The Definitive Guide to Buying a .COM Domain in 2025

Introduction: The .com domain extension has been the cornerstone of the internet since its inception. In 2025, it remains the most sought-after top-level domain (TLD) for businesses, organizations, and individuals worldwide. However, with hundreds of new domain extensions and country-specific domains now available, prospective domain buyers are faced with a complex landscape. Should you stick with the venerable .com, or consider alternatives like .net, .org, .ai, .io, .co, .xyz, or various country-code TLDs? This comprehensive guide explores all facets of buying a .com domain in 2025 – from global popularity and SEO performance to branding, trust, and market trends. By understanding these factors, you can make an informed decision and maximize the value of your online identity. Whether you're launching a startup, rebranding an enterprise, or investing in domains, this guide will help clarify why .com continues to hold a dominant position and how it compares to other extensions in the current domain marketplace.

1. Popularity and Usage Trends

For comparison, the next most common TLDs are far behind: for example, the largest country-code domain, China's .cn, has around 20 million registrations, and legacy extensions like .net and .org have on the order of 10–13 million each. Even the most popular new generic TLDs (such as .xyz or .online) only have a few million registrations at best.

Global Market Share: The dominance of .com becomes clear in a global market share comparison. The table below summarizes the approximate number of registrations and market share for .com versus several other well-known TLDs as of late 2024:

Approximate Domain Registrations by TLD (late 2024)

TLD	Domains Registered	Global Share
.com	157 million	~43%
.cn (China)	19.7 million	~5.4%
.de (Germany)	17.7 million	~4.9%
.net	12.9 million	~3.6%
.org	11.0 million	~3.0%
.uk (United Kingdom)	10.4 million	~2.9%
.co (Colombia/Global)	~3 million	<1%
.io (British Indian Ocean Territory/Tech)	~1.6 million	<0.5%
.ai (Anguilla/AI industry)	~0.4 million	<0.2%
.xyz	~4 million	~1.1%

Note: ccTLDs (country-code domains) like .cn, .de, .uk are included above to show scale; many ccTLDs are primarily used within their country. Some ccTLDs such as .co, .io, and .ai have global usage beyond their country due to branding and tech trends. Even combined, however, all ccTLDs (about 316 of them) make up roughly 38–39% of domains, which is still less than the share of .com alone.

Historical Trends: The .com namespace has grown dramatically since the first .com domain (symbolics.com) was registered in 1985. Through the dot-com boom of the 1990s and the expansion of the internet to billions of users, .com registrations climbed exponentially. By 2010, .com had on the order of 80–90 million domains, and by 2020 it had crossed 150 million. Growth has slowed in recent years as the market matures and many other TLD options emerged, but .com still adds millions of new registrations every year. In 2024, there were over 9.2 million new .com (and .net) registrations in just one quarter. However, net growth has plateaued or even seen slight declines year-over-year (a ~2% decline in the .com/.net combined base was observed from 2023 to 2024). This suggests that while .com's absolute numbers remain huge, its relative share is gently decreasing as new alternatives take a slice of the pie.

New gTLDs and Projections: The introduction of new generic TLDs (gTLDs) in the mid-2010s – extensions like .xyz, .online, .app, .tech, etc. – provided more choices but have not dethroned .com. As of mid-2024, all new gTLDs combined accounted for roughly 9–10% of domain registrations. These newer extensions are growing faster in percentage terms (over 20% annual growth in new gTLD registrations recently), but from a small base. Projections for the next few years indicate that .com will continue to hold a plurality of domain registrations globally. Even as other TLDs nibble at its market share, .com is expected to remain the single most popular domain extension in use. The momentum, massive installed base, and global recognition of .com create a network effect that is not easily reversed. In summary, the popularity and usage trends in 2025 reinforce .com's position as the default domain choice on the internet, with a presence and scale that other TLDs collectively struggle to match.

2. SEO Effectiveness

Likewise, using a new gTLD (like .tech or .guru) offers no special advantage or disadvantage in Google's eyes purely due to the extension. Google's own webmaster trends analysts have clarified that "there are no TLDs that Google finds preferential to others; they are all treated equally in rankings," and keywords in the TLD (for example, ".marketing" or ".law") do not influence ranking. In practical terms, the content quality, website performance, and backlink profile of your site will matter far more for SEO than whether your domain ends in .com or something else.

ccTLDs and Geo-Targeting: One important caveat in SEO is the use of country-code TLDs (ccTLDs). Search engines often use ccTLDs as a signal for geo-targeting. For instance, a website on .uk (United Kingdom) or .de (Germany) is assumed to target audiences in those countries. This can help the site rank higher for local searches within that country but might limit its visibility globally. By contrast, .com is treated as a generic TLD not tied to any location, which is ideal for a global or US-focused audience. If you operate in a specific country only, a local ccTLD can be beneficial for local SEO; however, if you want to reach an international audience, a .com avoids any implicit geo-restriction and signals a worldwide presence. Notably, some ccTLDs like .io or .ai have been reclassified by Google as generic (despite being country codes) due to their widespread use in global contexts, so they function similarly to .com in terms of geo-targeting.

Domain Migrations and Case Studies: Changing your site's domain name (for example, migrating from a ccTLD to .com) is a significant move that can impact SEO if not handled correctly. It's critical to implement proper 301 redirects from the old domain to the new .com domain and update all references to avoid losing search rankings built up on the old site. When done properly, most sites maintain their rankings after switching to a .com, and over the long term may benefit from the .com's broader appeal. For instance, if a company operating on a localized domain (like example.co.uk) consolidates its web presence to example.com, it may find it easier to attract backlinks and visitors from outside the UK, thus potentially improving global search visibility. On the other hand, a poorly executed migration (failing to redirect pages or inform Google of the change) can cause temporary ranking losses regardless of the TLD involved. It's worth noting that using a .com instead of a less common TLD might indirectly help SEO through user behavior (more on that below in Section 11). While the algorithms don't favor .com inherently, user trust and click-through rates can be higher for .com results, which in turn can improve your site's performance in search results over time. Savvy webmasters focus on optimizing site content and structure for SEO while choosing their domain based on branding and audience – using .com for its broad acceptance unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise.

Google's Algorithm Factors: Google's algorithm looks at hundreds of factors, but domain extension is generally not a direct ranking factor except in the context of locality (as discussed with ccTLDs). Google has confirmed that new extensions (the flood of post-2014 gTLDs) are treated like any other gTLD such as .com or .org. There is no ranking boost for using a new TLD, nor a penalty. For example, a startup using .io or .ai can rank just as well as if they were on .com, provided their site follows SEO best practices. The same content on a .com or a .net should perform identically in search rankings. Where issues can arise is indexing and user perception: an uncommon TLD might not be immediately recognized by users or might be mistrusted by spam filters, which could indirectly affect how often your site is clicked in search or shared on other platforms. But technically, Google's crawling and indexing systems will treat yourbrand.site the same as yourbrand.com. In summary, when it comes to SEO effectiveness, choosing .com is more about the indirect benefits (trust, familiarity, click-through) rather than any special treatment by search algorithms. You should feel confident that a .com will not hinder your SEO – and importantly, that avoiding .com won't doom your SEO either, as long as you manage your site well. The decision should therefore weigh other factors like audience trust, marketing, and brand strategy in addition to pure SEO neutrality.

3. Consumer Perception and Trust

This indicates that, when given a choice, consumers are more comfortable clicking or doing business with a .com website, assuming it to be the legitimate or "official" web presence of a company. By contrast, domains ending in novel extensions like .biz, .info, .xyz or others often face a credibility hurdle – some users may subconsciously question if they are dealing with a lesser-known site, a knock-off, or even spam.

Brand Credibility: The .com extension has been around for nearly four decades and has become synonymous with established businesses. A URL ending in .com is often perceived as the default and authoritative address for a brand. Conversely, when a company uses an alternative TLD, consumers may wonder why – did they not secure the .com domain? Are they a smaller or newer entity? It's not an unfounded concern: many people instinctively assume that a business "should" have a .com if it's the real deal. If they see, for instance, yourbusiness.io or yourbusiness.xyz, some consumers might hesitate, thinking it looks less professional or suspecting it could be a temporary site. This bias may not be entirely rational, but it is supported by data on user perceptions. In a well-known 2019 study on TLD credibility and memorability, researchers found that .com was rated the most credible and trusted TLD overall, outperforming extensions like .net, .org, and various new domains. Interestingly, that same study noted that .co (which is often marketed as an alternative to .com) ranked second in trustworthiness – likely because it's short and looks similar to .com – but still, nothing beat .com in the minds of users.

Memorability and Default Bias: Trust and perception are closely tied to how memorable a domain is. The ubiquity of .com has led to a phenomenon where people default to .com when recalling or guessing a domain name. If someone hears about a brand or website verbally, they are likely to assume it's "something.com" unless told otherwise. The same 2019 GrowthBadger study quantifying TLD memorability showed that .com URLs are over 33% more memorable than URLs using other extensions. Moreover, when people misremember a web address, they overwhelmingly tend to append .com by mistake. The study noted that in cases where participants were shown a URL on another TLD but later asked to recall it, a very large proportion (over 3.5 times more often than any other extension) erroneously recalled it as a .com address. This points to a strong default bias: people just think ".com" when they think of a website. For a business, this means if you're not using .com, you could be losing traffic to the .com version of your name (which might belong to someone else) simply because that's what users try first. Consumer trust plays into this as well: many will try the .com first because they trust that if a company is legitimate, it will own the .com.

