Is It Important to have a .com Domain?
I have had to learn the hard way about what is essential to think about when you're a sasquatch. There are all the "no being spotted by humans" rules and figuring out what is safe to eat and drink in the forest. But what about the internet? There are plenty of important things to remember when you're creating or updating a website. After all, we want to put care into our branding. But some things are more significant than others, and your website's extension is one of them. I might go so far as to say it's as important as picking the right tree to hide out in! But is it important to have a .com domain, and is .com the best domain? Let's dive into why you might pick this as your extension.
The final segment of your domain name is known as your Top-Level Domain or TLD. As explored in our conversation on different TLDs, they serve the purpose of making sure that you can be found on the internet by giving your site a place to land. Common TLDs include .net or .org, but the most popular remains the classic .com extension. But why is .com so popular?
This domain segment's popularity is primarily thanks to the timing of when it was released. Short for commercial, .com was created in 1985 with the intended use of being registered for commercial purposes. Because it was one of the first TLDs, its popularity boomed with the rise of the internet, and it remains incredibly
popular today.
Sure, it's popular. But is.com the best domain? There is no honest answer to this question because the worth of each domain will depend on the website itself. For example, .edu is a common domain in educational spaces. Ending your site name with .edu would probably be considered the best domain for a school or online course. But what about basic blogs, shops, and other websites?
Is .com better than others? The .com domain is better than its competitors for a lot of things. Notably, .com is the best TLD for Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The reason that .com is good for SEO purposes is thanks to its age and size. Google loves what is easy, familiar, and popular. Choosing a newer domain extension may make you seem unfamiliar to Google, and you'll wind up on the last page of search results.
Beyond the technical and professional reasons, we also think that .com is the best domain simply because it's easy to remember. When we hear a website name, it seems natural to throw ".com" at its end. If you choose another extension, you'll have to remind every potential visitor what to add at the end of your URL. You want your site to be memorable, and the quickest way to helping is by
choosing the .com domain.
But how much extra is the .com worth? You may be worried that choosing the most popular domain name means picking the most expensive one. Fortunately, this isn't always the case. There are plenty of domain name registrars out there, like Namecheap, and they want to help you find the lowest price for your website name. To ensure that this sasquatch information was still valid, I went over to Namecheap to test it out myself. Using "SimpleSasquatchExample" as a potential domain name, the .com extension was actually the cheapest! Other competing extensions, like .org, cost more by a few dollars.
Depending on the name of your website and how competitive it is, you can find domain registrars that will cost you as little as $20 a year for a .com website. When you factor in all of the other costs of owning a website, like buying templates, website hosting, and security plug-ins, $20 is a steal! Head over to our guide on picking the right domain registrar and see for yourself just how cheap and simple it really is.
Your original question of is .com a must will come with a different answer depending on the purpose of your website. There are plenty of reasons you might decide to go with a different domain. Perhaps your dream URL is taken with the .com domain, but a .net is available. Or maybe you're on a budget and find a great deal with a .ca extension! But no matter what happens, picking a .com domain is never a wrong decision.
