The definitive domain buying guide
Or are .com domains worth it?
You’re three days from launching and someone just grabbed yourbrand.com.
Now you’re staring at a domain broker’s email: “$12,000 or make an offer.”
Every founder you follow is on .com. Your investor asked about it. Your co-founder is nervous.
Let me save you some anxiety and money.
Myth 1: .com ranks better in Google
The claim: Google favors .com domains in search results.
What Google actually says:
“Overall, our systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs (like .com & .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.”
The 2024 API leak backed this up. Zero evidence of a .com ranking bonus.
But here’s the kicker. Contrast.digital ran a 12-month experiment with identical e-commerce sites on .com and .store.
Results:
.store got 49,939 organic impressions.
.com got 24,822.
The .store site got twice the traffic.
So no, .com doesn’t get special algorithmic treatment. If anything, this experiment shows the opposite.
Where .com actually wins
It wins with people, not algorithms.
GrowthBadger tested 1,500 people on trust and memorability across TLDs.
Trust scores (1-5 scale):
- .com: 3.5
- .co: 3.4
- .org: 3.3
- .biz: 2.9
Memorability (people who correctly remembered the URL later):
- .com: 44%
- .co: 33%
- .net: 25%
When people forgot the TLD and had to guess, they picked .com 57 times vs. .org 15 times.
That’s a 3.8x bias.
So .com is about 33% more memorable than .co and 76% more memorable than .net.
Not 2x. Not 10x. About one-third better recall.
The second-order SEO effect
This is where it gets interesting.
Better memorability means more direct traffic and branded searches.
Higher trust means slightly better click-through rates in search results.
A more “legitimate looking” domain makes journalists more likely to link to you.
And Google’s NavBoost system weighs click data and engagement heavily.
So .com helps SEO, but indirectly. Through human behavior, not algorithmic magic.
The GrowthBadger author put it well: “In most cases it’s probably closer to a 10% difference than a 2x difference.”
Myth 2: Nobody trusts non-.com domains
The claim: Users see .io or .co and think “sketchy.”
The reality: It depends.
Same GrowthBadger study, trust scores:
- .com: 3.5
- .co: 3.4
- .org: 3.3
The gap between .com and .co is 0.1 on a 5-point scale.
That’s a 3% difference. Not exactly a trust crisis.
But the spread gets real with garbage TLDs:
- .biz: 2.9 (17% lower than .com)
- .xyz and similar spam magnets: even worse
Bottom line: .co, .org, .app, .io are totally fine. Just avoid the sketchy bottom-tier stuff.
Myth 3: You’ll lose traffic without .com
The claim: People will type yourbrand.com by default and never find you.
Look, .com is more memorable. We covered that.
But “more memorable” doesn’t mean “catastrophic failure without it.”
Memorability data again:
- .com: 44%
- .co: 33%
- .org: 32%
So .com is 33% more memorable than .co. One-third better, not double.
When people forgot the TLD entirely, they guessed .com 3.8x more often than .org.
This matters if your brand spreads through podcasts, word of mouth, and offline channels. People hear “CheckoutApp” and type checkoutapp.com.
It matters way less if you’re a B2B SaaS where people click through from blog posts or search results.
The real risk isn’t lost traffic. It’s if someone else owns yourbrand.com and captures confused visitors. That’s a brand protection problem, not a domain ranking problem.
Myth 4: Investors care about your TLD
The claim: VCs won’t fund you on a .io domain.
Look at who actually got funded:
- Vercel (launched as zeit.co before buying vercel.com)
- Notion (notion.so)
- Character.ai, Hugging Face (.co)
Y Combinator companies launch on .io, .co, and .ai all the time.
What investors actually care about:
- Product-market fit
- Growth numbers
- Can you execute
Your TLD is background noise.
If an investor passes because of your domain extension, they were looking for a reason to pass anyway.
Myth 5: You can always upgrade later
The claim: Launch on .io now, buy the .com when you have revenue.
Sometimes this works. Often it doesn’t.
Two ways this goes wrong:
Someone else grabs it
You build brand awareness on mybrand.io. A squatter grabs mybrand.com and either ransoms it back or worse, builds a competing product.
Now you’re in trademark disputes or paying 10x what it would have cost early.
The price climbs with your traction
Domain brokers watch funding announcements and press coverage. Once you get traction, that $3,000 domain becomes $25,000.
The “upgrade later” path works when:
- The .com is parked and the owner is reachable
- You have real revenue to justify the cost
- Brand confusion risk is low (unique name, technical audience)
But it’s not a guaranteed strategy.
What actually matters
After all this, three things drive the decision:
1. User behavior effects
.com has a real but modest edge in memorability and trust vs good alternatives. We’re talking 10-30% range.
This matters more for:
- Consumer brands
- Products that spread through podcasts/word-of-mouth
- Mainstream audiences
It matters less for:
- Developer tools
- B2B SaaS
- Anything driven by inbound search
2. Brand protection
If someone can grab yourbrand.com and create confusion, that’s a legit risk.
But it’s brand risk, not SEO risk.
Fix: Pick a more unique name, or buy the .com if you can afford it.
3. Budget reality
The .com premium has to make sense for your stage.
Rules I’d use:
- Pre-revenue: Only pay if it’s under 1 month of runway
- Post-revenue: Only pay if it’s under 1-2% of ARR
If the math doesn’t work, grab the best alternative and move on.
The decision tree
Is .com available at the normal price ($10-50/year)?
Yes: Register it. Done.
No: Keep reading.
Is the premium under $500?
Yes: Probably worth it for simplicity.
No: Keep reading.
Do you have revenue yet?
No: Take .co, .io, .app, or .dev. Build first, buy the .com later if you need it.
Yes: Keep reading.
Is your audience mainstream/non-technical?
Yes: Consider paying a moderate premium (under 2% of ARR) for the memorability boost.
No: .io/.dev/.app works fine for technical audiences.
Is brand confusion a real risk?
Yes: Negotiate hard, look into trademark protection, or pick a different name.
No: Take the alternative and ship.
What to do right now
Stop overthinking the domain.
Pick the cleanest one you can afford on a decent TLD (.com, .co, .io, .app, .org, or a solid country TLD).
Then spend the next two weeks talking to 20 potential customers.
If they don’t want what you’re building, the domain won’t matter.
If they do want it, you’ll have revenue to buy the .com later. Or you’ll realize you never needed it.