Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Domains play a big role when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. The closer your domain name is to relative search term the easier it will be to Optimize the rest of your site.

A search engine looks at the content the same way you would look at a document. You first would read the title or your blue title bar, then you would look at the opening paragraph or Head lines.

The responsibility of a search engine to to classify each of your web pages not your entire site. There for although your domain name has great importance, you still could capture your traffic with your .com site. You can find more information at www.buildtelligenece.com

I agree. It's cheap insurance to get both.

Get both 'cause it's cheap. But consider

AmericanExpress hasn't gone to .travel
Carlson Wagonlit hasn't gone to .travel
BCD Travel hasn't gone to .travel.

These are the largest travel companies out there.

American Airlines...same thing.

Just a thought.

Michael

Thanks for all the answers I have received so far. I appreciate your time a lot.

Just a thought to complete my initial question: My first inclination, before posting my inquiry was to get the .travel domain, but it is not that cheap. I am a Chilean based operation but to be able to register a .travel I have to be a member of ASTA, CLIA or some of those organisations. They ask at least $500 a year for the membership. I won't hesitate if I see that the .travel will be going in the right direction and if all the travel companies will have to end getting one otherwise their businesses won't work. How credible is and how good it works the .travel? Is it worth the expense or not?

Dear PDPATIS (?),

Although even I would say that you should go for both, but it seems thats not your question. So lets answer your question head on.

Lets see first what happens if you get .travel company booked. You get an authenticated site, so ppl can know you are for real. But how does that help than a .com? People will have to go against the conditioning of searching your site or typing its name without .com but .travel. It may be good for a innovation brand, but not for a normal travel site. So your marketing budget will bear the burnt of it. So in my view, you should go for .com domain

Now, take another view. You can hire both and make the main page of .travel site to redirect to .com. So now even if .travel is a big boom tomorrow (which is not very probable given by the fate it has already seen since its launch) you can still enjoy benefits of it.

Hope it helps...

Hello,

You have posted your question in the wrong category ;-) SEO wise, it's smarter to take the .com. In general, I would say: choose .com. Pleople have more "reflex" to try brand.com than brand.other extension.
But yes, it's true what they all say: buy both. This cost is not the cost in the total cost of a website.

Success!

Almost Everyone assumes a web site to be a .com by default. You can buy all the extensions you want but that won't change anytime soon.

The problem with buying extensions is that new ones are constantly being created and they are frequently purchased by entities which already own the .com version in an attempt to protect their brand. It's just like the new (now old) toll free prefixes that came out to satisfy demand. The problem is that the phone companies immediately contacted the owner of the 800 variant and promptly sold them the 866 and 877 version, etc.

It will never end.

Let's face it. It's going to be difficult to find a travel industry domain with a good keyword in it at this juncture. If after an exhaustive search you can't find a good keyword and/or name then you may have to jump into another TLD.

Keep in mind however, while it is good to have a keyword in your domain name, it is not a magic bullet. If you had poor rankings and then switched to a keyword domain you won't get better rankings. This is just one component of a great number of activities you must undertake to do well - and it's benefit is negligible. In an ideal world you'd want the keyword in it but, since we don't live in an ideal world, I'd move on. You'll probably be much better off with a good, catchy name that people remember.

Do I think you shouldn't buy certain TLDs? No. I think you should. But I wouldn't buy every single one that came along. The .travel makes sense. I would certainly want the .net if available and definitely the .com.

If your strategy is to milk traffic off of a successful .com site then you actually may want to consider another TLD variant of a strong .com. Just make sure you get advice from your IP attorney before you do.

It would be hell however if you had a large marketing budget and you were putting a great effort into marketing a non-.com domain. You'd make the .com owner very happy if they were a small organization.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Greg Hill
Trinity Search Engine Marketing

OK, this website is really not working properly. Is the second time that I give points to everyone that answered my question and the points go only to some of you. My apologies but I am not responsible. I hope the administrators can fix this because is unfair and really annoying!

In another matter, THANK YOU all. Your replies have been so informative, professional and nice. I appreciate your time and knowledge very much. I like to learn and this is a great way to do so.

Just for the record, I do have a couple very good .com domains already, which names are related to what I do. I am renewing my original website (that is 5 years old and needed urgent surgery) so that's why I was wondering about the .travel issue.

Patricia