Surveys and Studies: Over the years, marketing research has reinforced the perception advantages of .com. In one survey, 70.5% of respondents said that ".com" or ".co.uk" (the UK's equivalent trusted extension) connotes more credibility than newer domains. Another analysis of user behavior found .com to be the extension people most associate with credibility and professionalism. Even among tech-savvy groups, there is evidence that .com holds prestige; for instance, a vast majority of Fortune 500 companies use .com for their primary domains (we will discuss this in Section 7), reflecting an understanding that audiences trust that familiar "dot-com" branding. On the flip side, some specific alternatives have carved out niches of relative trust – for example, .org is often perceived as trustworthy for non-profits or organizations due to its historical use by charities and communities. But outside such niche contexts, .com is the safest choice to maximize broad consumer trust.

In summary, from a consumer perception standpoint, owning a .com can significantly boost your brand's credibility at first glance. It projects an image of an established, serious presence. While good marketing and content can overcome a less common TLD over time, starting with a .com gives you a head start in earning user confidence. In practical terms, if a user sees two competing links – one ending in .com and one in an unfamiliar TLD – many will click the .com first, trusting it more. This inherent trust factor is a compelling argument for choosing .com when you're building an online presence that needs to immediately assure users of its legitimacy.

4. Market Share vs. Other Extensions

The domain market has diversified greatly, but .com still leads by a wide margin in terms of active usage. We've already seen the raw registration numbers that demonstrate .com's dominance. Here, let's consider the landscape in terms of market share and how other extensions compare, including the growth of new gTLDs and their renewal rates (a key indicator of long-term adoption).

Active .com vs Other TLDs: Legacy generic TLDs .net and .org are even smaller (each under 4% share). If we consider all new gTLDs (those introduced after 2014) collectively, they sum up to roughly 34–35 million domains, which is only about 9–10% of the total pie – in other words, all 1,200+ new extensions combined amount to barely one-fifth of the .com namespace. This underscores how heavily the market is tilted towards .com. Even highly-hyped extensions like .xyz (boosted by being used in Google's Alphabet Inc.'s abc.xyz) or .online have a few million registrations each, which is notable but still a small fraction of .com's footprint.

Growth of New gTLDs: Since the launch of the new gTLD program, there has been steady growth in those alternative domains. New registrations in these extensions have shown double-digit percentage increases year over year (for instance, new gTLDs grew ~23% YOY in domain count during 2023–2024). This indicates that newcomers to the domain market (and some existing businesses) are experimenting with extensions beyond the traditional ones. The variety of niche TLDs allows creative or industry-specific branding (like .tech for technology companies or .ai for artificial intelligence projects). However, despite this growth, the absolute market share of new gTLDs remains relatively small. One reason is that many new domains are registered on promotions or for short-term projects and are not always renewed.

Renewal Rates – .com vs Others: Renewal rate is a crucial metric that reflects whether registrants find long-term value in a domain. The preliminary renewal rate for .com (and .net combined) is around 72–73% in recent reports. This means roughly three out of four .com domain registrations are renewed by their owners after the first year. In contrast, the renewal rates for new gTLDs as a whole have been considerably lower – around 38% as of the latest estimates. Such a low renewal percentage suggests that many new TLD registrations are speculative or for one-time use (for example, a marketing campaign or a trial) and then dropped. By comparison, renewal rates for other well-established legacy TLDs (.org, .info, etc.) tend to be closer to .com's range (often 70%+), and some ccTLDs even higher (major country domains like .de or .fr frequently report renewal rates in the 75–85% range). What this tells us is that .com domains, once registered, are more likely to be maintained over time, indicating higher perceived value or utility. Meanwhile, a lot of the growth in newer extensions might be transient – many domains get registered cheaply and then are not kept long-term.

Market Share Trends: Historically, .com's share of all domains was even higher (back in the early 2010s, .com was well over 50% of all domains). With the introduction of hundreds of new TLDs and growth of ccTLDs, .com's percentage share has declined modestly. However, it's important to note that .com still grew in absolute terms – it's just that the total universe of domains expanded, diluting the percentage. Looking at active usage (websites in operation), surveys like those by W3Techs have consistently found that close to half of all websites use .com, far more than any other extension. The second-place extension in web usage is often .org or a major ccTLD, each typically under 5% of websites – again highlighting the gap. The market share of .com in crucial segments (business websites, e-commerce, etc.) is likely even higher, as many of the new gTLD registrations belong to parked domains or speculations rather than active sites. In 2025, we see a stable equilibrium where .com remains the "default" for most serious endeavors, while other extensions collectively provide diversity and options for those who need them.

Competition from Specific Extensions: Certain alternative TLDs have carved out meaningful usage in particular niches: .io has become popular among tech startups and developer communities; .ai has surged due to the boom in artificial intelligence companies (and even the government of Anguilla benefits from .ai registrations as a revenue source); .co is often used by startups when the .com is taken, and some .co domains are heavily branded. Despite these pockets of popularity, none of these has a market share remotely close to .com globally. For instance, .io with roughly 1.5 million domains is around 0.4% of all domains, and .ai (estimated a few hundred thousand) is an even tinier slice. These are significant within certain communities but barely dent .com's dominance on the broader internet. The same applies to trendy gTLDs like .xyz, which saw a burst of registrations (peaking due to promotional campaigns and interest from crypto/web3 projects) – even if .xyz has a few million registrations, that's still on the order of 1% of the market and many of those were short-lived registrations.

In conclusion, .com's market share, both in raw numbers and in active web presence, continues to outshine all competitors in 2025. Other extensions are growing and have their places, ensuring that .com's share is not as overwhelming as it once was, but the gap is still enormous. From a market perspective, choosing .com means aligning with the extension used by the majority of businesses and websites around the world. It's a choice that is validated by decades of market preference and sustained by high renewal rates and user loyalty. The alternatives, while improving in adoption, remain complementary options – none has yet achieved the universal recognition or staying power that .com enjoys.

5. Pricing and Cost Analysis

The cost of registering and maintaining a domain name can vary widely depending on the extension. One practical consideration in choosing a .com domain is understanding its pricing trends and how those compare to other TLDs. Here, we'll examine how .com pricing has changed over the past decade, how it stacks up against alternative extensions, and what the domain resale market indicates about value.

Historical Pricing Trends for .com: For many years, .com domain prices were kept fairly stable. The wholesale price (the fee the registry operator Verisign charges registrars per domain) was capped at $7.85 for most of the 2010s under an agreement with ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Retail prices (what customers pay registrars) typically ranged around $10–15 per year, depending on the registrar's markup and any discounts. In the early 2020s, however, the pricing landscape began to shift. ICANN allowed Verisign to resume small annual price increases on .com domains. Between 2021 and 2024, the wholesale price of .com domains rose approximately 28%. By late 2024, the wholesale cost for a .com had reached about $10.26 per year, which means many registrars now charge customers roughly $12–20 for a one-year .com registration (the exact price varies by registrar, promotions, and multi-year discounts). These increases have made .com slightly more expensive than it was a decade ago, but it's worth noting that .com is still moderately priced compared to some other extensions. For example, even after recent hikes, you might pay around $12–15 at major registrars for one year of a .com domain.

Comparison with Other TLD Pricing: Other legacy TLDs like .net and .org are in a similar price bracket to .com. .net (also operated by Verisign) has also seen price increases and often costs just a bit less or on par with .com (around $10–15/year retail). .org, managed by the Public Interest Registry, traditionally was slightly cheaper than .com, but since price caps on .org were removed, its cost has risen too, and many registrars charge around $10–$20 for .org domains now. In contrast, many of the popular alternative extensions can be significantly more expensive:

• .io – The tech startup favorite, .io, tends to be costly. Annual registration fees for .io are usually in the range of $30–$60. This higher price is partly because .io is a country-code (British Indian Ocean Territory) with premium positioning and limited volume. Despite the price, demand is strong in certain circles, and .io's registry operator has monetized that accordingly.
• .ai – The .ai extension (Anguilla's ccTLD) has surged in popularity with the AI industry boom, and its pricing reflects niche demand. Many registrars sell .ai as a two-year registration (Anguilla's rules), often costing around $70–$100 for that period (roughly $35–$50 per year). This means maintaining a .ai domain can be several times more expensive than a .com annually. The high price hasn't deterred AI companies that see branding value in that extension, but it is a factor to consider for cost-sensitive buyers.
• .co – As a quasi-generic TLD often pitched as an alternative to .com, .co domains are priced at a premium over standard gTLDs. A .co domain typically costs around $20 to $30 per year to register and renew. .co's registry (Colombia's .CO Internet) has positioned it as a high-value TLD, and many businesses have been willing to pay that price, especially when the corresponding .com is unattainable.
• .xyz – The .xyz extension often uses a different pricing tactic: extremely low first-year prices (sometimes as low as $0.99 for the initial year) to drive adoption, followed by a standard renewal price around $10–$15 in subsequent years. This means the entry cost for .xyz can be very low, but owners need to be mindful of the normal renewal fee that applies later. Some other new gTLDs also follow this pattern of low intro price, higher renewal.
• Other new gTLDs – The new extensions have a wide range of pricing models. Some are inexpensive (around $10 or less per year, e.g., .online, .site often run promotions), while others are highly premium. For instance, niche extensions like .app or .dev (run by Google) are moderately priced, whereas exclusive or niche ones like .luxury or .bank can cost hundreds of dollars a year due to their specialized nature and extra security requirements.

In summary, .com is competitively priced in the middle of the pack – not the cheapest extension available but generally more affordable than the trendy tech-centric ccTLDs like .io or .ai. The incremental price rises in .com have narrowed the gap slightly, but for most businesses an extra few dollars a year for a .com is negligible considering the benefits.

