What to do when your dot com domain is taken or parked
When the exact dot com you want is parked by resellers or dead sites asking thousands of dollars, people are forced to consider alternative extensions while worrying customers will see them as untrustworthy. Choosing a non-dot-com out of frustration often leads to awkward spellings or confusion that turns visitors away.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Using alternative top-level domains like .shop
- 2Using variations or misspellings of the desired name
- 3Adding descriptive words to create a longer .com domain
- 4Rebranding to an entirely different name where the .com is available
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“The .com for my name is parked at four figures and every variation left is a misspelling people will most definitely get wrong.”source ↗
“Half of me thinks the extension doesnt even matter, but I also worry if a customer sees anything but .com theyll assume the site is sketchy.”source ↗
“Hate that THIS is where I am getting stuck of all places”source ↗
“The .com of it is just owned by a domain reselling company, its not even tied to a LLC or social media handles”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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