.com vs .ca

[VebianWebandMobileDevelopment]

I have a domain name in mind for my web development company, but unforunatly the .com is already taken. Fortunatly for me though I live in Canada, and the .ca is available.

What I want to know is should I go ahead and register my desired .ca or should I continue to look and find a domain name that I can aquire the .ca and the .com ?

[MarieHaynes]

I have a few dot cas.  Given the choice I would likely just go with dot coms in the future.

What is currently on the .com?  Is it a competitor?  If it's an undeveloped domain you may be ok, but if it is a regular domain then you can be sure that some of your clients are going to end up on their site rather than yours.

I have a real estate site and a large competitor in our city uses, www.ourcity-homes.ca as their domain.  I purchased www.ourcity-homes.com and I get a bunch of type in traffic that I'm sure wast meant to go to the other guy!  People get confused.

[VebianWebandMobileDevelopment]

Interesting. Unfortunatly it's an undeveloped domain owned by someone who doesn't want to sell. It's too bad because it almost seems impossible to find a decent .com these days unless you completely make up a word, and even then it tough!

[MarieHaynes]

Actually, if it's undeveloped I would think that would be better.  If people land on the domain and it's obvious that it's not what they wanted then they'll be more likely to realize they should have typed the .ca.

[EGOL]

I purchased www.ourcity-homes.com and I get a bunch of type in traffic

oh.. what a weasel!

[MarieHaynes]

OK..now I'll tell you the real story.  I was searching through expired domain names and saw that that one was available so I bought it.  It wasn't until a few months later that I noticed I was getting type in traffic.  And then, I heard a radio ad with the domain name and realized that I had actually done something good for business!  LOL

[EGOL]

I wonder who let it expire?  You probably don't want to know.

[VebianWebandMobileDevelopment]

This post is deleted!

[GeorgeDavis]

Unless your business is strictly confined to Canada and will never operate outside of Canada, I would go with another domain name ending in .com

[Laurean]

Ditch the .ca - makes me just as nervous as the .us here in the States.  Even though .biz and .info and .net get some traction - the country specific ones seem to be harder to rank for - and quite honestly very confusing.

Better off being unique or finding an expired .com domain with some Alexa rank.