Loading...
Answers
MenuIf there are no quality .com available domains suited for my travel startup, is it too bad to use a .org or .travel gtld?
This question has no further details.
Answers
That one question entails several separate answers.
.TRAVEL is little used and practically unknown to the general public, even though it has been around for 7 or 8 years. Partly that's because the .TRAVEL registry mandates a special application process that confines use of the extension to particular kinds of entities.
Have you ever visited a .TRAVEL website? Most people have never seen one. And so, with negligible public adoption of .TRAVEL, you'd find yourself almost entirely alone explaining your name / web address over and over again. Names that require long explanations are cumbersome and forgettable.
There's an added burden with vanity extensions such as .TRAVEL. Suppose you name your company or website "Exotic Travel". If you use Exotic.Travel because ExoticTravel.com is too expensive or else in use already, then you will either face a competitor who uses ExoticTravel.com or else you will need to purchase and maintain both domains. Owning a vanity extension without a matching .COM is almost always a bad idea. Some major websites have learned that the hard way -- often paying 5 or 6 figures to acquire the .COM domain they hoped to circumvent.
I'm not a .COM purist. In fact, I'm fond of some domains in vanity extensions. But they should be used as a pair with the .COM most of the time.
.ORG can be ideal for certain kinds of projects. But it's impossible for me to give an answer without knowing the name in question. If .ORG is part of the brand identity -- meaning that you're proud to display the .ORG -- then it can work. Nonprofits are especially well suited to .ORG for this reason, as are some other websites. However, if using the .ORG is merely a cheap knockoff of your first-choice domain, then people will perceive it rightly as just a cheap knockoff. We'd have to discuss the name specifically for me to give any meaningful feedback, though.
Of course, you began by saying "there are no quality .COMs available". Frankly, that's probably not true. Availability comes in all shapes and sizes. It's certainly the case that most of the good .COM domains already belong to somebody. After all, the internet has been around for a few decades. Just as with the North American continent, every vacant lot has an owner by now. But many good .COMs, though owned, are nevertheless not in use -- and therefore available, depending on your budget.
It's dangerous to settle for the first .COM you find that's available for $10. Almost by definition, those are precisely the domains that have interested nobody alive at all for 20+ years. However, I've been exploring the name space every single day full time for some years now -- often for myself but frequently for clients. And a small percentage of good domains do remain available. However, it takes experience to find them and tell the difference between fool's gold and the genuine article. With my last naming client, I'd say that less than 1% of my name ideas were unregistered.
That's a long answer. Since it's now 1:17 a.m., I'd better cut things off at this point!
As one of my industry colleagues said: If you think all the good domains are taken, you don't understand branding. Think about naming your agency, not describing it. We easily find 100 free .com domains on every naming project.. and often a lot more. With names that sound like they should be in the dictionary.
And yes, soon all the new domains will be here...like .web or .shop or .online or... BUT BUT trademark rules will apply even more than before - and trademark rules govern domain rules. So please make sure the trademarks are clear before you pay for any domains. By this time next year it will be very acceptable to have a non .com domain name. May even be cool to be a .buzz or a .cool!
You can use a custom ending if it can tie in to your company/brand name. visual.ly is a good example.
With browser history and personal settings it's much less an issue than is used to be.
Before you pick a final name please conduct a keyword search and determine what keywords are important for your industry. One of the most powerful ways to get found on the internet starts with your URL. If you can add or mix and match keywords that have a high monthly search...you will probably be better off then trying to secure a cute name.
Related Questions
-
What is the best growth hacking strategy for a travel website?
Before you spend $ or time marketing your service / website, ensure that your brand itself is quite strong. For example, if your name or domain is awkward, ambiguous, or off-putting, then every dollar and hour you spend promoting your brand will work less efficiently in your favor than if you were spending the same amount of money and time marketing something more robust and attractive.JP
-
What do you think about a platform similar to clarity for the travel vertical ?
I can say from experience that there is a huge need for this, as it's exactly what my company, Vayable does. We have a community of more than 5,000 local Insiders who can help advise, plan and curate experiences. You can take a look at our Insiders here: https://www.vayable.com/users/search?query=&sort_by=popularity You can search or browse by destination or interest and contact them directly, or use our in-house Concierge service for a higher touch experience. Concierge: https://www.vayable.com/custom/navigator We are a YCombinator startup based in San Francisco, launched in 2011 and backed by many of the Valley's top investors. Feel free to reach out if you want to learn more about the space.JW
-
What is the best way/technology to pull hotel rates and inventory for a hotel search and booking app ?
That's a much more complicated question than it appears to be, as there are multiple sources which will get you some of the inventory, but nothing which will get you all of the inventory. If you look at an OTA, they are pulling from typical sources like SABRE or Amadeus, but also from what is in effect their own inventory, where hotels are either going in via an extranet or there's some kind of direct-connect to the system the hotel is operating on (which could be one of many, including none at all). In fact, some of the OTA's make that proprietary inventory available too, via an API and on a commissionable sales basis. There's just no one-size-fits-all access point - especially when you consider that worldwide the hotel business is actually very un-aggregated with something like 80% of all hotel room capacity operated independently (that is to say, not branded or part of a chain like Starwood, Accor, IHG etc.). It's a big part of why OTA's have invested so heavily in technology to manage and distribute this type of inventory. It's not easily done as the technology used in the hospitality industry is often not great and it's unconsolidated to there's value and negotiating strength to be brought from consolidating it.SM
-
What's the best way to manage over 200 domain names? I want to get a landing page set up on each.
I have been managing multiple domains/sites for my clients since a few years now and I think the easiest and best way to do it in your case would be setting up simple WordPress sites on each one of them and managing them with something like ManageWP(https://managewp.com/) . If they're niche domains, you can monetize them through ads or use them as affiliate sites. Selling them can also be also an option. If you can get the sites to look fairly nice and if they are niche domains, you can sell them on sites like Flippa(https://flippa.com/) . Overall, you have many options. I'd be glad to help you in detail through a call if you want.AT
-
What domain name should I get?
Choosing the right domain is what I do for a living. If you'd like to schedule a call, I'll give the matter some thought ahead of time. We should be able to figure things out by phone in 15 minutes or less.JP
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.