Promotional and Aftermarket Costs: One should distinguish between the base registration cost and aftermarket prices. The above comparisons are for standard registration fees (when you register an unclaimed domain from the registry). However, many good .com domains are already owned and may only be available via resale. In the resale market, .com domains tend to command the highest prices of all extensions. Premium one-word or category-defining .com names can sell for thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of dollars. For example, record-breaking sales like Voice.com which sold for $30 million in 2019 show the immense value placed on top-tier .com names. In contrast, while there have been some notable sales of alternate TLD domains, they generally fetch lower prices. A highly desirable .io or .ai might sell in the mid five-figures (and exceptional cases into six figures), but it's rare to see non-.com domains hit multi-million dollar sales. Investors and companies with big budgets almost always funnel that spending into .com because of its long-term proven value. The domain resale marketplaces (such as Sedo, Afternic, and domain auctions) consistently show .com making up the majority of high-value transactions.

Resale Value and ROI: If you're thinking of your domain as an investment, .com is widely regarded as the safest and most likely to appreciate. Over the past decade, the market value of strong .com domains has generally risen. Even as new TLDs emerged, the scarcity of good .com names (and the inertia of companies and users preferring .com) has kept demand high. Domain investors (domainers) typically keep portfolios heavily weighted in .com, with perhaps some .net/.org and a selective few alternative TLD names. The liquidity of .com – meaning how easily you can find a buyer – is much greater than for any other extension. If you register a decent .com and later decide to sell it, you'll likely find a bigger pool of potential buyers and a better price than if you were selling the same second-level name on a less popular extension. Another metric: according to market reports, .com domains consistently account for the vast majority of aftermarket sales by dollar volume each year. The fact that companies like MicroStrategy hold portfolios of .com names as strategic assets (and have sold some for eight figures) underlines that .com domains are seen as valuable digital real estate.

Cost vs. Benefit: For an individual or small business, the difference in registration cost between .com and a cheaper alternative might be on the order of a few dollars per month at most – a minor expense in the grand scheme of running a website. The benefits in SEO neutrality, user trust, and brand recognition often far outweigh those small savings. On the other hand, if the .com you want is taken and only available for a high resale price, cost becomes a larger factor. Many startups on a budget will opt for a cheaper alternative domain in that case (for example, hand-registering an available .io for $40 rather than paying, say, $5,000 to a squatter for the .com). This is a common trade-off scenario. Still, it's notable that as startups grow and secure funding, they often invest back into acquiring the .com (we'll see examples in later sections). They do this because the long-term branding and traffic advantages justify the expense.

In conclusion, .com domains in 2025 carry a modest annual price tag that has risen slightly but remains reasonable. They are usually cheaper than the boutique tech TLDs and on par with other legacy domains. More importantly, the high resale values and market interest in .com indicate that it holds its value well. When budgeting for your domain, consider not just the sticker price at checkout, but the overall value it delivers. The old saying, "you get what you pay for," applies here: a .com might cost a bit more upfront, but it delivers significant intangible benefits that make it a cost-effective choice for most serious projects.

6. Perception and Branding

Your domain name is a core part of your brand's online identity. As such, the choice of extension can influence how your brand is perceived. We've touched on consumer trust in Section 3; now let's delve deeper into branding considerations – how businesses and marketers view .com versus alternatives, and what impact that has on brand image and credibility.

The "Gold Standard" Effect: Within marketing and branding circles, .com is often considered the gold standard for a company's primary domain. Owning the .com of your brand name confers a sense of legitimacy and leadership. Graham's point reflects a common perception in branding: a marginal domain (like an obscure TLD or a longer variant because the ideal name was taken) can imply a marginal company, whereas having yourbrand.com signals strength and confidence in your brand. This mindset is prevalent especially among investors and seasoned entrepreneurs. It's telling that 100% of the top 20 Y Combinator startups (by valuation) eventually secured their .com domain names, demonstrating how crucial it is regarded in the startup world.

Brand Recall and Marketing Synergy: From a pure branding perspective, .com domains usually offer the simplest and shortest expression of a brand name. Marketers love brevity and clarity because they improve recall. If your brand is called "Example", Example.com is concise and unambiguous. If instead you use Example-web.io or GetExample.com or some other construction because the exact .com wasn't available, that's additional cognitive load on your audience to remember it correctly. In ads, on business cards, or in word-of-mouth, a clean .com is easy to mention and hard to get wrong. Many companies that couldn't initially get their exact .com resort to hacks like prefixes (e.g., using "trybrand.com" or "getbrand.com") or alternative TLDs, but these are seen as stop-gaps. They work, but they aren't ideal for branding long-term. Often the marketing team's goal remains to eventually acquire "BrandName.com" and drop the crutch. We have countless examples of this pattern: Dropbox started as GetDropbox.com until they acquired Dropbox.com, the task management tool Basecamp was originally on BasecampHQ.com until they paid to get Basecamp.com, and so on. Each time, the rationale is branding – owning the exact .com makes the brand cleaner and easier to communicate.

Alternatives and Brand Image: That said, some brands intentionally choose non-.com domains as part of their image or creative positioning. For instance, a trendy tech company might use a .io or .ai to signal its alignment with tech culture. A creative agency might use a clever domain hack (like "creativ.it" using an Italian ccTLD) to appear innovative. These choices can succeed in niche branding terms – they can make a brand seem cutting-edge or unique. However, they also carry risk. The same uniqueness can confuse mainstream audiences. A company using .io might be very well regarded in the tech community, but when that company advertises on television or broad media, they often still find themselves needing the .com. We've seen some companies maintain two domains: their fun, quirky domain for a specific channel, and a .com for general use. For example, the social platform Twitch is globally known by its Twitch.tv domain (leveraging the "TV" implication of Tuvalu's ccTLD), and that has become part of its brand. But Twitch also owns Twitch.com which redirects to the .tv – they had to secure it to protect their brand and catch people who assume .com. Similarly, Alphabet Inc. (Google's parent) launched its corporate site on abc.xyz as a clever nod to the alphabet, which got a lot of press as a bold branding move. Yet, that example is somewhat unique: Alphabet doesn't deal with consumers directly (Google does, and Google uses google.com!), so they could afford a quirky domain. The average business which needs broad customer acquisition might not have that luxury without causing confusion.

Credibility and Professionalism: In many industries, especially traditional sectors (finance, law, healthcare, etc.), a .com domain is almost a given for credibility. Imagine a law firm using a novelty TLD like smith.lawyer – while descriptive, it might not inspire the same confidence to a non-tech-savvy client as smithlaw.com or smithlawyers.com would. There is a conservative bent in many B2B and professional services sectors where deviating from .com could actually harm your first impression. Thus, marketers often advise: if your target audience spans multiple demographics or is not extremely tech-forward, stick to .com for the sake of appearing professional and "serious." The .com is seen as the domain for doing business. This doesn't mean other domains can't be professional, but you may have to work harder to prove it. For smaller businesses or individuals, having a .com email address ([email protected]) also looks more professional than, say, [email protected] or @yourdomain-co.com. People have become somewhat wary of unfamiliar domain extensions in emails due to phishing, so a .com email/domain can even help ensure your communications aren't dismissed or flagged.

Defensive Branding: Another aspect is brand protection. Many companies will register the .com of their name (if available) even if they don't plan to use it immediately, simply to prevent others from using it. They might operate primarily on a ccTLD or alternate domain for local reasons but still keep the .com in their portfolio. Owning the .com prevents brand dilution and user misdirection. It's telling that even companies whose main presence is on another TLD often eventually acquire their .com. For example, a German company might primarily use brand.de for Germany, but will buy brand.com for either future expansion or to redirect to the German site for international visitors. The .com becomes a home for a global audience even if the local site is elsewhere. From a branding perspective, having that .com in your control is a safeguard – it means your brand cannot be easily impersonated or misrepresented on the most common domain extension.

In conclusion, the perception among businesses and marketers is that .com remains the premier choice for building a strong brand online. It conveys an image of stability, familiarity, and professionalism. While creative branding with other TLDs can be effective in certain contexts (and indeed some successful brands have been built on non-.com domains), these are exceptions that often required substantial marketing or pre-existing reputation to overcome the inherent biases. For most organizations, especially those starting fresh, leveraging the inherent branding power of .com is the safer and more effective path. It's no coincidence that when companies rebrand or rename, one of the first questions in the boardroom is: "Is the .com available?" – that reflects exactly how critical .com is to branding strategy in 2025.

7. Industry Adoption and Corporate Preferences

Looking at how established companies and high-growth startups use domain extensions provides insight into real-world preferences. If virtually all major companies favor .com, that's a strong signal to new buyers. Here we'll examine usage among Fortune 500 corporations, trends among startups, and instances of companies migrating domains.

Fortune 500 and Big Enterprises: The largest corporations in the U.S. and globally have overwhelmingly adopted .com for their primary web presence. Importantly, none of the Fortune 500 rely on a new gTLD or lesser-known extension for their primary site. This tells us that at the highest level of business, .com is considered the standard. Moreover, many Fortune 500 firms operate internationally and thus also secure country domains (like company.de, company.cn for local markets), but they keep the .com as the global homepage or at least as a central hub. The uniformity of .com in this segment underscores a corporate preference: it's stable, widely recognized, and unlikely to confuse shareholders or customers. Even tech giants that could choose alternative domains stick with .com (e.g., Apple.com, Microsoft.com, Amazon.com, etc. are all exactly their brand names on .com).

