Should I buy that .net domain?

• by jakeaull

I recently had a client reach out to me, asking me if they should follow up on buying a proposed domain name (.net), from their domain name hosting provider (in this case Earthlink), to add to their existing, primary .com domain. It’s a basic, but a good and recurring question for businesses. So what to do?

First off, you should know that in this context Earthlink or any domain name reseller is just trying to make a buck and sell you a new domain name. You already own a couple .coms – they want you to also buy more, such as .net versions. You don’t “need” to, and it won’t help your SEO or anything (because you will want to set up new domain names as redirects to your existing website), but a lot of times companies like to own all the “.com, .net, .tv, .biz, .org,” etc. for their company. One of the reasons is that it helps prevent competitors buying the close, alternate URL versions. But otherwise, I don’t put a huge emphasis on this – consumers and Google alike prefer “.com” – and your customers are probably not going to type the new .net version of their own volition in their browsers – they’d be more likely to type in your current .com you own and use. And if they forget – then that’s what Google and SEO are for anyway. But it’s all up to you if you want it or not! If you really think your competitors are going to buy that .net first and post bad content about you there, that’s illegal. But you do have that opportunity to claim all those extra domains now, if you really want them.

Thanks for reading,
Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing