Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Starting a new website with .co extension and its dangers

I am planning to start a website that has high importance on its domain name.The reason why i want to stick to the exact domain name is because this website has apps and it need to be discovered by peoples on playstore and apple stores.So i cant compromise in using a different name and get unnoticed by users than using the exact word the user will be searching.

The .com of the website is taken and i am no way interested in spending money for a domain.Anyway the .co is available.But as far as to my knowledge the .co domain is a country level domain of colombia just like .in for india.This website will have a huge impact on google search result and i want to grow the app through google search results also .I am worried whether the website will be limited to colombia in google search result because the website needs to be gloabally available and not to be restricted for one country as it will harm my growth.There is no way a turning back for me after the site/app will be launched and i can never accept a failure because of a domain name.

I have heard that google webmasters have option to set the website discovery locations.But i am still worried about it.Have anyone experience in this ?

Answer 8297

.CO is a great TLD that is gaining some popularity with startups. A domain based in the company’s country is a great choice as well, as it brings familiarity and trust. Either way, no matter what domain extension you choose, people will search you. As long as you invest in SEO - they will find you.

Not that there is anything wrong with it, but anything but ‘.gov .com .org .net .co’ (just to name a few) is often looked at as spam by search engines, not to mention it hasn’t caught on quite yet. It’s out of style as of right now, but later it may be a good option as the domain name supply gets more and more scarce.

Google looks at URLs and Domain Names as a valuable asset to a site’s establishment. I’m not going to tell you not to do it, but I will say it’s not for the faint of heart, for a fairly unestablished company that is.

-Cheers

Answer 8305

You can go for other domains like .net or .xyz which are not country specific and people will be able easily differentiate them from .com domain. Both .net and .xyz are high level domains used by many high profile websites like speetest.net and abc.xyz so they won't be considered as spam domain. You can add extra trust to your website by using WOT (web of trust) and Norton scanner submission.

Answer 8309

You are greatly overestimating the importance of a domain name and how “discovery” works.

There has been nothing true about owning a catchy .com TLD for half a decade, but nobody wants to hear that. Regardless, you are greatly overestimating how people are going to “organically” find your site and service.

Not owning the .com is not going to hurt you in any material way. At this point in time, nothing goes viral because of it’s cool domain name. Hope that helps.

The one thing that I’ve noticed in my experience, is that some people instinctively write .com on email addresses associated with you non .com domain name. But for urls, nobody is typing in urls, they type in partial urls, use google searches, and click through from social networks.

Your Google search won’t be altered or limited to Colombia.


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