Startup and Tech Company Trends: Startup companies present a more dynamic picture. In earlier years (say 2010s), the vast majority of startups also launched on .com if they could, but as many desirable names were taken and as new TLDs emerged, startups have shown more willingness to use alternatives in their early stages. Still, data indicates .com remains the top choice. A study of over 2,000 newly funded startups in 2016 showed that about 73.7% were using .com domains. Fast forward to 2021, an analysis of funded startups found that about 62% chose .com. By 2023, some reports (e.g., a HackerNoon analysis of startup submissions) suggest that figure might be in the 55–60% range for new startups, with others using TLDs like .io, .co, .ai, etc. more often. So there is a slight decline in the absolute percentage, but .com is still the majority choice among startups. The decline is essentially due to domain scarcity – many startups, especially those with innovative one-word names, find the .com is taken and too expensive on the aftermarket for their budget. They then opt for something like .io or .ai which is available. Notably, the next most common TLDs for startups have been .io and .co, often jockeying for second place, each sometimes capturing around 5–10% of startup domains. We also see .ai rapidly growing in usage among AI-centric startups in recent years, and some usage of .tech, .app, or other relevant new TLDs. Yet, even with all those combined, non-.com domains among startups still form a minority. The venture capital community often encourages founding teams to secure their .com as early as possible or plan to acquire it later. As mentioned earlier, Paul Graham's advice and the fact that top Y Combinator companies all ended up with .com illustrate that in the long run, successful startups tend to migrate to .com if they didn't start there. For example, the project management tool Trello started on trello.com from day one (even though .com was available only via an aftermarket deal) because the founders deemed it important. On the other hand, a company like OpenAI launched on OpenAI.com, but interestingly also secured AI.com in 2023 (which redirects to OpenAI now) – showing even the AI industry leader valued controlling that prime namespace for branding and defensive reasons.

Corporate Domain Migrations: There have been numerous corporate domain migrations toward .com. One pattern is startups that launch on an alternative domain and then upgrade. We've already given examples like Dropbox (who sued to get Dropbox.com from a squatter and moved off GetDropbox.com), or Basecamp's switch from basecamphq.com to basecamp.com. Another example is Tesla: for years, Tesla's site was TeslaMotors.com because Tesla.com was owned by someone else; in 2016, Tesla acquired Tesla.com reportedly for a multi-million dollar sum, and Elon Musk noted the importance of having the simpler, cleaner domain as the company expanded beyond just cars. The rideshare company Lyft operated initially on Lyft.me for a short period before acquiring Lyft.com. These migrations often coincide with a growth milestone (e.g., a new round of funding or significant revenue that can justify the domain purchase). It's become almost a rite of passage for successful startups: once you "make it," you get your .com. On the flip side, very few examples exist of companies moving away from .com to another TLD for their main site. One rare case was the marketing by Overstock.com to rebrand as "O.co" – which we will examine in Section 14 – and that was not a full move (they kept Overstock.com and eventually reverted focus). In general, companies moving "to" .com is common, moving "from" .com is uncommon and usually not permanent if tried.

Corporate Preference and Policies: Many large organizations have internal policies to secure the .com domain for any new product or brand they launch. It's seen as due diligence. For example, when a big company names a new product line, their marketing department will typically ensure the .com is registered (or in the case of brand consolidation, that the product is at least represented under the corporate .com site). Additionally, in mergers and acquisitions, the domain portfolio – especially the .com of the target company – is considered a valuable asset. We've seen acquisitions where the acquiring company might primarily want the brand and its .com domain because of the traffic and recognition it brings. In the tech industry, some companies also defensively register their name across many TLDs (including new ones) to prevent misuse, but they almost always anchor their main operations on .com. This collective behavior of corporations influences consumer expectations too: users expect to find official information at CompanyName.com, and companies want to meet that expectation.

In summary, industry adoption patterns strongly favor .com across the board. Established corporations nearly unanimously use .com. Startups, while more experimental out of necessity, still lean heavily to .com and often transition to .com as they grow. These trends reflect practical wisdom: .com is the proven, reliable choice that scales with your business. Using .com aligns you with the practices of the most trusted and successful companies in the world, which is a compelling factor if you aspire to join their ranks.

8. .com Domain Availability and Saturation

One challenge prospective buyers face with .com is that it's a victim of its own success – the namespace is heavily saturated. After nearly 40 years of continuous registrations, most of the short and intuitive names in .com are already taken. This section addresses what the availability of .com looks like in 2025, how businesses cope with the saturation, and trends like domain hacks and longer names.

Premium Name Scarcity: If not actively using it, then perhaps holding it for resale. This saturation leads many people to conclude that finding a good .com is difficult unless you have the funds to buy an existing one. It's true that the bar for an unregistered .com being "good" has changed. Twenty years ago, you might have registered a name like Clean.com or Sunrise.com by hand. Today, those are long gone and extremely valuable. In 2025, if you want a high-quality .com, you often must either get creative or be willing to acquire it on the aftermarket.

Long-Tail Domains: One observable trend is that new .com registrations tend to be longer phrases or compound names. Since the single-word and very short names are taken, businesses often combine two words or add a descriptor to find an available .com. For example, instead of "Pioneer.com" (likely taken ages ago), a company might register "PioneerSolutions.com" or "TryPioneer.com" if that's available. The average length of .com domain names for new businesses has increased over time, reflecting this need to append words or use multi-word brands. While longer names are slightly harder to remember, companies accept that trade-off if it means they can still have a .com that closely matches their brand. It's not uncommon to see startups with names like "ShopSomething.com" or "GetBrandname.com" as an interim solution. The advantage is they still get the .com (and can later often drop the extra word by buying the shorter version).

Domain Hacks and Non-.com Usage to Counter Saturation: The scarcity of short .com names has indeed driven the popularity of domain hacks and alternative TLD usage as a workaround. A domain hack is using the combination of the second-level and TLD to spell a word or phrase (like the classic example of del.icio.us to spell "delicious"). In the late 2000s and 2010s, we saw many creative hacks: companies like Bitly (bit.ly) and Notion (notion.so, using Somalia's .so) used such techniques to get a very short web address that implies their brand. These can be clever and marketing-friendly in certain communities – they often become talking points that help a brand stand out. However, domain hacks have downsides: they can be confusing to less savvy users, and sometimes rely on obscure ccTLDs that could pose risk (if the country's policies change – for instance, one high-profile ".ly" domain was shut down by the Libyan registry due to content issues, which made some companies wary of using .ly). The novelty of domain hacks is also less impactful now than it was a decade ago, simply because they've become more common. Many companies that started with a hack eventually also got the .com or at least ensure that the hack isn't their only domain. A famous example: the social bookmarking site Delicious started with del.icio.us which was very clever at the time, but later they wisely acquired delicious.com because users found the original format cumbersome to type and remember. The lesson learned by many is that while domain hacks can grab attention, they don't fully replace the utility of owning the straightforward .com.

Premium .com Availability: When we talk about "availability" of .com, it's important to distinguish between unregistered (free) domains and those available for sale. While unregistered premium .com names are practically nonexistent (aside from very niche or emerging terms), the aftermarket has plenty of premium .com domains available – at a price. Marketplaces list millions of .com domains that owners would sell. So in one sense, many names are "available" if you have the budget. For example, if your desired name is Example.com and it's parked for sale, you might negotiate and purchase it. In this way, businesses that consider a .com truly critical often budget for it as part of their branding costs. For smaller businesses and individuals, this isn't always feasible, hence why they might register something longer or an alternative TLD to start with. The high saturation also means that when new trends or words emerge (say a new slang term or a viral concept), speculative buyers will often grab the .com immediately, anticipating future value. This makes it tough for organic new names to remain unclaimed for long.

Innovation in Naming: Because of .com saturation, we've seen an innovation in how companies name themselves. Many startups create completely new coined words or deliberate misspellings just to secure a .com. In the 2010s, a wave of companies had names like "Flickr" (dropping a vowel) or "Tumblr" for which the .com was available. This trend of creative naming continues – the name itself is chosen or altered based on domain availability. In a sense, the .com saturation has influenced branding: entrepreneurs sometimes start with a domain search when coining a brand name. If the .com is free or affordable, that name makes the short list. This approach ensures they can get a .com without paying a fortune, but it means the brand name might be less intuitive (a trade-off some are willing to make). The fact that domain availability plays a role in naming shows again how central .com is; the tail (domain) is wagging the dog (brand naming) in some cases.

In conclusion, .com domain availability is tight – the namespace is saturated, especially for high-value keywords and short names. New registrants often need to either:

• Settle for a longer or modified version of their desired name,
• Pay to buy the desired name from a current owner, or
• Use an alternative extension or hack as a stop-gap.

This is the reality of the mature .com market. The good news is that despite the saturation, millions of .com domains are still unused or for sale, so with some creativity or investment, you can often obtain a .com that works for you. Additionally, the consistent desirability of .com means that even if you start with a suboptimal .com (like a longer variant), that domain itself can accrue value over time as your business grows. Many small businesses that registered a decent two-word .com in the past are happy to have any .com at all now. The key is to strategize: if .com is part of your long-term plan, secure the best you can now and consider upgrading later if needed. There is an entire ecosystem (brokers, marketplaces) to help businesses navigate this saturated market and still come away with the coveted .com address that will serve them for years to come.

9. Technical Stability and Security

Beyond marketing and popularity, a domain extension can also be evaluated on technical grounds: how stable, resilient, and secure is the infrastructure supporting it? The .com domain, being operated by Verisign for decades, has a strong track record in this area. Let's examine the technical reliability of .com and any security considerations that come with it.

DNS Uptime and Reliability: The Domain Name System (DNS) is what allows users to reach websites via domain names. Such reliability is not trivial – it's the result of significant investment in redundant infrastructure globally. Verisign runs a network of servers across multiple continents to ensure that even under heavy load or attacks, .com addresses remain reachable. For domain owners, this reliability offers peace of mind: when you buy a .com, you are plugging into an infrastructure that has historically been rock solid. Many newer TLDs are operated by smaller registry companies or, in some cases, have changed hands, which sometimes led to technical issues or transitions. By contrast, .com's operations have been steady and predictable.

