I see from the domain WHOIS that HydrogenAudio.org just won the domain name HydrogenAudio.COM at yesterday's domain drop. Congratulations!
From what I can recall, someone else had the HydrogenAudio.com name prior to it becoming available yesterday (i.e. when it dropped and become available again for registration).
Are you going to be changing over to promoting/using the .COM version primarily instead of the .org version soon? I think that would make sense. Many people type .COM when searching for this fine site.
Also I have available HydrogenAudio.net if you want it for FREE. It would make a great addition so you guys can have the .COM, .NET annd .ORG versions of the "Hydrogen Audio" domain name. It is at Enom.com and I can push it into your Enom account. If you don't have an ENom account you can sign up for one free on their site. Just PM me your account name for the free push of the domain name.
Regards and keep up the great work with HydrogenAudio (.COM, .NET & .ORG).
I have pointed the .NET version of the name to .COM for users to better find the site.
Why not make all the domains redirect to .org?
I only control .NET. The domain extension .ORG is usually considered an inferior and lesser value extension and is much less popular than .COM (at least in the U.S). Almost everyone (average users) will try .COM first when trying to find a web site. I do domain and website investing, marketing and consulting, and believe me .ORG for use by anything other than a non-profit entity (church, religious institution, standards body (like W3C, etc.), a non-profit association or the like) is not advised. I doubt HydrogenAudio.org is owned by a registered non-profit organization or charity as the name implies.
I believe it started out as a tech/hobbyist board/forum. Now it has grown where someday in the future it may be sold off (heaven forbid) as a commercial entity/site. In fact similar forums of its size have sold for $50,000 PLUS.
This is usually the order of things when a site gets popular. So switching to .COM in my opinion will give the site credibility, new users (who type .COM seeking for the site), and shake off the dreaded non-profit stigma. Now that HA has ads and (hopefully) makes a profit, it appears to be (or becoming) a commercial entity/enterprise. Hence it is time for it to grow up into a .COM in my opinion, and take its rightful place "among the big boys" on the web. Hopefully , it will remain loyal to its audiophile roots and continue to provide the latest and best discussions about audio matters.
Ah! Now i see through dibroms diabolic long term plan -> 50.000$
Heaven forbid commercialisation..... I just want it to stay the way it is as a place to discuss audio technology and purely that no commercial interests whatsoever. I hope donating fund to help fund this site will prevent that from happening.
Cheers
Dibrom has contacted me now (since I posted this thread) and I have now transferred the HydrogenAudio.net domain to HA. I have now changed the URL forwarding to point to HA.ORG...
Regarding commercialization, that is up to the owners of HA. Hopefully it will keep its unique tech "charm" no matter what form it eventually takes.
As always in life, there is always an opposite point of view.
I think that the "org" suffix actually does increase HA's cred.
It obviously signals a more serious, more mature site, where profit is not the most important concern.
As for attracting more people and/or "investors", I don't neccesarily think that would be a good thing.
We all think that Dibrom is a smart guy and he obviously thought this over many times when he founded this place. I venture to think that, concerning HA, money-making is not one of his goals, as can be inferred from the way he dealt with the whole ads thing.
OT: Ooh, my post number 666! Scary!
Second that.
.com is more credible with money in the picture
.org is more credible with money out of the picture
Best of all, have everything point to hydrogenaudio.org, even drop the www.
No need to prefer one tld extension over the other; I'd just assign them all the same DNS A record. No additional hassles or expenses and you protect your (HydrogenAudio) name.
Dave
ElementDave,
While that would potentially work. One thing that would do is totally mess up Google and possibly other search engines that rank a site (in this case HA.ORG) by incoming link popularity.
If Google picked up HA.COM or HA.NET and indexes that HA.ORG is the same site, it MAY rank HA.ORG on Google using HA.COM or HA.NET's ranking which would likely be quite low. In my experience, either stick with HA.ORG or else go "cold turkey" and switch everything over to HA.COM (the better solution IMO). Then you never have to worry about this Google potential loss of popularity issue and HA would be ranked with the proper ranking and show up potentially hgiher in the various search results listings.
Have separate web re-direct pages on HA.COM and HA.NET then to avoid Google confusing HA.ORG's current popularity with that of the lesser sites (HA.COM and HA.NET) as it would otherwise likely lump them together as the same site (if using a simple URL redirect on the other 2 domains).
Using 'A' records also would only work if the site has its own dedicated IP address that isn't shared among more than one web site on the web server HA is on. It would also properly work if you have provisioned separate sites from each HA.COM, HA.NET and HA.ORG on the same shared IP on the web server.
Isn't keeping HA.org simple enough? Getting the .com and .net (which they most likely thank you for it) maybe was to prevent other sites using the popularity of HA.org in order for financial gain riding on the back of HA.org success as a web site for Audio Techonlogy enthusiasts.
A simple redirect wouldn't confuse anyone or Google's algorithms since it all points to the one place HA.org.
Cheers
AgentMil