expansion of domain name extensions

[Smitty37]

I just got an offer of a new Domain name where it would be Smittyspen.works rather than Smittyspenworks.com. The offer says hundreds or even thousands of new extensions is the growing trend. Have others been receiving such offers? If you have what do you think of the idea?

 

[ed4copies]

If the bulk of your business comes through a search engine (as most sites do), the url is really immaterial.

If you rely on people to remember your url, they will EXPECT it to end in dot com.

Also if you change, you will probably be instructed to keep the old one (for a while), so you don't lose your search priority---so they really want you to purchase an additional url or five!

 

[Smitty37]

If the bulk of your business comes through a search engine (as most sites do), the url is really immaterial.

If you rely on people to remember your url, they will EXPECT it to end in dot com.

Also if you change, you will probably be instructed to keep the old one (for a while), so you don't lose your search priority---so they really want you to purchase an additional url or five!

Right now, I'm relying on people to remember --- but in the new store when I migrate, there is a lot of more targeting (or whatever they call it) via search engines and integrating the store with Facebook .... so it seems like I might want it....

 

[walshjp17]

My mind, after working for over 23 years in the info security business, always tends to think of how the ne'er-do-wells can/will exploit simple things.

If you do decide to go with smitty'spen.works, please make sure you keep smittyspenworks.com. For one, you can place a redirect on the .com to your new .works and old customers will always find you. However, the main reason to keep your old .com is if the afore mentioned n-d-ws often look for recently expired/retired URLs to snatch up to use for nefarious deeds (think distribution of porn, malware, identity theft, etc.) and it will likely be your reputation as the previous owner that will suffer. I can't recall how many of these instances I've seen in my InfoSec career.

jpw

 

[monophoto]

The world is full of people who are willing to take your money in exchange for something that may or may not have any real value to you.

.works is a legitimate top-level DNS name. However, it's also an 'open' name meaning that it doesn't necessarily have international recognition, and frankly, it's not a name in common use.

Exactly what do the kind folks who have made this generous offer suggest would be the benefits to you for changing to the domain name that they are offering to sell you? Some things that come to mind:

- You would be one of a very small group of vendors who have web addresses in that domain. Which means that suspicious folks like me would tend to be very skeptical before doing business with you.
- The DNS has five letters, whereas your current DNS has three - which means that it is 67% more effort for a potential customer to type it in.
- Because the name is open and doesn't necessarily have international recognition, potential customers in other countries might not be able to reach your site. This could be good or bad - depends on how you view international business.

Frankly, there is a lot of truth in the old saying 'if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it."

 

[Smitty37]

The world is full of people who are willing to take your money in exchange for something that may or may not have any real value to you.

.works is a legitimate top-level DNS name. However, it's also an 'open' name meaning that it doesn't necessarily have international recognition, and frankly, it's not a name in common use.

Exactly what do the kind folks who have made this generous offer suggest would be the benefits to you for changing to the domain name that they are offering to sell you? Some things that come to mind:

- You would be one of a very small group of vendors who have web addresses in that domain. Which means that suspicious folks like me would tend to be very skeptical before doing business with you.
- The DNS has five letters, whereas your current DNS has three - which means that it is 67% more effort for a potential customer to type it in.
- Because the name is open and doesn't necessarily have international recognition, potential customers in other countries might not be able to reach your site. This could be good or bad - depends on how you view international business.

Frankly, there is a lot of truth in the old saying 'if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it."

What they are saying is that it is becoming common place and that the new domains work better with search engines.

 

[Smitty37]

My mind, after working for over 23 years in the info security business, always tends to think of how the ne'er-do-wells can/will exploit simple things.

If you do decide to go with smitty'spen.works, please make sure you keep smittyspenworks.com. For one, you can place a redirect on the .com to your new .works and old customers will always find you. However, the main reason to keep your old .com is if the afore mentioned n-d-ws often look for recently expired/retired URLs to snatch up to use for nefarious deeds (think distribution of porn, malware, identity theft, etc.) and it will likely be your reputation as the previous owner that will suffer. I can't recall how many of these instances I've seen in my InfoSec career.

jpw

I agree and I will keep the old one if I get the new one.

 

[tjseagrove]

Also, owning the .works is name protection. Sad you have to have multiple domains for one website but I always have my clients purchase multiple names to protect themselves. And never get rid of the old one...just pay the $$ each year and keep it out of the scammers hands.

 

[Signguy]

Perhaps most importantly, having a dot com URL tells people you have been around awhile, where one of the new domain levels says you are pretty new.

Personally, I wouldn't buy any .works extension. But if you do, I would forward it to the dot com, not the other way around.