Performance and Scale: .com is by far the largest TLD, which means it handles enormous query volumes. Verisign's data indicates the .com DNS infrastructure processes billions of queries each day. Yet users typically experience quick, reliable resolution when accessing .com websites. The architecture is built to scale well beyond the current peak loads, so even as the number of .com domains grows or global internet usage increases, the system can handle it. For the end-user or domain owner, there's no noticeable difference in website speed whether you use .com or another TLD; DNS lookup time is negligible and .com is efficiently distributed worldwide. If anything, some very obscure TLDs might not be as well supported by DNS resolvers around the world, but .com certainly is – every ISP, corporate network, and DNS service in existence is thoroughly tuned for .com queries.

Security Measures at the Registry Level: As the most crucial piece of internet real estate, .com is often targeted by cyberattacks, particularly Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks aimed at the DNS infrastructure. Verisign, as the operator, employs extensive DDoS mitigation and security monitoring. They have also been pioneers in implementing DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) – .com was one of the earlier TLDs to support DNSSEC signing, which adds a layer of authenticity verification to DNS responses (though domain owners must opt-in to use DNSSEC for their domain). Essentially, the .com registry's security posture is very robust. There's a reason major financial institutions, governments, and critical services feel comfortable on .com: they trust the backend operations. Additionally, Verisign works closely with ICANN and global internet bodies to continuously improve resilience. They operate two of the world's 13 root DNS servers as well, underscoring their central role in internet stability. All these factors mean that when you own a .com, the chances of a registry-level failure or compromise affecting your domain are extremely low.

Phishing and Abuse Considerations: A separate aspect of security is how domains are used (or abused) by third parties. Some domain extensions have gained notoriety for being associated with spam, malware, or phishing, often because they're cheap or unmanaged. For example, historically .tk (Tokelau) was offered for free and became rife with malicious sites, and certain new gTLDs that had aggressive promotions saw high abuse rates. .com, due to its open nature and sheer size, inevitably has some bad actors using .com domains as well (phishing sites often use misspellings of popular .com brands, etc.). However, studies have shown that new or little-known TLDs tend to have disproportionately higher abuse relative to their size. One reason is that attackers often register domains in bulk where it's cheapest or least regulated. .com domains are not the cheapest (they cost around $10+ and often require normal purchase processes), so while phishers do register .com domains for credibility, many also exploit cheap new TLDs where they can get hundreds of names for minimal cost. In fact, recent phishing reports indicate that a significant chunk of phishing domains are in new gTLDs or certain ccTLDs, even though those make up a small portion of overall domains. From a user perspective, however, a .com might be more dangerous if spoofed simply because users trust .com. For domain owners, the takeaway is that .com's reputation is generally clean (no browser or email provider is going to flag a site just for being on .com, whereas some obscure TLDs might get a second look). It's wise for any domain owner to follow security best practices – use SSL certificates (HTTPS), monitor your domain's DNS records, use registrar lock features, etc. .com fully supports these security layers and has a mature ecosystem of security tools.

Registrar Ecosystem and Support: The .com TLD is supported by every domain registrar and DNS provider with full features. You won't run into any compatibility issues using .com for advanced configurations. Some newer TLDs sometimes had rocky starts with certain systems or email validations (for instance, some poorly coded systems wouldn't recognize very long TLD names as valid). .com faces no such issues – it is universally accepted in forms, software, and systems. Additionally, because .com has been around so long, if a domain owner faces any DNS configuration challenges or needs support, they will find abundant documentation and expertise. From setting up enterprise email security records to complex DNS routing, everyone from cloud providers to CDN services is well-versed in handling .com domains.

Blockchain and New Tech: As a side note on emerging technology: there's been some talk in recent years about blockchain-based domains or alternate DNS systems. While those are experimental and outside the scope of this guide, it's worth noting that nothing in that space yet comes close to the stability and universality of .com under the traditional DNS. Companies dealing with critical infrastructure have not shifted away from .com in any significant manner. If anything, the consistency of .com's technical performance is a strong argument to stick with the proven system versus untested alternatives.

In summary, from a technical stability and security standpoint, .com is an excellent choice. The infrastructure behind it is battle-tested, always on, and highly secure. As a domain owner, you benefit from the massive investment and experience that has gone into running .com. There is virtually no risk of the TLD itself failing you (you're more likely to have an issue with your registrar or your own hosting than anything to do with .com's registry service). In an age where uptime and security are paramount, .com's decades-long flawless track record provides a comfort level that few, if any, other extensions can match to the same degree.

10. Historical Context and Future Outlook

The story of .com is deeply intertwined with the history of the internet. Understanding how .com evolved provides perspective on its current status and its future trajectory. In this section, we'll briefly recap the evolution of .com, relevant ICANN policies and changes, and then discuss forecasts for .com's role in the coming years.

Evolution of .com: Through the late 1980s, .com remained relatively low in count (companies were still figuring out the need for internet domains). The internet's commercialization in the mid-1990s triggered the first explosion in .com registrations. By the late 90s, amid the dot-com boom, having a .com became a hallmark of being a modern business. Domain names were bought and sold like hot property – recall the famous Business.com sale for $7.5 million in 1999, which was astounding at that time. The bubble burst around 2000 led to some shakeout, but by then .com was ingrained in business and popular culture (the term "dot-com" itself entered the lexicon to mean an internet company). Throughout the 2000s, .com registrations grew steadily as more of the world came online. Key moments include the number of .com domains crossing 50 million around 2005 and 100 million around 2010. Over the decades, the administration of .com moved from the U.S. government (initially managed by DARPA/NSF) to Network Solutions, and eventually to Verisign under an agreement with ICANN. Verisign has been the steward of .com since 2000, under contract that has been renewed periodically.

ICANN Policies and Pricing Changes: The management of .com falls under the purview of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which coordinates global domain policies. For a long time, the U.S. Department of Commerce also had oversight through a cooperative agreement with Verisign, which imposed price caps and other rules. One notable policy aspect was pricing: from roughly 2012 to 2018, .com wholesale prices were frozen by mandate. In 2018-2019, ICANN approved an amendment allowing Verisign to increase .com prices by up to 7% annually in most years moving forward. This was somewhat controversial (registrars and domain investors objected to potential cost impacts on millions of domains), but it went through. As a result, .com prices started to rise in the early 2020s, as discussed in Section 5. Another policy evolution: the introduction of the new gTLD program (approved by ICANN in 2011, launched in 2014) which created a thousand new extensions. This was partly aimed at relieving the demand pressure on .com and increasing competition. While it did give alternatives, it didn't reduce .com's prominence – rather, it shifted how .com is used and perceived (with .com becoming the "legacy gold standard" among a sea of newcomers).

Cultural Impact of .com: Over 40 years, .com has transcended its technical role to become a cultural icon. Phrases like "dot-com era," "dot-com millionaire," etc., show how .com symbolized the internet revolution. For many non-technical people, ".com" is synonymous with "website" – they might say "visit our dot-com" meaning the website. This cultural embedment is a huge advantage that no branding or marketing can replicate for a new TLD. It's similar to how certain brand names become generic (like saying "Photoshop" for editing or "Google" for search); .com is the generic term for an internet presence in the minds of many. Even in international contexts, while people use local domains, .com is recognized everywhere. It's common to see advertisements in any country that feature a .com address for multinational brands, reinforcing that global status.

Future Outlook – Continued Dominance or Shift?: Looking ahead, most experts believe .com will remain the dominant domain extension for the foreseeable future. The momentum and network effect it has are unparalleled. Even as new generations who grew up with the internet become decision-makers, they too are accustomed to .com as a default (even if they experiment with other TLDs, the trust in .com remains ingrained). The expansion of the internet to new regions tends to increase ccTLD usage in those regions, but those local domains often coexist with .com usage rather than replace .com. For example, in Asia, .com is still widely used alongside growth in .cn, .in, etc. One interesting factor is the potential depletion of meaningful .com combinations – could there be a point where essentially all viable names are taken, forcing everyone to use alternatives? With creativity, that point keeps getting pushed out. There are theoretically millions of combinations of words and coined terms that could still be .com. So while saturation is high, absolute exhaustion is not imminent. Moreover, the new gTLD program could see additional rounds (ICANN has discussed eventually allowing more TLD applications), which might create more niche spaces but also could further reinforce .com as the stable center amidst an even bigger domain universe.

Competition from Technology Shifts: Some have speculated whether domains themselves might become less important with the rise of mobile apps, voice search, or social media (where people click links or use apps without typing URLs as often). While it's true that discovery methods have evolved, domains are still fundamental – apps and voice assistants still often direct users to websites behind the scenes. Companies still need domains for email and as a stable reference point. In fact, one could argue in a world of ephemeral mobile content, having a solid domain (especially .com) is a lasting anchor for a brand's online identity that cuts across platforms. Additionally, new technologies like decentralized naming (blockchain domains) are in extremely early stages and pose no real threat to the DNS-based .com for the coming decade. Thus, .com likely will outlast various tech trends as it has always adapted. For instance, when smartphones emerged, people thought maybe apps would kill the need for domains, yet every app has a website and every brand behind an app still wants their .com for marketing and user support.

