My question is completely out of topic, but it scratches by the back of my head, and to my knowledge you would be the only “webmaster” I know that would potentially answer my question
I know that you spent some time evaluating the “worthiness” of the ICU extension for your website/service/app, and today I’m considering buying a domain name with the ICU extension (mainly because the domain name I was looking for was already used with the .com extension).
You built a great website, so I guess that, whatever the reputation of the extension is, people don’t care about the name as long as the value they get from that website is that awesome
But other than that, do you think that the ICU extension would be pointless, or even troublesome, for traditional/personal websites (I read somewhere that ICU domains were used for spam, so some services, like mail services, may block those ICU websites, …) ?
Well actually I didn’t do much research and just really liked Intervals.icu with the hospital connection. Only later did I find out that some ISP’s will consider your mail spam just because of the .icu domain. But by then it was already a bit late to change. I don’t think users care.
So I would advise something else if your site will be sending email.
Ok, thanks. In fact, I have NO idea of what I would do with that domain name, it’s only a name that I’ve been thinking about for maybe 20 years now Maybe if the name was in my possession, I would find a reason to put something in it !
I am actually your guy that knows a lot about this It’s pretty simple to test. Search google for anything and see what shows up at the top of the list. Ads followed by .com or .org from a US search perspective. So if SEO matters to you then it is .com or .org almost exclusively on the first page except in specific countries. Poland .pl for example. I would argue that most people don’t need to care about SEO because in many cases paying for ads with google is cheaper than getting good SEO.
If people love you and link to your site a lot then SEO can matter. TrainerDay ranks pretty well on lots of stuff. Even “Dylan Johnson TrainerRoad” (not TrainerDay). we are on page #1. but at the end of the day this is not huge traffic. So .com and .org build trust if that matters, but other than that I don’t think it matters much. I am fairly confident I would rank much better with trainerday.com then cyclingworkouts.icu for example but does having .com improve my business, well I think David grows a little faster than us so it matters more to have the right business or right product.
It’s not too late to change I had ERGdb for 2 years and had no loss switching to TrainerDay other than users marked my emails as spam if I did not say “Hi this is Alex from ERGdb” But I like intervals.icu too.
Due to the .icu domain, I’m unable to access the website through my work computer. Since thats the computer i use for everything, it means I can’t use intervals.icu anymore (except on my phone, which i find a bit cumbersome).
It’d be great if there could be some alternative url, using a more “mainstream” domain extension.
Maybe if the name was in my possession, I would find a reason to put something in it !
It’s pretty simple to test. Search google for anything and see what shows up at the top of the list. Ads followed by .com or .org from a US search perspective. So if SEO matters to you then it is .com or .org almost exclusively on the first page except in specific countries. Poland .pl for example. I would argue that most people don’t need to care about SEO because in many cases paying for ads with google is cheaper than getting good SEO.