Your app’s .com domain is overrated

I chat to a lot of people every day who want their own app. These kinds of people are M14’s customers and community. And occasionally people get hung up on their domain name.

I’m happy to say: There’s no need.

It used to be the case that your domain name was very important; it drove organic traffic right to your door and defined who you are. People would find you because search engines treated your domain name as the strongest indicator of what you’re about. Your domain name was plastered on every surface to get people to your website. It was a gold rush, everyone knew your domain was essential.

Old habits die hard, and times change: these days few people remember or type out domain names for apps, search engines don’t rate your URL as having much importance, and SEO is a terrible source of traffic in the majority of cases.

Then as you move into the world of apps, your domain name matters even less.

Your app’s success will be determined by a million different factors. Your team, branding, marketing, and sustainability are the most important ones. If you’re building a consumer app, having the ‘best’ domain name rather than a slightly different one will make no measurable difference to your success.

Nobody’s app ever failed because their domain name wasn’t perfect.

We make things as easy for our Partners as possible. It’s why we built the M14 platform to be so easy to use. It’s also why we help our Partners with their marketing. And it’s why we give out and set up domains for free… once you’ve chosen one.

So in that spirit of making things easier; you don’t need to worry about your domain name.

If you find yourself with a nice brand name and the .com is taken, try the following:

• Add another word to your domain, like goTinder.com
• Use a different top level domain, like spex.dating
• Play around on iwantmyname.com, which lets you search every available top level domain really quickly

And then chill out.