No .com? Add the Domain Extension to Your Name and Logo

We all know that .com domains are the best option, but it is also difficult to find good ones that have not been registered yet. The alternative is to register a .net or .org domain.

There are many popular blogs that are not hosted on .com domains, so if that is your case do not get discouraged. One thing that you should do, however, is to add your domain extension into the name and logo of your site.

The logic is quite simple. Suppose your domain is “coolwebsite.net”, but the name and the logo of the site both display only “CoolWebsite”. A visitor coming from another blog or from a search engine will pay attention to the name and logo, while neglecting the URL. Should that visitor want to visit your site the day after, it is likely that he will just open his browser and type “coolwebsite.com”, and if your site is not there he will just go somewhere else.

If your logo displays “CoolWebsite.net”, on the other hand, there is a higher chance that the user will recall the domain extension. If you do not own a .com domain, therefore, you should attach your extension to your name and incorporate it into your brand.

Want some practical examples? Check the three headers below, they come from popular blogs using this technique:

Daniel Scocco on October 20, 2007 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

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45 Responses to “No .com? Add the Domain Extension to Your Name and Logo”

Jeremy Steele on October 20th, 2007 8:06 am

Good tip. That is something I’ve never really thought about…
Karthik on October 20th, 2007 8:07 am

IMO Darren made it very famous with Problogger.net. So much so that he still uses the .net domain although he’s acquired the .com.

I believe I’ve seen a couple of posts at Problogger describing how to advertise the “lesser TLDs” so to speak. But its a fact that whatever you do, the more you grow, the .com is just going to get all the more costlier; my advice always is - get it early!
Ruchir on October 20th, 2007 8:21 am

Nice tip there. I never thought it. Hehe, now that I come to think of it, even I tend to type in the .com first even if only know the site’s name. I guess that’s because the .com is more common.
Eric on October 20th, 2007 9:08 am

And that’s the very reason I added .org in my logo name… I think I’ve done a pretty good job picking a domain that people remember, but I still see the occasional google search for “iwah”, which tells me I didn’t to a perfect job.
S.Siddiqui on October 20th, 2007 9:12 am

Great tip. So simple yet so necessary stuff. I agree that .com domain is always better than others and yeah it is hard to find a good .com domain. I pondered over around 150 domains before I was hit with my domain www[dot]nofullstop[dot]com and that too while I was under the shower

but now the problem is that akismet is blocking my domain as spam so I cannot leave a live link to my blog
engtech @ internet duct tape on October 20th, 2007 10:51 am

If you aren’t reading skelliewag.org then you should.

Easily joining DailyBlogTips as one of my favorite new blogs about blogging in the past year.
Vikram on October 20th, 2007 11:39 am

Very good observation on your part indeed. Even though you don’t need to add a .org or a .net for your domain, the suggestion will help others!

There one thing that can be added though! There are blogs like mine, where there are characters likes ” - ” in between (Digital-Musings.com), often need to follow the same tip you gave, mostly because the other domain name one wanted has been booked!

One needs to keep in mind that, essentially anywhere there is a need to submit you blog “name” (Directories etc) then it should always have the .org or .net or in my case the ” - “, or else it can confuse the readers if they see you have been mentioned at some other blog or website!
Skellie on October 20th, 2007 6:06 pm

Thanks for the mention, Daniel. This article made me happier with my decision to add the .org to the logo.

Now I really need to get into the habit of referring to Skelliewag as Skelliewag.org when I write the name. I need to keep the branding consistent. I seem to do it about 50% of the time at the moment.

