I still mainly stick with .com to be honest. Even though there are loads of newer domain extensions available now, and some of them are actually really good for branding or getting shorter keyword-rich names, .com still feels the most trusted and professional overall. It’s the extension most people instantly recognise and remember, and a lot of people will naturally type .com by default anyway.
I think some of the newer extensions definitely work well for certain niches, startups, or creative projects, but for long-term projects or businesses, I still feel more comfortable using a .com domain. It just seems to carry more trust and familiarity with general users.
Do you think newer extensions will ever become as trusted and widely recognised as .com, or do you think .com will always stay the main standard?
I feel like most of the newer extensions have been a mixed bag. A few of them, like .gg or .app, have carved out a niche, but the majority haven’t really changed how people interact with domains. We’re also in a world where fewer users are typing in URLs at all. Most traffic comes from links, search, or social, so the extension matters less than it used to.
That said, .com is still the gold standard. When someone does manually type a domain or even just guesses a site name, their brain defaults to .com almost automatically. It’s still the most trusted and familiar extension for long‑term projects, and that trust factor is hard to replace.
I’m not against using newer extensions; they can work well for branding or product launches, but most of the success stories I’ve seen are short‑term or very niche. For anything meant to last, I still think the best approach is:
Start with a .com if you can. Then expand outward only if the branding really benefits from it.
Newer extensions aren’t useless, but they haven’t dethroned .com, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I love .zone and the .ing extension, the thing that sucks about .zone is how expensive it is to renew it. People get creative when they use newer domain extensions, there's a website I use called Cozy Talk and they have the .talk domain.
I don't mind all the available domain extensions, it lets people select something more closer to their niche instead of all depending on the .com, .org, .net domains. I've seen some creative ones out there but I usually stick to the .com domains since those are the most common and easy to remember. Most people will probably default to visiting the .com domain of your website if they go by the title/name.
I enjoy the off the wall extensions that bring in a fun, or different way of looking at a domain name. The only thing I've noticed with some is when trying to use an email on one within certain services, they report back to enter a valid email. Had it happen to me with a .network extension.
