Is the dot forum a flop?

I don't see forums using the .forum TLD.

Was it a flop? Is it too expensive or too spammy?

I'm seeing the .blog TLD used on blogs but never the .Forum.

What do you all think?

I believe so. I don’t see the .forum extension as being feasible for community owners.

The .com extension is better or .net, however if you want to spend the money for a
.forum extension, then by all means for go it.

I don’t see it as a good idea. Forums have done well without it. There really hasn’t been too many forums using that extension, so yes, it’s a flop.

Nearly all ngTLDs (new generic TLDs) were a flop. The only ones that made money from it were ICANN with the 1000s of registration fees ($100,000~ I believe, with even more going into bidding for "great" dot keywords) and the registrars that sold premium names at hundreds to thousands of dollars to recoup those costs immediately on rush as users bought them up thinking they were the next great thing.

.forum is a good TLD. Maybe, not many people know about it. Never been suggested to me while searching for domain names.

frm said:

Nearly all ngTLDs (new generic TLDs) were a flop.

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I think you're right. I've been banning most of them from my cycling forum because I get so many spammers using them as their email.

Shawn Gossman said:

I think you're right. I've been banning most of them from my cycling forum because I get so many spammers using them as their email.

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I also think they don’t do well with the search engines either. They’re probably looked as “spam” by them too.

Cpvr said:

I also think they don’t do well with the search engines either. They’re probably looked as “spam” by them too.

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And that's crazy.

Why approve the creation of so many gTLD extensions if search engines are just going to see them as spam?

Shawn Gossman said:

And that's crazy.

Why approve the creation of so many gTLD extensions if search engines are just going to see them as spam?

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Some of them are used as spam, which make them get flagged.

For example:
. xyz Was heavily abused by spammers, though Google’s own use of .xyz has somewhat helped its reputation.

• .top Is Frequently associated with spam and phishing sites.

• .biz Was originally Initially intended for business use but often used by low-quality sites.

• .info Was Once a spam hotspot due to cheap registrations.

• .cf, .tk, .ml, .ga, .gq – Known as Free domains offered by Freenom, often used for scams and phishing.


• .work, .gdn, .men, .party, .click –They’re Frequently flagged for hosting questionable content.

Cheap or Free Registration – Domains that are cheap or free attract bad actors.

If spammers use a TLD a lot, search engines start flagging it.
If many sites on a TLD have thin content, Google may treat them with lower trust.

Some TLDs are blacklisted due to frequent association with scams. Such as, phising and malware.

If you’re running a legitimate site, stick to .com, .org, .net, .io, .co, or relevant country-code domains (.uk, .de, .ca, etc.). Newer TLDs like .ai or .dev have better reputations but still need careful use.

Everyone still remembers the .com more than any of them. I'll typically choose .com every time. I do have a .org for my NPO but the .com version transfers to the .org.

The .COM/.ORG/.NET will probably be the "standby" for years yet, as will the country associated domains. You still have people that chase those 2-5 letter TLD's in those vanity domains still, not realizing that they might get mistaken for the big names.. but generally not.
As for the vanity domains... they were an opening to spammers that could generate a site (for email or even web use) that emulated a well known old TLD site and are used to suck people in.
The big thing was, certain controlling parties saw an opening in which THEY could make big monies. The quality of the content on those sites was never a concern.

Tracy said:

As for the vanity domains... they were an opening to spammers that could generate a site (for email or even web use) that emulated a well known old TLD site and are used to suck people in.

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I almost feel like people should pass an anti-spam test before they can have a domain name.

And be suspended if they violate terms.

I bet that would make heads roll.

Shawn Gossman said:

I almost feel like people should pass an anti-spam test before they can have a domain name.

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It will happen. Folks (for good or bad) try to get other TLD's that emulate a popular one.
How many of us older people have gone to whitehouse.com when trying to get to the official WhiteHouse site back in the day?
Now it's just more spammers that use them for email delivery than web traffic so that they have a higher chance of being opened.
You will even see it with some TLD's that are nowhere near what you would think.
They will have a TLD but preface it with a subdomain of nortonutilities.billing.spammercentral.com so that in most email clients you just see the first two parts at most if you don't expand it.

The first domain I bought was xyz. I bought it because it was $1 and Google was using it for Alphabet. I also explored a lot of other extensions like dot online, dot site, dot club, etc. as I could get these domains fore just a couple of dollars. But since these domains were cheap a lot of people started abusing them. I believe a lot of niche domains are flop, including dot forum or even dot blog. Most people are ready to compromise with domain name but they will only choose dot com or dot net.

I was trying to like the dot blog but at the end of the day, the .com is king and I think it will remain king.

Shawn Gossman said:

I was trying to like the dot blog but at the end of the day, the .com is king and I think it will remain king.

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As more and more people start using search engines to go to a site, the TLD is not as important. Heck, in some ways even the main domain being "short" is not as important as it once was since very few type in the domain names any longer.
One of the problems is uptake of the newer TLDs. They are used, but sadly they price themselves out of the hobby market area for many and then we do still have some old heads around that are still set in their ways - and hey, I'll admit I am somewhat one of those.
There are some creative uses for the TLD's for niche areas.
If you could have gotten it, HD.bikes would have been perfect for a site about Harley. Same way with norton.bikes or triumph.bikes. For those into bicycles, SantaFe.bikes for those fond of that brand.
But by now, many of those have been scarfed up by domain squatters.

I acquired a .forum domain with a forum that I bought (since resold, but kept the name). It was coming up for renewal at NameCheap next month for $42, and I was kind of iffy on that price.

So tonight, I checked my favorite registrar, Dynadot, and it was $32. That $10 extra was enough push for me to renew it, and perhaps, reopen it at some point as it is an EMD (exact match domain, although lesser SERPs for that now).