Let's discuss the pros and cons of purchasing a dot-com domain name. On the plus side, the dot-com extension is known the world over. Customers in Singapore, Thailand, and Russia all know and understand the dot-com extension. Sure, you can go outside the ICANN registered top-level domains and start your own competitive service, but you'll only be able to reach a fraction of the Internet's total population, even if you partner with a solid, well-funded exotic top-level domain registrar.

The issue of allocating domain names within the dot-com universe is that the vast majority of recognizable or "good" domains have already been scooped up by competitors, hackers, bloggers, and investors. To snag legit .com real estate, new business owners often must pay lots of money out of pocket or potentially even go to court. Given that your brand doesn't yet have a giant footprint in cyberspace, you can't afford silly legal maneuvers--you want something simple, trusted, and very likely to funnel traffic your way.

Try a Corp.com name. Imbed your company's name into your URL, and make it easier to sniff out your place on the Internet. Take a fanciful example. You run a business called Wally's Wheels, which sells gears and bike parts to Tour de France hopefuls. Unfortunately, wallyswheels.com has been taken by a company in Alaska that manufactures industrial rollers.

Thus, you are forced to grab the name wallysbicyclewheelsenterprises.com. That's quite a mouthful. Chances are that your potential customers won't remember you or will simply be so exhausted from typing in your full URL that they won't have the energy left to make a purchase. If you grab wallyswheels.corp.com, on the other hand, chances are you will do quite fine by your constituents.