.com's 40th Anniversary and Beyond: The year 2025 actually marks the 40th anniversary of .com's first registration (Symbolics.com in March 1985). Four decades is an eternity in tech, yet .com has kept growing stronger. ICANN will undoubtedly renew Verisign's contract for .com in the coming cycles (currently it extends into the late 2020s). There might be moderate price increases and continuous improvements, but no drastic changes. We can expect .com to cross new milestones – possibly 200 million registrations within a decade, depending on overall internet growth. Even if its market share percentage declines slowly (due to the proliferation of other TLDs), .com's absolute importance might remain steady or even increase in terms of traffic and economic value. The aftermarket for .com domains could see even higher values as the pool of short names diminishes; this means .com will further cement itself as the premium "real estate" of the internet.

In conclusion, the historical context shows .com's enduring adaptability and dominance. From humble beginnings to igniting a global e-commerce revolution, .com has been central at every stage. As we look to the future, .com is poised to remain a keystone of the internet's addressing system. New domain extensions will come and go, technologies will evolve, but for any business or entity aiming for broad reach, having a .com will continue to be a wise and future-proof decision. The path that started in 1985 is far from over – .com is as relevant as ever in 2025 and is likely to retain its crown well into the 2030s.

11. Consumer Behavior & Marketing Influence

The choice of a domain can subtly influence how consumers behave – from clicking on search results to remembering a brand to converting on a site. In this section, we examine how having a .com might impact click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and overall marketing effectiveness, drawing on both empirical data and marketing experiences.

Click-Through Rates in Search: Therefore, if your site is ranking on a search results page and it's on .com, there's a good chance it will attract more clicks than if the same site were on a lesser-known extension – all other factors being equal. Even a small percentage difference in CTR can have SEO implications, because Google monitors user engagement with results. A higher CTR could indirectly help maintain or improve your ranking (as it signals relevance to the query). While Google has denied using CTR as a direct ranking factor in the core algorithm (to prevent manipulation), user behavior certainly influences how your site performs over time (for instance, if many users click your result and don't bounce back immediately, that's a positive sign). Marketers often perform A/B tests with paid search ads as well – they have found that ads pointing to .com domains sometimes get higher click rates than those pointing to odd-looking domains. It comes down to user psychology: people scanning search results might skip over something that looks unorthodox or spammy and gravitate to what looks legitimate. As one digital marketing research piece put it, a trustworthy domain is more likely to be clicked on in search results, thereby raising CTR. .com's familiarity gives it an edge in appearing trustworthy at a glance.

Conversion Rates and User Trust on Site: Getting a user onto your website is step one; getting them to take action (buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, etc.) is step two. Here, trust and comfort level play a huge role. When a user lands on a site, numerous factors affect their confidence – design, content quality, presence of security indicators (HTTPS lock icon), etc. Domain name is one of those factors, albeit a subtle one. If a user is on a .com site, they may subconsciously feel more at ease. Conversely, if they find themselves on a domain with an odd extension they weren't expecting, it could introduce doubt ("Am I on the official site or a copycat?"). This is especially true if they navigated via a link – for example, someone clicks a promotional email and lands on a site at "something-marketing.biz". Even if that's the legitimate domain of the company, the user might wonder if it's a phishing scam because it's not the company's .com. Many users have been trained to check the URL for legitimacy. As a result, conversion-oriented pages (like checkout pages, sign-up forms) can see higher abandonment if users have trust issues. While there isn't a simple statistic like ".com increases conversion by X%", it's telling that many marketing experts advise companies to use a domain that doesn't cause second-guessing. Anecdotally, businesses that have switched to .com often report smoother user acquisition – fewer questions like "Is this your official site?" from customers. That indicates less friction in the user's mind, which likely correlates with higher conversion. For e-commerce, trust is paramount to get a user to enter their credit card details; having a .com domain that matches the brand name helps reinforce that trust throughout the checkout journey.

Email Marketing and Communications: Consumer behavior isn't just about web browsing – it includes how users perceive communications from you. If you are emailing customers from a .com domain, they are more likely to recognize and trust it than if you email from an odd domain. For instance, an email from [email protected] will immediately seem legit, whereas [email protected] might make some recipients pause ("Is this really them or a spoof?"). Some companies that use alternative domains even find it useful to have a .com just for email or have to frequently reassure customers that their emails are coming from a different domain. This carries over to things like word-of-mouth or advertising: if someone sees your domain on a billboard or hears it in a radio ad, a .com is easier to recall and trust. Marketers know that for offline marketing, .com is king because people will often reflexively add ".com" when they try to remember a URL they heard. If your domain was something else, you might lose that type-in traffic or, worse, send it to whoever owns the .com.

Branding Effectiveness and Memory: We discussed memorability in Section 3, but in a marketing context it's worth reiterating that .com domains are often more "sticky" in a person's memory. Short, brandable .com names are like prime real estate in the mind. When a consumer sees or hears your brand, having the .com is one more repetition of the brand name itself (since usually your domain is just your brand + .com). On business cards, in ads, on social media profiles, listing a .com reinforces your brand each time. Marketers aim for consistency – same name everywhere – and .com lets you do that without any extra characters or qualifiers. This consistency can increase the effectiveness of multi-channel marketing because it reduces confusion. If a user sees an Instagram post and later Googles your brand, they will instinctively click the .com result (or directly type yourbrand.com). All your marketing efforts funnel neatly to the .com. If, however, your social media says "link in bio: yourbrand.site", someone might later search and end up on a different site (maybe someone else's .com) by mistake, diluting your campaign effectiveness.

Direct Traffic and Type-Ins: Despite the prevalence of search engines, direct navigation (users typing a URL or using a bookmark) still accounts for a considerable share of web traffic, especially for well-known brands. With a .com, you stand to gain incidental type-in traffic as well. For example, if someone vaguely remembers a company name and wants to check them out, many will try the .com first. This behavior can funnel potential customers to you even if they didn't recall anything else. If you didn't have the .com, those potential visits might hit a dead end (or someone else's site). Moreover, browser address bars nowadays double as search bars – if a user types a brand name, the browser might auto-suggest the .com or even take them there directly (Chrome often auto-completes to .com if it's a known site). So owning the .com ensures that these navigational searches lead to your site. This ties into marketing because any exposure of your brand (news article, PR mention, etc.) can later result in someone trying the .com to find you. It's a "catch" for otherwise untraceable leads generated by brand presence.

All these points collectively illustrate that .com domains can enhance marketing performance in subtle but meaningful ways. They reduce barriers at every stage of the customer journey: initial click, browsing confidence, and return visits. For anyone building a marketing funnel or customer acquisition strategy, the domain might not be the first thing you think of (content, offers, UI usually take precedence), but it operates in the background as an enabler. It's a bit like having a trustworthy storefront location in the physical world – it doesn't guarantee sales, but it creates an environment conducive to them. On the flip side, using an unconventional domain can be an extra hurdle that marketing efforts must overcome (by repeatedly assuring users "yes, this is our site"). Given how competitive markets are, most businesses would prefer to remove that hurdle. In conclusion, from a consumer behavior standpoint, a .com domain aligns with user expectations and habits, thereby smoothing the path from discovery to conversion. It's a facilitator for effective marketing and user engagement, working quietly to bolster the hard work you put into campaigns and content.

12. Domain Availability and Reselling Market

The domain market isn't just about new registrations – there's a bustling secondary market (reselling) where investors buy and sell domains. If you're buying a .com domain in 2025, especially a premium one, it's useful to understand the dynamics of this market, the current trends, and what the future might hold in terms of domain investment.

Current Market Trends for Resales: Currently, the majority of high-value domain sales are .com names. Each year, industry outlets like DNJournal and NameBio record hundreds of publicly reported sales, and consistently the top of those charts are dominated by .com. For example, in recent years we've seen sales like Voice.com for $30M (2019), Chat.com for $10M+ (2023), Business.com resold again in 2020 for $7M, and many sales in the six or seven-figure range for single-word .coms. This dwarfs the sales figures for other extensions. While there have been notable non-.com sales (e.g., AI.com traded hands for about $11M in 2023, but that is actually a .com domain "AI.com" not a .ai; or casino.online reportedly sold for around $201k), these are exceptions. The median prices for .com resales are also higher than those for other TLDs. For instance, a decent two-word .com might sell for mid four to five figures, whereas the equivalent name in a new TLD might only fetch a few hundred dollars if that.

Resale Platforms and Liquidity: If you're looking to buy a .com that's already registered, there are several avenues: domain marketplaces like Sedo, Afternic, Dan.com, auctions at GoDaddy or NameJet, and brokerage services. .com domains are the most liquid in these venues, meaning there's a large base of buyers and sellers. Many professional domain investors focus almost entirely on .com for their inventory because they know there's reliable demand. For a buyer, this means if you have a particular .com in mind, there's a good chance it's obtainable via one of these platforms if the owner is willing to sell. It's also telling that institutional investors (even hedge funds and companies like Voice.com's seller MicroStrategy) hold .com portfolios as part of their assets. The liquidity also reflects in domain financing – some companies now offer payment plans or loans against premium .com domains (treating them somewhat like real estate). You generally won't find such services for other TLDs, or if you do, the terms will be much less favorable due to lower confidence in long-term value.

New gTLD Aftermarket Trends: The new extensions have their own aftermarket, but it's much more hit-or-miss. A handful of new TLD domains have sold for significant sums (e.g., some .app, .club, .tech domains in the five or low six figures). However, the resale demand for most new TLDs is limited. Many end-users still prefer to buy the .com of a keyword for a high price rather than the same keyword in a new extension for a fraction. That being said, niche investors have started to focus on some that show promise – for instance, .io domains related to tech and gaming have a small but consistent demand among startups (some .io names have sold for $20k-$50k). .ai domains are emerging in the AI sector similarly. But these are more specialized markets. In broad strokes, when it comes to domain resale value, .com is still king. For someone buying a domain as an investment or even as a company asset, a premium .com is often considered a safer store of value. A CEO might justify spending six figures on a .com knowing that if the strategy changes, they can likely resell it and recoup much of that investment, whereas if they spent on a novelty TLD, finding a buyer later could be difficult.

