Ask HN: In 2022, Is the “dot com” TLD still worth it?

11 points

4 years ago

If you ever tried to register a beautiful/meaningful/short ".com" domain, you are most likely to find it is already taken. If you get a green "Domain Available", it's probably you made a typo or your cat was walking on your keyboard while you were busy typing..

So, from a "business/brand-awareness" perspective, does still the dot com TLD make a big difference compared to other less-attractive TLDs? I think this should have a different answer for website-based businesses and mobile-app-based (where most apps may ONLY need a domain name for consuming APIs?), PWA is another case in the middle?

Let's take for example some famous/successful services which are not .COMed, eg; "zoom.us", "notion.so", "telegram.org"..etc, Do you think people still notice or care about these services not being ".com" (although the first two already own their .com TLD).

What are good alternatives: ".io",".ai" for techy startups, ".app" for mobile apps & PWA? What about so-called "domain hacks" where you can read the full name of your brand when adding the appropriate TLD, eg: "youtu.be", "instagr.am", "every.one", "del.icio.us".

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