Ask HN: Do you still “need” the .com in 2023?

I have a non .com domain name and that full name .com. As in if my side was cloudly.cc I also have cloudlycc.com. Works best if the (e.g.) cc is part of how you refer to your company, but it gives you a semi corner on the brand.

as long as it isn't .to

I think it depends on the audience you're selling to.

There's still a portion of the non-tech savy (my parents for insurance) who when given say foo.io will go to either foo.io.com or fooio.com or shorten it to foo.com inexplicably.

If you're selling to tech companies b2b on the other hand, no need worry.

For portfolio it's fine. The .ai gives "crypto-bro of GPT" vibe - unless you are doing Adobe Illustrator.

For a business - I assume it's a start-up that will either "it has been a wild ride but all journeys come to an end" or buy a proper .com one day.

[dead]

If you don't own the .com, you don't own the name, IMO. There are a ton of good .com brand names put there that are available, you just have to look. A unique name also makes your brand more recognizable, compared to ultra minimalist names like "Max" or "App" or something.

For a blog I think country TLDs are fitting, for other uses it depends on the usage really. Amazon uses Country TLDs to differentiate local versions from the global "amazon.com", many companies do this, some for GDPR reasons just use ".EU".

However if you are targeting a global audience, a .com might be more suitable.

short answer: 100% yes

long answer: maybe not if you're just testing an idea out or if it's a special case like you're making a .io game.

Even if your target audience is tech savvy, there's always that business person or even to your casual acquaintances where it's nice to just be able to say the name without a back and forth about the domain name. Not to mention the extra hassle of ensuring that the .com domain name doesn't get used for nefarious purposes.

I find and register domains for people (not formally, just on the side through word of mouth) and ignoring the times they’re a small local business specifically want a country tld, I still manage to find a relevant and “good” (memorable etc) .com 95% of the time.

Yes the lowest hanging fruit are taken but there’s still plenty available. I found a 7 digit .com the other day that had no weird spelling or any of that crap. Just two short words combined that were relevant to the project.

I also truly believe that if you’re trying to grow a “real” business and sell to the public, then a .com or .com.<country> TLD is a lot more respected and trusted by a vast majority of the general population.

for a personal site any is fine. but for business a .com or country TLD is still preferable.

Some start-ups can get away with .io or similar especially if their customers are 100% techies but unfortunately many are still not that tech savvy or get by with the bare minimum.

Well “dot com” is the classic default, so it will always be memorable. But with search engines and QR codes it’s honestly not that important anymore.

Just do some research to make sure it’s a relevant and trustworthy tld, some have restrictions and some are flagged as spam

Tangential: It’s funny how some startup’s base their entire business name around a domain they were able to get… seems like they’re focusing on the wrong aspect of starting a business…

A lot of big fortune 500s web appliance security stack will block a whole mess of newer TLDs to some degree... If you're targeting enterprise I'd recommend using .com

There are still only a handful of 'common' TLDs including .com, .net maybe that are widely accepted and understood by the masses. Like a universal 'this is a website' calling card. However, with the plethora of other TLDs available now, and more importantly the lack of a real need for a memorable/"typable" domain as many either arrive via a search or a link shared in email/on social, I'd say .com is the least important its ever been. It's like how you promote it, share it that matters.... as long as it's clear whatever.xyz123 is a website/destination for them to visit, then it should be fine. (if your domain is something weirdly worded on top of a weird uncommon TLD then it may not be clear to readers that its a URL etc)

Absolutely get a dot com.

Notice that I said to get a dot com.

Several years ago, I had the thought that I might want to start a business someday. I decided to get a dot com right then and hold it.

I found the same situation you did: I was struggling to find any good ones still available.

So I decided to make my own. I went to a random word generator (I think it may have been a gamer username generator, but anything that will generate non-existent words), set it to five letters or less (a short name is better), and started clicking.

It took a while because I would stop and evaluate words that looked good.

Finally, I found one that I loved. I think my reasons for loving it are justifications, but I really did like it.

It was unique in that its first two letters were the last two letters of the alphabet.

It was memorable because I could connect its pronunciation with the awesome evil character Yzma [1].

It rolled off the tongue in a way I didn't expect.

And the dot com was available!

I registered the domain and a few ancillary ones.

And that is how my new business is named Yzena. [2]

Worth it.

The lesson here is this: if the system has problems, think outside the box; get out of the box of existing words and make your own. It works for plenty of companies.

My family has water bottles made by a company called Owala. Google was not a word until it was. Yahoo was a catchphrase of an Italian plumber. And what is up with the name nVidia?

So make it up, and then make it your own. Get the dot com.

[1]: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Yzma

[2]: https://yzena.com/

Unless you have a tech savvy market, .com carries such a legitimate business weight they you should get it.

If widgets.com is taken, use widgetsapp.com, gowidgets.com, getwidgets.com, widgetsinc.com, etc

That.com had marketing value.

Except very niche products, it is absolutely needed.

If domain price is a concern for you, you should not start a business.

Personally, I still feel a .com is ideal in 2023 and so will be in 2048 or 2073.

The history so far is that every successful company eventually buys the .com or changed their name to have a .com. The other successful companies without a .com, end up being sold/acquired before they need to buy a .com.

If you possibly can, get a .com. If not -- try, at least, the two-word trick OneTwo where .two is an available TLD. That way, you are likely owning One.two but also book OneTwo.com. You can re-direct OneTwo.com to the awesome TLD of One.two. This will go on, to eventually 3-word domains, with the last word to an available TLD.

So our small company has like foo-bar.com Foobar.com has been occupied for a long time, there’s nothing there and they do not respond to our emails either.

This has been the case for a few years now, I guess it works but ideally we would really like the one without the hyphen

For B2C and B2b (small b):

  .com >> .co >> .app >> .ai >> .io

For B2B:

  .com >> .co >> .ai >> .io

For B2D:

  .com >> .ai >> .io >> .app >> .co

;)