Renewal Rates and Investor Behavior: We mentioned earlier that new TLDs have lower renewal rates (around 38% overall). This is partly because a lot of speculative registrations in those TLDs don't find buyers and the owners drop them. In contrast, investors holding good .com domains often renew them year after year, even at increasing prices, because the chance of eventually selling them remains relatively high. The concept of "premium renewals" (some new TLDs charge higher annual fees for certain domains) has also turned off investors from diving too deep outside .com. .com's uniform pricing (every .com generally renews at the standard rate regardless of name) means an investor can hold a portfolio without fear of pricing surprises. The result is that the .com aftermarket is continuously supplied with quality names that owners are willing to sell at the right price, and buyers know those names carry inherent value.

Domain Investment Predictions: Looking to the future, many domain market analysts predict that strong .com domains will continue to appreciate or at least maintain value. The reasoning is straightforward: the supply of high-quality .com names is fixed (or decreasing, since some get permanently taken off the market by end-user companies), while demand from new businesses continues. As new industries emerge (think of all the blockchain, crypto, NFT related names that boomed around 2020–2021), the first instinct for those players was to secure relevant .com names. When "metaverse" became a buzzword, metaverse.com reportedly sold, and so on. So as long as the internet's innovation engine churns out new concepts and companies, .com domains associated with those will be sought after. Some investors are also banking on the idea that as more of daily life moves online (the pandemic accelerated digital adoption), having a premium digital address (domain) will become even more important for businesses, which could further drive up values.

In summary, the domain reselling market in 2025 strongly favors .com in both activity and value. .com domains are widely regarded as prime digital assets, with healthy trading and investment going on. For buyers, this means availability – most names can be bought if you find the right seller and price – but also underscores the importance of .com for those who own them. As you venture to buy a .com domain, you're participating in a robust marketplace that has evolved over decades. It's a mature market, but one still full of opportunities, and owning a piece of it (your .com) can be seen as owning a slice of the internet's most prestigious property.

13. Perceptions of International and Multilingual Usage

The internet is global and multilingual, and one might wonder how .com fits into that mosaic. Do international users prefer their country's own domain, and is .com still relevant outside the English-speaking world? Here we explore how .com is perceived and used in different regions and languages, and how it compares with country-code domains for global branding.

.com as a Global Domain: For example, a business in Germany might use example.de for its German audience but will often also have example.com for international visitors or for an English version of their site. .com does not carry an intrinsic nationality, which actually makes it attractive as a neutral global brand domain. If a company in Brazil aims to reach customers across Latin America and beyond, using a .com (rather than just .com.br) can signal that broader reach. In essence, .com is often perceived as the "international" domain extension. Users around the world generally know that CompanyName.com is likely the official global website of that company. This is why even where local domains are strong, companies nearly always secure their .com if they have any international ambition at all.

Country-Code TLD (ccTLD) Preferences: That said, within their home markets, many countries have a strong affinity for their ccTLD. For instance, in Germany, .de is extremely popular and trusted – German consumers often prefer to see a .de for services in Germany as it implies local presence and content in German. The same goes for the UK's .uk (and previously .co.uk), China's .cn, Japan's .jp, France's .fr, and so on. In these cases, it's not that .com is distrusted (indeed, many German companies use .com too), but the ccTLD might rank better on local search engines and culturally resonates as "ours." For example, a survey in the UK showed 74% of women and 67% of men trusted .co.uk and .com more than other newer domains. This indicates both .co.uk and .com are in a higher trust tier together in the UK, overshadowing newer or less familiar options. So a pattern emerges: local ccTLD for domestic, .com for international. In some smaller countries or those with strong tech sectors, the local ccTLD might not be as dominant if English is prevalent; e.g., in Scandinavia, many companies go straight to .com especially if targeting a broad audience, though they still usually also hold their country domain (like .se for Sweden, .no for Norway).

Multilingual Content on .com vs ccTLDs: How do companies handle multiple languages or countries with .com? Many global businesses will use subdirectories or subdomains on their .com for different languages (e.g., example.com/fr for French, example.com/de for German, etc.) or they might use separate ccTLDs (example.fr, example.de). Both strategies are common. Using the single .com for all languages consolidates SEO power and gives users one primary domain to remember; using local domains can cater to local preference and sometimes improve local SEO. There's no one-size-fits-all answer. However, it's notable that some of the largest multilingual sites (like Wikipedia) run on a .org with subdomains per language, and many multinational companies use a .com with either subdirectories or subdomains per country. For instance, Microsoft uses microsoft.com globally with regional sites under it, while Google famously uses country domains (google.fr, google.de, etc.) for each market – but Google also maintains google.com as the core domain for those who don't want local customization. This highlights that .com is flexible enough to host content for any language; the limiting factor is not the domain but how it's structured and targeted via SEO and locale settings. There are also internationalized domain names (IDNs) for .com (where the second-level can be in non-Latin characters, like Chinese, Arabic, Cyrillic, etc., under .com), and even an internationalized version of .com in some scripts (Verisign operates .קומ for Hebrew, .コム for Japanese, etc. – these are essentially .com in another alphabet). Adoption of those has been modest compared to plain .com, but they exist for brands that want the .com idea in their native script.

User Preference in Non-English-Speaking Regions: There have been some studies by ICANN and others on consumer trust in new gTLDs vs. traditional ones in various regions. Generally, outside North America, users have a strong familiarity with their ccTLD (often more so than gTLDs like .net or .org). .com, however, is usually a close second in familiarity to the ccTLD. In many developing countries, .com usage is very high because historically the local domain may have been restrictive or less marketed. For example, in the 2000s, a lot of Chinese companies used .com (in fact, .com is often used by Chinese firms internationally, and .cn became more popular after reforms and promotion by the Chinese government). In India, .com addresses are more common than .in for many businesses that aspire beyond India or want a pan-Indian presence. Over time, as local internet ecosystems mature, ccTLD registrations rise (today .cn, .de, .uk are all very large, each over 10 million domains). But .com often grows in absolute numbers alongside them rather than shrinking. For instance, Germany has ~17 million .de domains and also a few million .com domains hosted in Germany – companies often use both. Europe as a whole has robust ccTLDs, yet .com still commands a sizeable portion of the market there (especially for international-facing or American-linked businesses).

Global Branding with .com vs ccTLD: When a company positions itself as global, .com is typically the go-to choice. Consider a brand like Coca-Cola – they use coke.com as their main domain worldwide, and may have local country sites under it. If they used country domains, they would have to manage dozens of separate sites. For consistency and brand unity, they prefer one .com. Similarly, tech companies (even those from outside the US) often choose .com to appeal globally – e.g., Xiaomi (a Chinese company) uses mi.com internationally because it's shorter and more universal than something like xiaomi.cn (which they do own for China-specific content). For many startups in non-English-speaking countries, part of the strategy to go global includes obtaining a .com and possibly adopting an English-friendly name to pair with it. This underscores that .com is perceived as the hallmark of a serious player on the world stage. It's not strictly necessary – plenty of successful companies use local domains in their home market and still become big (like Baidu uses baidu.com but also baidu.cn, or SAP in Germany uses sap.com globally even though it's a German company, they knew to use .com). But rarely will a big company ignore .com entirely for their global presence.

Internationalized Domains and New TLDs for Regions: Over the last decade, we've also seen new gTLDs aimed at specific regions or languages – e.g., .asia, .eu, .рус (for Russian language), .中国 (.china in Chinese characters), etc. These have had mixed success. .eu is somewhat used among European Union projects and companies, but it hasn't replaced .com or individual ccTLDs broadly. Region-specific ones like .asia or .africa are niche and not widely adopted by businesses (many prefer .com or their country code). The introduction of IDN TLDs (like Arabic script TLDs for Arab countries, or Chinese script TLDs) mainly serves audiences who read/write in those scripts and might find Latin .com inconvenient. However, even in those areas, .com in Latin characters remains widely used due to legacy and universal compatibility. For example, many Arabic-speaking companies still use .com in their Latin form because all computers can easily handle that, whereas not all systems initially handled Arabic script domains smoothly (though now support is much better). So, while these innovations fill certain gaps, none has truly eroded the importance of .com for international reach.

In conclusion, the international and multilingual perspective can be summarized thus:

• .com is universally recognized around the world, and often considered the default for a company's global website.
• People trust their local ccTLD for local content; they trust .com for global content. They may even trust .com equally to the ccTLD (as seen in surveys like the UK one) when comparing to any other random extension.
• For a brand that wants to appeal to multiple countries, a .com is a straightforward way to present a unified face, complemented by local domains or sub-sites as needed.
• While .com is an English-derived abbreviation, users in non-English markets largely accept it. It doesn't require translation and has become an internet symbol rather than an English word. (For instance, in many languages, their word for an internet address might literally incorporate "dot-com" as a phrase, or they just say the brand name with "dot com" even in their own language.)

In practical terms, if you are operating in a multilingual context, you likely want the .com for global use and perhaps the key ccTLDs for major markets to complement. Many companies follow this approach (e.g., having a .com, and also maintaining .de for Germany, .jp for Japan, etc., often pointing to localized versions of the content). This hedges the bets – you leverage .com's global power and each ccTLD's local trust. The important takeaway is that having the .com is seen as a mark of being an international player. If a company from country X only uses .X (their ccTLD), outsiders might perceive them as local or small-scale, whereas using .com signals that they are thinking beyond borders.

