A longer .com domain name or shorter .tv domain name? Which is better?

Domains
1

Hi, I am currently running BestofVideoGames.com but we have changed our domain name to BOVG.tv and I am wondering: did I make a mistake? “BestofVideoGames” is 16 letters but has the .com extension…however, the “BOVG” is only 4 letters but on the other hand uses the .tv extension.

Which one do you think is better? And, yes, we are considered a TV-style show, so .tv makes sense for us but I am wondering:

  1. Is it too difficult to remember?

  2. Is the .com better anyways, even though it is longer?

Thanks for the help!

Ryan

2

we liked the shorter one.

3

Neither is better. It is all about marketing and branding not your domain name. Market one or the other. And have the other redirect to the primary.

4

I was going to say the same as the second poster, don’t let the dot com go, have it redirect to the .tv Best of luck to you

5

Another who agrees with that statement here. Take them both and pick one to market.

6

Thanks everyone for the advice. Apparently, I feel I am on the right track after hearing your advice because we are currently doing just that…redirecting the long .com to the short .tv which is working out well. I prefer the short .tv domain name: it’s easy to remember for most people and each letter stands for our name too. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again.

7

I’d redirect the shorter name to the long one since the long one is actually more descriptive. Also whatever SEO effect that the domain name will have is going to come from the long name not the short one and so that’s the one you want the search engines to see.

8

I prefer the shorter one. However, I’ll agree to felgall that redirect the shorter name to the longer one as the longer one is more descriptive. Keep both domains for yourselves, and use one as a parked domain.

9

Have you analysed where most of your traffic comes from? If it comes from search terms relating to ‘best video games’ then you’re likely best to stick with the longer one. The short url would make a good url shortener for social media use e.g similar to bit.ly

10

When people are searching for BOVG (EG when it has brand recognition)

Then it will be better

That’s my first thought

until then - well you know…

11

As long as one redirects to the other people will be able to access the site using either one. The only difference will be that search engines will only see the one the site is actually on and not the one that is redirecting.

12

site being the operative word there felgall as you said domain

somewhat misleading and why it just sounds like a contradiction within three sentences

One minute it can’t see it the next it is marking it as duplicate - that made no sense.

though I can’t really make much sense of your last sentence either but that might be as it’s bed time as it still sounds like you are saying the SE’s can’t see it as it has no content/site on it’s domain.

13

I’ll try to make it clearer then.

As far as people reaching the site by entering one of the domain names it makes no difference which directs to which as both end up at the same place.

Where actual links only use the domain that the site is actually on those links go straight to the site as well.

The only time links would ever go to the domain that is redirected is if you changed which domain the site is on. The redirect is basically an instruction to say that the site used to be at that address but has now moved (301 means permanently moved) to the new domain. The domain being redirected should therefore be ignored as the address has changed. Ignoring the address being redirected is what 301 means. If you don’t want it ignored you’d use 302 which indicates that the move is only temporary and the address will be changed back later.

So why would you expect the search engines to disregard a clear instruction “301 - ignore this address as it has been premanently changed”?

That being the case, you want the most descriptive of the names as the one that doesn’t have the ignore/redirect associated with it.

Of course the search engines can “see” both domains - the difference is that one has an ignore/redirect command attached to it and the other doesn’t. So the search engine does what it has been told to do and redirects to the replacement address.

14

shorter is much better because it’s easier to remember, there is no rule to be .com it can be .net, .org, .biz, .info etc.

15

In my opinion .com perform well and didn’t confuse user even if it is long…

16

.tv is for the websites that are based on television videos and forecast.
.com version of your domain name is not impressive or good enough…
But .com would be better then .tv because your website is a blog cum forum.

17

Thanks again everyone for your suggestions. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do. I have noticed google does not show .tv domain names at all. :frowning: What do you think about www.BOVGTV.com It is only six letters, but I think it is very hard to remember. I think BOVG.tv is easier, but at the same time it is a .tv extension which doesn’t seem to be hardly recognized by google…