Domain Extensions: <myname>.com isn't available

You can always use a ".me" domain. They started to pick up popularity last year a bit but I haven't seen many lately. Believe it or not, there are people out there that will just buy up random domain names and hold onto them until someone comes along and wants that domain "really" bad. People make a living doing this. I work at a digital marketing agency and we just got finished building a site for a fortune 500 company and they had bought almost 78 domain names. We asked them why and their response was, they didn't want anyone typing in anything remotely close to what their company's name was. If someone wants that domain bad enough, that individual or company will eventually fork up the money to buy it, and that's only if the owner wants to sell it.

Hi Keith,

In my opinion you can create really any domain you want as a portfolio site. I've seen people use odd names as their portfolio site. So it depends on your purpose for the site. I've used variations of names, .me domains and other international names. The only reason why you might want to go with purchasing the domain at that cost is if you were wanting

• an aged domain and it was clear that the domain was aged. Helps in SEO.
• If there are links already pointing to that site. Again for SEO purposes.

Most people are looking to use their name as a personal site to help get a job. You know what you want it for so weigh whether it is worth the cost and decide from there.

Derek

In my opinion, clarity and memorability are more important than a specific name if you're going for a personal or portfolio site. The opportunity for user error is too high if you're sticking it on a business card, resume or using word of mouth to let others know of your website. .com is pretty ingrained into people at this point. Chances are the mistake would be readily apparent and it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's a situation easily avoided.

If you were targeting keywords for SEO purposes, that would be another story. It matters little to most people what the top level domain is if they're finding it through google. So provided the site looks professional plumbingfixtures.biz is generally better than plumfix.com if you're trying to rank for plumbing fixtures on the on the internet.

You can usually do a WHOIS search and see when the domain expires. If sometime in the future, the owner lets it slip, you could pick it up. Most likely, you'll have to settle for a creative .com, or .net, .co, .io......

The only thing I would look to is whether there is another site using something close to your target domain. Since it sounds like the domain owner is just sitting on it, you should just use an alternate domain for now, and keep an eye on your ideal domain.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I've already got the .me site and the .net site is available. Was just wondering if .com was as important as some make it out to be.

Cheers