]

I appreciate all of your responses. Thank you.

[tinner666]

How does .BiZ fit into the picture? As a sister of .com? And above .org?

[jberryhill]

How does .BiZ fit into the picture? As a sister of .com? And above .org?

One relative measure of popularity is simply to compare the number of domain names registered in a given TLD (or higher country-code system such as .co.uk).

71,762,205 .COM
10,687,317 .NET
6,418,542 .ORG
4,940,249 .INFO
1,910,882 .BIZ
1,380,066 .US

So, the question is really, "If people remember my name is Foo, then are they most likely to type in foo.com, foo.net, foo.org, etc." Keeping in mind that there are overwhelmingly more names in .com than any other TLD, the theory is that people are more likely to type ".com" after anything.

[Acro]

There are some other patterns you might want to consider:

Germans seem to like .net and .info quite a lot.

[draggar]

If you don't mind me piping in. I have a friend who's name has been registered (.com) by someone trying to monitize on his success. Unfortunately we do not have the funds to fight for the domain so I registered the .org, .info, and .net of his name.

I pointed the .net and .info to the .org and threw up a site and everything I knew with SEO went into the site. The site has only been up for a little over a month but there is a steady increase of traffic *plus* now, the .org ranks higher than the .com though Google searches, such as:
"Real Name"
+Real +Name
"Real Name" +industry
Real Name
Real Name Industry

While I'm sure the .com gets its share of traffic, this is a small success for him and I.

SEO can be a big help in overriding .com