Many startups launch on brand.io, brand.ai or getbrand.com because the .com was taken. As they grow, the .com becomes worth pursuing. Here's why, and how to do it.
Why companies upgrade
- Lost email and traffic: people type the .com out of habit, and messages or visitors go to someone else.
- Trust: customers, partners and investors tend to assume the .com is the "real" company.
- Brand protection: whoever owns the .com controls what appears there, which matters more as you become known.
- Simplicity: one obvious address for everything.
When to do it
Common moments are after a funding round, before a big launch or rebrand, or when the .com owner's situation changes. The more visible your company becomes, the more the .com usually costs, so earlier is often cheaper, as long as you approach it confidentially.
How to acquire the .com
Research the owner first, approach without revealing your company, negotiate patiently and close through escrow. This is the core of our domain acquisition service.
Switching without losing SEO
- Keep your old domain and set permanent (301) redirects, page by page, to the new one.
- Update Google Search Console with a change of address.
- Move email carefully: run both domains in parallel for a while.
- Update your links on profiles, directories and partner sites.
Questions
Will moving to the .com hurt my rankings?
Done properly, with page-by-page 301 redirects and a Search Console change of address, rankings usually recover quickly.
Should I keep my .io or .ai domain?
Yes. Keep it renewed and redirecting. Letting it expire would break old links and emails.
More guides
- How to buy a domain name that's already taken
- How to find out who owns a domain, even when WHOIS is private
- How much does it cost to buy a domain that's already registered?
- Exact-match domains and SEO: do they still help you rank?
- Domain broker vs. doing it yourself
- How to approach a domain owner to buy their domain
- Domain escrow explained: how to pay for a domain safely
- How to buy a domain from a private owner
- What to do when a domain owner won't reply
- How to buy a domain anonymously
- How to hire a domain broker to buy a domain