Entrepreneur Magazine’s website asked readers recently to rank their favorite .net sites. The result is the .Net 100 Ranking.
The most popular domain names in the English-speaking world remain .com names. Search engines love them, and when people are looking for a specialist site, they more often than not assume that the best site is a .com one. But Entrepreneur claims that their ranking shows that .net domains have now become mainstream, and can more than hold their own against a .com.
The editors at Entrepreneur certainly seem to think the most recent list bears this out. After all, .net domain names are hosted in more than 200 countries worldwide, and the .net zone has doubled in size since 2006, surpassing 15 million domain names registered globally in 2013. Raymond Hennessey, editorial director at Entrepreneur.com, said:
“Doing this ranking made it obvious to us that the .net domain is truly mainstream – and it can actually be a competitive advantage for entrepreneurs. When we really looked closely at .net sites, we saw an eye-opening range of brands and businesses brimming with passionate followers. These already successful sites seemingly are a major driver behind why others are following suit when they’re ready to register.”
We’re not sure it proves that. Using anything other than a .com tends to cause confusion, as most of us automatically insert the .com extension. And it’s hard to extrapolate based on growth of .net domain names. After all, holders of the .com domain often snap up the .net version simply as a defensive move, to prevent squatters and infringers for capitalizing on their brand.
But it is interesting to see the top 10 .Net sites from Entrepreneur readers. Here’s the full list:
- SlideShare.net
- PHP.net
- Battle.net
- Behance.net
- Speedtest.net
- Explosm.net
- SourceForge.net
- AmericanApparel.net
- Slickdeals.net
- DocuSign.net
SlideShare, SpeedTest, and SlickDeals are all sites I frequent. I’m going to have to branch out more!
But I was surprised to see American Apparel here. They can’t get their own dot com?
Aira Bongco
Out of these, I like Slideshare and SourceForge. I think that they are the websites that have some uses for me so I find them valuable. I guess the website that you will choose will really depend on which website is valuable to you.
Martin Lindeskog
I am pretty often at Slideshare.net. I think that the .net extension is working well with a site like Slideshare. It is a .network of presentations. I wonder why my new site, EGO Dojo .net didn’t come up in the list! 😉
ed pierce
It’s no surprise that Slideshare is at the number one spot. They have one of the best site concepts out there and they look like the are one of the most motivated new companies also.
I’ll be taking a look at the top-100 list to see if there are any that interest me.
I’m not familiar with most in the top-10, apart from American Apparel and Slide Share.
Aira Bongco
It seems that Slideshare is really the most popular .net site out there. I guess it is because the .net extension fits the site well. Don’t get me wrong. I know other websites with .net extensions and they are really good. I guess they are just not networking sites so they are not in the top 100.
I should imagine Slideshare’s about to become even more popular with the traffic the list will bring. 🙂
Its popularity is largely due to its usefulness, I guess. When you have a site like that, its extension becomes less important. There’s a chance they would have been just as popular regardless of the extension they chose.
Mark O'Neill
@ebele : I was speaking to someone who owns a site in the top 15 of the list, and he said that actual visitors due to the list are next to nothing, at the moment.
I am REALLY surprised, Mark. Really surprised. I’m trying to figure out why that’s the case. Entrepreneur.com is a popular site in itself. The post where the 100 are listed has a fair amount of FB likes and tweet shares so far. And the post is under The Latest category.
I should also think some of the sites on the list are sharing it too.
Hmm. The mind boggles.