.mobi, .co.uk, .com, .net, .org, .info, .me.uk, domain names
General
It is good practice for you to buy more than one domain suffix to prevent competitors using the same domain name with a different suffix to steal your trade. You should at the very least get the co.uk and .com versions, possibly others if you feel that this is important to you. What you must NEVER do is put the same website on different domain names, as this is seen as cheating by the search engines and you'll get penalised. Instead just point you domains to your main website, whichever one is entered visitors will end up in the same place..mobi domain names
Example: www.yourname.mobi
This domain is intended for mobile phone users, and has its critics as well
as it advocates.
Advantages
are that it can signal to mobile users that this website is specially designed
for them, any domain bearing the .mobi suffix should be formatted to display
on a mobile screen, with navigation, page size, and formatting to suit this
medium.
Disadvantages
are that the Web is supposed to offer websites suited to all users, and
there is strong criticism from certain experts who are against the splintering
of websites to appeal to certain catagories. Their argument is that, using
modern techniques, one website can provide suitable formats for all users.
For more on this read Tim Berners-Lee authorative article "New
top level domains.mobi and .xxx considered harmful"
In addition, the suitability of .mobi domains to mobile users is entirely
dependent on the skill of the web designer, so there is no guarantee they
will be any better than a normal site.
Our opinion:
There is no doubt that the best solution is for one website to designed
in such a way that it will caters for all users. In practical terms this
necessitates using latest web techniques which only certain web design firms
are able to offer. The simplest way to do this would be to have a link immediately
apparent to mobile users which when clicked would take them either to the
same site presented in a format suitable for mobile users, or to a distinct
part of the same site formatted specially for them.
There is a lot of money to be made selling domain names, .biz, .eu, .me
etc., but I wonder how many will stand the test of time ?
Conclusion
If your website could have an audience of mobile phone users who might want
to view your site on their mobile, then why not buy one? Even if you don't
have the budget to have your site adapted for this technology at the moment
you need to think to the future, and the wide use of mobile technology means
that even if there is only a small chance of this being used it could be
worthwhile.
Although we believe this is not going to be useful in the long term it doesn't
cost much to buy a .mobi domain (£25 + £10 set up), and anyway,
we could be wrong !
Click here to order a .mobi domain
.co.uk domain names
The standard domain name for UK websites. One important thing to know about this domain is that the search engines are country specific, i.e. they recognise the local nature of the domain name, and as a result tent to give it more weight on the corresponding search. So .co.uk domains tend to do better on google.co.uk than on google.com. If you are targetting a UK audience, .co.uk domains are highly recommended.Click here to order a .co.uk domain
.com domain names
This domain is used for United States websites, and also for websites appealing to a global audienceClick here to order a .com domain
.net domain names
This domain is supposedly used for companies with international contacts, but in reality tends to be used when other domains are not avaiable.Click here to order a .net domain
.org domain names
This domain name was originally intended for charities and not-for-profit organisations, but now is widely used by anyone who finds the domain they wanted already taken. Rather a shame that this is now in general use as I found it useful to distinguish between ordinary commercial sites and charities, and the search engines were also able to give genuine .org sites some degree of preference which can't be a bad thing !Click here to order a .org domain
.info domain names
Once again although this is supposed to be for information sites, this is more often used as a last choice.Click here to order a .info domain
.biz domain names
Intended as the name suggests for businessesClick here to order a .biz domain
.me domain names
Intended for personal sites.Click here to order a .me domain