14. Comparative Case Studies

To wrap up our guide, it's valuable to look at some real-world examples where the choice of domain extension played a notable role, whether positive or negative. These case studies illustrate many of the points discussed in this guide in concrete terms – showing what can happen when a business opts for .com versus when it doesn't.

Case Study 1: Overstock's O.co Rebranding Misstep. One of the most cited examples in domain circles is Overstock.com's attempt to rebrand as "O.co". In 2010, Overstock (a major online retailer) bought the domain o.co for $350,000 and started marketing itself as "O.co" instead of Overstock.com. Their idea was to have a shorter, slicker name for their brand. However, this move confused a lot of customers. The CEO later admitted it was a mistake: a huge portion of people who heard "O.co" ended up typing "O.com" (which did not exist). In fact, Overstock's data showed that about 8 out of 13 people trying to reach them via the new address ended up at o.com (which is not a working site). That's roughly 61% of that sample misremembering or mis-typing the domain. This misdirection meant lost traffic and lost sales. Come the 2011 holiday season, Overstock had to scale back and reposition O.co as just a shortcut, returning focus to the primary Overstock.com site. The takeaway is clear: even with heavy advertising, consumers defaulted to .com. They assumed O.co must mean O.com, demonstrating how deeply ingrained .com is and how an alternate extension (even a very short and arguably intuitive one like .co) failed to stick in consumer minds. Overstock's brand suffered temporary dilution and they lost potential revenue, all due to a domain strategy that went against user habits. Ultimately, Overstock learned that their customers trusted and knew Overstock.com, and deviating from that caused friction. This case strongly underscores the power of .com in consumer perception – ".co" was too unfamiliar at the time, and people's muscle memory of typing .com overwhelmed Overstock's marketing push. It was a costly lesson that reinforced why so many companies stick with .com for their main identity.

Case Study 2: Dropbox's Domain Upgrade (GetDropbox.com to Dropbox.com). Dropbox, the file-sharing and cloud storage company, provides a success story of moving to .com and the rationale behind it. In its early days, Dropbox operated under GetDropbox.com because Dropbox.com was owned by someone else who wasn't using it. As Dropbox's popularity grew, the team recognized that owning Dropbox.com was crucial – users naturally tried Dropbox.com, and having "get" in the URL was a bit of an extra hurdle in word-of-mouth referrals. The founders attempted multiple times to buy the domain from the owner, who initially refused. At one point, the domain's owner even started to capitalize on Dropbox's growth by adding ads and links to competitors on the dropbox.com page, which could confuse users looking for Dropbox. This situation posed a real threat: people searching for Dropbox might end up on dropbox.com, see an ad for something else, and not reach the real site. A turning point came when Dropbox engaged in legal action because the parked page was arguably infringing their trademark by causing confusion. Eventually, this led to a negotiation and Dropbox acquiring the dropbox.com domain. Once they got Dropbox.com, they dropped the "get" and unified their brand on the .com. This move eliminated a significant source of confusion and potential traffic leakage. It also signaled to the world that Dropbox was the definitive article – not just a startup hosted on a "get" domain. It's hard to quantify exactly how much this contributed to their user growth, but given Dropbox's eventual hundreds of millions of users, even a small percentage of extra direct traffic and easier referrals from having the .com likely translated to many millions in value. This case highlights that if your brand is tied to a term, having the .com of that term can be vital to protect and grow your user base. "GetDropbox" was functional, but "Dropbox.com" was professional and permanent. Many startups have followed this pattern: start with a compromise domain, but as soon as success allows, invest in the .com. It's seen almost as part of "growing up" as a company.

Case Study 3: Alphabet's Bold Use of abc.xyz. Not all departures from .com end in regret – in certain specific situations, a non-.com can work if handled cleverly. When Google's parent company restructured and rebranded as Alphabet Inc. in 2015, they chose the domain abc.xyz for their corporate website. This choice garnered a lot of attention because it was a high-profile use of a new gTLD (.xyz). How did Alphabet make this work? First, Alphabet isn't a consumer-facing brand like Google itself; it's mainly for investors and corporate info. Second, the very nature of the name Alphabet lent itself to the playful domain (abc.xyz covers the beginning and end of the alphabet). Google's own marketing clout also ensured that everyone heard about the abc.xyz site and remembered it. In this case, Alphabet didn't even attempt to buy alphabet.com (which was already owned by someone – interestingly, alphabet.com is owned by BMW and is used for a subsidiary, and Alphabet didn't or couldn't acquire it). They circumvented the issue by picking a name that allowed a creative domain. For them, it worked because they didn't need to capture random type-in traffic; anyone looking for Alphabet Inc. would either search for it (and Google's results obviously show abc.xyz), or click a link from Google's announcement. This scenario is quite unique – it shows that with a lot of brand muscle and a non-critical web presence, a new TLD can serve. It hasn't really led to an onslaught of big companies moving to new TLDs, though. It remains more of an outlier case. Nonetheless, it provides a counterpoint: if a company is extremely well-known and can afford user confusion to some degree, or if it wants to make a statement, using something other than .com can be a deliberate PR move. But it's telling that Google itself still uses Google.com for everything search and ad related, and virtually all its products use .com addresses or country TLDs, not any fancy new TLDs. So Alphabet's example stands as an exception that proves the rule – it got attention precisely because it's not the normal approach.

Case Study 4: Country-Specific vs .com – The Guardian Newspaper. The British newspaper The Guardian provides a case of domain strategy evolving with globalization. For a long time, The Guardian's website was guardian.co.uk reflecting its UK focus. As the publication grew an international readership, they eventually secured theguardian.com and transitioned to that in 2013. The switch to .com was made to better serve and attract global readers (the site was increasingly read in the US, Australia, etc.) and to unify their brand (they had multiple subdomains before). After the change, The Guardian noted improved traffic from outside the UK, likely because theguardian.com was easier for worldwide audiences to remember and trust. It also simplified their marketing – on social media and partnerships, they now promote a single .com site rather than a .co.uk that might have signaled "this is a UK site" to outsiders. This case underscores that even legacy brands rooted in one country see value in moving to .com to broaden their appeal and avoid parochial connotations. Similarly, other media like the financial publication Financial Times moved from ft.com (which was fine but somewhat generic) to the more descriptive FT.com (capitalized, but that's still a .com), and interestingly they actively brand "FT.com" in their logo now, emphasizing the .com as part of their identity for digital readers.

Case Study 5: A Startup's New TLD that succeeded – AngelList (angel.co). AngelList, a platform for startup fundraising and jobs, took a different approach by using angel.co from early on. This is a rare case where a .co domain became well-known in its own right. AngelList likely chose angel.co because Angel.com was not available (and might have been extremely expensive or not for sale), and the .co tied nicely as a shorthand for "company" or "Colorado" (though it's Colombia's ccTLD). Over time, AngelList built a strong brand, and users (mostly tech-savvy individuals) got accustomed to angel.co. It helped that the name before .co is unique ("angel" in this context refers to angel investors). So "angel.co" had a kind of meaning and symmetry. To this day, AngelList operates on angel.co and has not moved to angel.com (which is owned by someone else and not actively used for similar services). Why did this work for AngelList? Several factors: their target user base is more tech-oriented and thus more tolerant of non-.com URLs; "AngelList" was the actual brand but they could communicate the URL as "angel.co" easily; .co by the mid-2010s had gained a bit more acceptance as a generic extension due to heavy promotion. It also faces relatively little type-in confusion with another site; "angel.com" is a parked page, and people who use AngelList usually click links or have it bookmarked. One could argue though, if AngelList had used angellist.com (which they do own as a redirect) from the start, perhaps their traffic might have grown even faster, but it's hard to say. This case indicates that under specific conditions (a tech audience, a short one-word name, backing of a good product that becomes popular), an alternative TLD can be viable. AngelList made .co part of their brand successfully. However, note that many startups that tried .co did switch to .com as they grew (for example, Loom (loom.com) started as useloom.com then got loom.com, etc.). AngelList's sticking to .co is an exception among startups rather than the norm.

For most businesses, the lessons from these are:

• Straying from .com can carry risks of user confusion and lost traffic (as seen with Overstock).
• If you can get your .com, it often pays off to do so (Dropbox, Guardian).
• Unique branding can sometimes mitigate not having a .com, but that often requires special circumstances (AngelList, or having enormous brand power like Alphabet).
• Ultimately, many companies that started on other domains end up with .com, which indicates where the long-term value lies.

Every business should evaluate its own audience and needs, but these examples generally reinforce the core theme: .com is a safe and advantageous choice, and not having it usually introduces challenges that need careful management (if not immediately, then down the road as you scale).

References

• OpenProvider – 2025 domain name statistics (Valeria van der Poel, Dec 2024)
• SearchEngineLand – Google Explains How It Handles New TLDs (Barry Schwartz, 2015)
• Paul Graham – Change Your Name (Essay, Aug 2015)
• GrowthBadger – Domain Extensions Study (2019)
• Semrush – Visitors Don't Trust Alternative Domains (Survey, 2019)
• StrategicRevenue – Fortune 500 Domain Name Characteristics (John Colascione, 2017)
• WebsiteFlip – What Domains Are Startups Using in 2021? (Mushfiq Sarker, 2021)
• DomainIncite – O.co loses 61% of its traffic to O.com (Kevin Murphy, 2012)
• Domain Name Wire – How Dropbox got the Dropbox.com domain name (Andrew Allemann, 2018)
• Verisign Blog – Myths vs. Facts about .com (Verisign, 2020s)
• BusinessWire – MicroStrategy Sells Voice.com for $30 Million (2019)