Ask HN: Are .dev domains worth anything? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are .dev domains worth anything?

5 pointspavlov7 comments

Some five years ago, Google introduced the .dev TLD and there was a bit of hype around it. Some people assumed it would become a popular top-level domain for developer-oriented products — similar to .io but without being tied to a weird geographical region.

Well, I assumed that anyway, and grabbed a few premium .dev domains (common English words with three or four letters). And as usually happens to domain registrations, my big plans for these domains came to nothing.

Looking around, it doesn't seem like .dev has caught on like one might have imagined. Do you see value in it at this point? Would you use this TLD for a product, or is the old advice of compromising on domain name memorability to get a .com still valid?

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I work for a company that has a .dev domain, and nearly worked for another that has one as well. I think .dev is perfectly fine for developer tooling websites but it probably doesn't have super wide appeal.

It's a great way for a specific niche to get good branding. Getting a .com is absurd these days. If there is a viable, short, and memorable alternative TLD, it is often worth considering.

Do the TLDs hold value? I'm not sure, I think that's a fairly tough argument to make with .com as well.

> Getting a .com is absurd these days.

What do you mean by that?

I assume they mean most of the catchy .com domains are crazy expensive nowadays, if they are even available.

Something I'm pretty convinced of is that the domain no longer makes a real difference to anything, unless you have one of the spammy ones (.biz, .info) in which case those can be detrimental.

Well, if you're not selling a product aimed at developers/engineers, it's probably not going to do you any favours. The average person on the street still sees .com as the norm for website addresses, or completely ignores them in favour of Google/search engines/social media links.

So there's not really a reason to have a short/catchy .dev domain over a .com or country domain one.

I'm dropping my .dev because of the renewal price increases personally. It's not popular enough to warrant 2-3x .com price.

People are creative enough, and enjoy sufficiently, being able to come up with unique short snappy names. We're post rr and ly suffixes.

A tech audience in particular is fine with some 1337. And always has been: /. kuro5hin, etc.

For non tech, go with a commonlyacceptedtld.lol

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