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How and why we acquired our .com domain

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Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#121

Post by brirec »

jcparkyn wrote: post #102
garganzol wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those specific additional domains are useful in their own ways. .net is good for network infrastructure, .org is good for organizational purposes like mapping your office/LAN endpoints into it, so that employees could connect to VPNs and internal services like SCM and build servers. Other than that, additional domains also give leverage for diversification if you decide to make them publicly visitable one day.

> .net is good for network infrastructure, .org is good for organizational purposes Genuine question: Is there any tangible/technical benefit to this, or is it just for the sake of keeping them organised?

If you deploy a Windows Server AD domain (do people still deploy new AD domains?) it makes things a lot easier and simpler to be able to make it the authoritative DNS servers for a real domain name, and by default it will stomp all over the A/AAAA records for the top of that DNS zone.

I can’t really think of anything else that would really benefit from having its own domain though, especially if your DNS infrastructure supports nested zones.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#122

Post by hackernewds »

folli wrote: post #57
mtmail wrote: post #3

That is a great and very transparent write-up, I'd say the best I've read in years. Usually companies don't disclose the final price. My dream .com domain name is squatted by somebody in Korea owning 10.000s of domains. One year they forgot to pay their registration, 'whois' printed 'overdue' (can't remember the exact words). I tried to register, backorder, everything. Nothing worked sadly.

I was in a similar boat a couple of years ago with sunlocator.com I created an app with that name, unfortunately the domain was already in possession of a turkish PV company that went out of business. I noticed that the domain will lapse in a couple of months, so I used Snapnames (if I remember correctly) to set up a domain drop catching service. Meanwhile, I got an email from someone representing the Turkish company…

Snapnames seems like everything that is wrong with the industry of domain squatting

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#123

Post by Fethbita »

sdrothrock wrote: post #106
ehPReth wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's been a big thinker for me as well; wth no real solution yet.. first@firstlast.example seem rather redundant; like saying "John John Doe". I guess if it was a business it would make more sense; like "John, owner of John Doe Inc." and "Bob, assistant for John Doe Inc." but for a personal domain... eh. Similarly mail@ email@ seem 'too obvious' since.. of course it's email? Directional local parts like talkto@ to@…

How about something like me@firstlast.com?

I committed to contact@firstnamelastname.com which looks the most professional to me.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#124

Post by nojonestownpls »

teddyh wrote: post #114
querez wrote: post #34

Slightly off-topic, but: Gandi was my registrar of choice, but I read some months ago that they've sold out. Who do people go to these days for registering domain names?

Like I frequently¹ advise²: Don’t look to large, well-known registrars. I would suggest that you look for local registrars in your area . The TLD registry for your country/area usually has a list of the authorized registrars, so you can simply search that for entities with a local address. Disclaimer: I work at such a small registrar, but you are not in our target market. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32095…

The why is answered in the first link, I'll copy paste it for the lazy:

> Pick them carefully, don’t skimp, and make sure they have good support. Because when things go pear-shaped, you really want to be able to actually talk to someone to change your web server or e-mail DNS records (or even DNS servers) to somewhere else.

> Big registrars can’t afford any support costs since they prefer to squeeze the price down as far as possible, and therefore they prefer to simply lose or outright drop any customer in case of any and all problems. Conversely, small registrars may charge more, but have better (i.e. actually existing, and sometimes even dedicated and personal) support for when things go wrong, and have a vested interest in keeping you as a customer.

> A small registrar might also be so small as to know you personally, which will help monumentally against any social engineering attacks.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#125

Post by ReDeiPirati »

> There is no definite way of isolating the importance of the .com but it is likely to have played a part. Our domain authority also increased meaningfully.

How is it possible to conclude that "it is likely" given there aren't any evidence to support that?

After reading the article my takeaways are that a) the agency you hired might have helped you with SEO much more than changing the domain and b) the success you had after the migration don't correlate with the domain change, but more with your distribution.

To be honest, I'm not really convinced that purchasing the .com has played a role in your success after reading this.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#126

Post by stanleydrew »

JohnFen wrote: post #77
ryan29 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't register the trademark until after you've been engaging in commerce with it. Is that US? I'm in Canada. I think we can register before commercial use [1]: > Another of your responsibilities as the owner of a trademark is to use the trademark in Canada. If you do not use it, the registration could be expunged from the Register of Trademarks by the Registrar. The Registrar could start summary expungement pr…

Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I was talking about the US.

You can register before commercial use in the US (filing status 1B). But there is a deadline before which you do have to start using the mark in commerce, and then update your application with the USPTO, otherwise it will expire.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#127

Post by querez »

garganzol wrote: post #49
querez wrote: post #34

Slightly off-topic, but: Gandi was my registrar of choice, but I read some months ago that they've sold out. Who do people go to these days for registering domain names?

What's the problem of being sold out for Gandi? Does it really change anything?

Well for one I appreciated their free mailboxes, which are now gone (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777), for another, I've seen reports of their customer service not being very good anymore (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22001959). Just in general, I picked Gandi initially because of their reputation, which seems to have become worse and worse over the years.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#128

Post by querez »

jb1991 wrote: post #103
querez wrote: post #34

Slightly off-topic, but: Gandi was my registrar of choice, but I read some months ago that they've sold out. Who do people go to these days for registering domain names?

What do you mean by sold out? Maybe I don’t understand the phrasing, surely you don’t mean they’ve sold out of all their domains!

No, I mean the owners sold the company to an (apparently not super well reputed) other company: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#129

Post by garganzol »

jcparkyn wrote: post #102
garganzol wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those specific additional domains are useful in their own ways. .net is good for network infrastructure, .org is good for organizational purposes like mapping your office/LAN endpoints into it, so that employees could connect to VPNs and internal services like SCM and build servers. Other than that, additional domains also give leverage for diversification if you decide to make them publicly visitable one day.

> .net is good for network infrastructure, .org is good for organizational purposes Genuine question: Is there any tangible/technical benefit to this, or is it just for the sake of keeping them organised?

There is a benefit: you do not want to stress your .com domain too much when you provide some network services like discovery services, tunnels etc to your customers.

The reason is pragmatic: if a company provides such kind of services then it may fall under a (false) scrutiny one day after somebody uses one of its services for, say, planting a stealth DDoS attack. The whole domain may be yanked or denylisted, and the last domain you want to see under the fire is your .com domain.

The same goes to .org: you do not want to see outsiders messing with your organizational endpoints and internal operations, so you better move them to a separate domain for the sake of a) clarity and b) risk hedging.

There are two drawbacks though: 1) higher domain costs 2) if you are not careful enough in managing expectations, people may be confused about which one to use and when.

Re: How and why we acquired our .com domain

#130

Post by JohnFen »

stanleydrew wrote: post #126
JohnFen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I was talking about the US.

You can register before commercial use in the US (filing status 1B). But there is a deadline before which you do have to start using the mark in commerce, and then update your application with the USPTO, otherwise it will expire.

I didn't know that! Thanks for educating me.
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