Consumers’ perception of .com versus other suffixes

A survey from the Lexicon-Branding company shows consumers see little difference between the almighty “.com” domain names and those ending with “.net” or “.biz”.

Most companies still go to great lengths to protect their “.com” domain name and even acquire complementary “.com” monikers. It’s well known to domainers that having a “.com” will generally mean a higher selling price.

Could this new and somewhat surprising survey curb interest for the .com names?

Probably not.

As long as market leaders continue to invest in their .com names as being their “main brands”, well continue to see the market for .com names soar.

Let’s take a closer look at the survey’s results. 2,509 regular internet users who had purchased products and services online during the last 6 months of 2005. Respondents were asked to rank 4 test web sites, for which the only difference was the suffix, by answering 6 questions on a 10 point scale. As such, respondents were shown the exact same site with the only difference being the .com or .biz domain name ending.

Looking at the survey results, it’s obvious consumers seem to perceive virtually no difference between .com and .net while .biz only slightly lagging behind.

Generally, 41.2% of respondents have a very positive opinion of the .com, compared to 27.2% for .net and 10.7% for .biz. Inversely, 15.9% reported perceiving .biz as very negative, compared to a mere 3.8% for .net and 1.1% for .com.

When asked about their impression with doing business with a bank, 12.3% reported a positive impression of a bank with a .com domain name, compared to 11.2% for a .net and 11.1% for a .biz domain name suffix.

In the case of an electronics store, the percentage of respondents with a positive impression were 28.7% for .com, 27.8% for .net and 24.7% for .biz, which shows respondents don’t discriminate much on the domain suffix, in this context.

The .biz is many years younger than the .net and suffers certain liabilities such as the fact that the domain name suffis is the less familiar of the 3 and some respondents went to say they think .biz sounds “cheap and slang-like”. Over time, these perceptions should be overcomed but it remains to be seen how long it’ll take.

Here’s what Lexicon-Branding’s CEO David Placek had to say, for the final word: “Our overall conclusion is that a business would do well to create the most effective name it can and secure it no matter what the domain suffix. In terms of actual consumer acceptance and usage, it doesn’t make much difference”.