Using a .uk domain would probably solve your problem. I was looking for a cheap domain last year and for some reason .uk domains were the cheapest. (I bought it on Cloudflare for $4 per year). I also wanted to avoid some weird TLD that looks like a scam, and this one seems like it should appear reputable to people. I'm curious if anyone knows why this domain would be selling for a fraction of the price of weird TLDs like .club, .app, .today, etc.
Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
31–40 of 94 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#32Do NOT use an uncommon TLD. I was using .lol recently and missed a job interview because the employer wasn't receiving any of my emails -- they kept getting rejected by their email servers! And I was only informed by Thunderbird weeks later when it was too late. Ever since then, I've just been using gmail for everything.
Are you sure you were informed by Thunderbird and not by your SMTP server?
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#33My primary email domain is a .me. Never have problems with web forms. It can be more difficult to communicate verbally, so when saying it to non-technical folks I preface it with “my email is a bit weird” and then spell it out slowly. Young people seem to get it more easily. I also have an email on a .email domain, I have seen it occasionally get rejected by web forms. .party would likely have similar issues.
> It can be more difficult to communicate verbally Together with a catch all email user part, it's a fun way to find out which companies offer employee discount. "My email is foo@my-domain", "oh, are you a Foo employee?"
More often than not folks look at me gone out rather than asking if I’m an employee.
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#34Using a .uk domain would probably solve your problem. I was looking for a cheap domain last year and for some reason .uk domains were the cheapest. (I bought it on Cloudflare for $4 per year). I also wanted to avoid some weird TLD that looks like a scam, and this one seems like it should appear reputable to people. I'm curious if anyone knows why this domain would be selling for a fraction of the price of weird TLDs…
Maybe expensive to renew?
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#35Do NOT use an uncommon TLD. I was using .lol recently and missed a job interview because the employer wasn't receiving any of my emails -- they kept getting rejected by their email servers! And I was only informed by Thunderbird weeks later when it was too late. Ever since then, I've just been using gmail for everything.
Are you sure you were informed by Thunderbird and not by your SMTP server?
It was most certainly due to the SMTP server doing retries with backoffs.
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#36I have a .rodeo domain that I use for account emails. It is accepted 99% of the time, but I do fall back on a more common domain for a few websites that won't accept it as a valid TLD, including at least one Fortune 50 company.
I don't use it for outbound email very often, though. It's set up properly with DKIM/DMARC/SPF, but when I have used it for outbound email, it has failed to get through a couple of times.
That said, I do use a number of silly domains for web projects, and have never had an issue with any of them. I've heard it can be a negative signal for search inclusion on the major search engines, but honestly I couldn't possibly care less about that.
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#37I have a .me address and I've been totally happy with it. My domain is my initials (same as my HN username - nlh) and I love that my email is just nlh @ nlh . me -- it's actually shorter and better than any .com I could reasonably come up with or purchase.
There is confusion maybe 10% of the time - it's fine. Most of the confused people think I mean "me.com", but it hasn't been a real issue.
Honestly the more confusing thing for most people is that my initials are "nlh" and they are used to the National Hockey League (nhl) and that often ends up getting confused.
But again, all of these are minor. I love my .me domain and email address and am very happy to keep it for life.
(PS / side story: The .com I wanted for many years was "noah.com" because that was my tongue-in-cheek nickname among friends since I was an early internet adopter tech nerd. The domain was owned by a guy who had a 1990s-style single page homepage with no content other than a single link to a photo album -- that lived in stasis for years - easily throgh the mid/late 2010s. I would ping him every few years and ask if he was ready to sell it yet and he always demurred. Then recently I checked and it appears to have been sold to a fintech company. I guess they made him an offer he couldn't refuse!)
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#38I spent $900 on a clean dotcom domain name last year primarily for email purposes. I had a lot of doubts, but in hindsight I am happy I did it - now I can host my email anywhere while keeping the same address.
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#39It's fine. Moreso than the hypothetical social-stigma aspect, read up a bit into the ownership and management policies of the TLD before committing.
Make sure you have a basic understanding of the expectations and requirements (both on you and them) and are fine with them. ICANNWiki is a good start.
E.g. https://icannwiki.org/.party
> but don't want to pay an enormous amount for a .com.
what, where? .com is on the cheaper end unless you buy it on the second-hand market.
Re: Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to make an email domain with an uncommon TLD?
#40Been using .guru for 10 years. No problems.