@ engtech: I’m flattered!
Jamaipanese on October 20th, 2007 9:03 pm

another excellent tip

Thanks man!
Chris Jacobson on October 20th, 2007 9:43 pm

Good tip. Visual representation is key.
Marco Richter on October 21st, 2007 2:37 am

I never really thought about this while it´s such an obvious and important issue. Luckily I´ve implemented it on http://www.marcorichter.net just from the start.
Daniel Bates on October 21st, 2007 3:07 am

As someone who had to go the .net route I agree with your statements. I even put it into my slogan in the beginning to make sure people were getting it - “Net the Best Local Information at http://www.mymcclellanville.net“, I also used a picture of a castnet and a shrimpboat with it’s net spread wide. My target audience was not the internet savvy, so I wanted to nail my point across. I still see lots of incoming traffic from searches for “mymcclellanville” so either those users didn’t get the message or don’t get the internet, but they find me none the less, so I am happy
Elena on October 21st, 2007 3:22 am

I’m a couple weeks away from launching a new bilingual blog and Spanish podcast. I’m glad to know that I’ve covered my bases, having registered voicesenespanol.com for my English readers, vocesenespanol.es (for my Spanish readers, and spanish-podcast.com for the search engines!
Rich Owings on October 21st, 2007 7:44 am

Would you recommend this on a .biz domain?
Rishi on October 21st, 2007 7:55 am

Oh your tip, I have added .INFO to my logo and let me tell you, it really works. Now my friends can remember my URL much more and not visit rishiraj.com instead of rishiraj.info .

The same thing applied for domain names with a hyphen in between its two terms. They also need to adopt this tip!
Daniel Errante on October 21st, 2007 8:12 am

Thanks for that tip, .biz seems like a hard one to remember!

I will try it out!
Daniel on October 21st, 2007 8:38 am

Yeah I would also do it with .biz, .info and any other secondary domain extension.
Courtney TURTLE on October 21st, 2007 2:12 pm

With so many sites being navigated to through links/bookmarks anyway, is this really important?
pablopabla on October 21st, 2007 6:42 pm

I place my full url in the title to my blog. I am not sure whether the name sticks to the minds of my readers but I sure hope it does
Jermayn Parker on October 21st, 2007 8:33 pm

Definitely a good tip for web related businesses/ blogs
Make Online Money Now on October 21st, 2007 8:34 pm

That is a good idea but I would also suggest looking for the next best name that is available with a .com since most people automatically just type .com.
Daniel on October 22nd, 2007 2:18 am

Courtney, yeah it is. Check the .com domain of some popular .net or .org blogs, usually it has a good Alexa ranking just from the clueless readers that visit that site think it is the original one, usually by typing in the browser.
Weblife Website Design on October 24th, 2007 11:39 am

Great idea. I should implement that on some of my websites. A a website designer I find your blog to be a very valuable resource.
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PurpleMinded on November 13th, 2007 7:02 pm

Why is .com always “the best”? If a website isn’t COMmerical, might a .NET ending be more hip? And appropriate? (In my case I own .com and .net, chose to build the site on .net and use the .com just to forward traffic. A mistake?)
-Brad
David Zemens [1955 Design] on December 30th, 2007 6:52 pm

Great suggestion. I added “.com” to my logo today. Thanks for the suggestion.
nunho on January 9th, 2008 4:51 am

that’s a great idea. i will try to use this tip. thanx
Domain Names India on January 21st, 2008 9:44 pm

Being a domain service provider, I agree with your thoughts. I think this makes our identification easy. Our logo should have the domain names with extension. As in case of Indian .in extension many of us are leaving this, but it’s not a right approach.

Thanks for a great suggestion.
Grafikaze on January 27th, 2008 7:22 am

My blogs logo has a domain extension. And it is a accessory for my blog
soğuk hava deposu on April 1st, 2008 8:29 am

thanks for your suggestion.
firefox indir on April 4th, 2008 1:34 pm

thank you nice blog
Rüya Tabirleri on April 25th, 2008 9:21 pm

thanks for this great article
iyinet webmaster forumu 2008 seo yarışması on June 30th, 2008 5:24 am

Good tip. Thanks
IHG on June 30th, 2008 5:19 pm

I always try to do this if I have a non .com extension i.e. make the extension a part of the branding. I think with the increase of extension types, this will become even more important.
Jason Fox on July 31st, 2008 12:24 pm

excellent tip. thanks for this.
halı yıkama on July 31st, 2008 3:17 pm

thanks
lida on August 14th, 2008 7:46 am

Well, we started again… All the time I think I know ALL about css … somebody destroy my idea. Anyways, thanks, is good to know that I didn’t know some clinches.