Website domain names

Clearly the dot-com domain is the most popular domain extension. Registering a dot-com should come first, and if you miss the dot-com extension, then changing the extension won't give you the web presence that want. In fact, suppose that Microsoft didn't have the dot-com extension, many people would be driven to the dot-com site first, unintentionally.

I've missed a couple of dot-com registrations because I waited too long. I was an early Internet adopter and when Google mail, a.k.a., GMail, was launched, I grabbed the address mathenge-at-gmail-dot-com quickly. I did the same thing with Hotmail, but I lost that account because I wasn't using it and when I forgot my password, I couldn't retrieve it. I don't know if someone else has it now. I did the same thing with Yahoo!. I grabbed the mathenge-at-yahoo-dot-com address. Lost that one too.

As far as website domains are concerned, I wanted to get the mathenge-dot-com address, and when I first checked, years ago, it was available. I did nothing. I didn't have ideas to build a website, and I just didn't want to squat on it, or park it. But I regret since that address has since been taken.

But that loss doesn't irk me as much as loosing digital-pencil-dot-com. Back in 2006, when I first came up with that business name for a digital art, writing and creative media company site, the domain was available. I hummed and hawed and didn't register it. Finally, a couple of years later, I decided to buy it and, yup, you guessed it, it's gone!

So here's the dilemma. Although I have a Canadian company registered under "Digital Pencil," I don't have the dot-com site. The interesting thing is that the dot-ca site is available. Since it's a Canadian registered company, I could register the website under digital-pencil-dot-ca. That would be fine. I'd hand out business cards and all would be well, sort of. I suspect that many visitors wouldn't read the business card properly, they'd see the part that reads, http://www.digital-pencil... and they'd assume that it ends in dot-com. I know. They would. Really. It happens all the time with these dot-ca sites. Is WalMart a dot-ca or a dot-com? Well, in that case, they've got both. So does Microsoft. So does Dell. So do most of the large, international companies.

Not all though. Air Canada has grabbed both aircanada-dot-com and aircanada-dot-ca. When you go to the dot-ca site, it redirects you to the dot-com site. But the Ontario government hasn't grabbed both of them. The ontario-dot-com site is a tourist information site while the ontario-dot-ca site is the government's site. Why would they care? It's clearly obvious when you get to the dot-com site that it isn't the government so, if it were the government you were looking for, you've knocked on the wrong door. Same thing goes for the city of Toronto. The toronto-dot-com site is a tourist site, a city information site, while the dot-ca site is the official city's site.

So people are smart enough to know when they're in the wrong place. In my case, digital-pencil-dot-com looks very close in business nature to the kind of things I want to do. But hey, they're all the way out in England. So I suppose I'll go ahead and register the dot-ca site, and make sure that I bold the ca part in my business cards.