最新調查，網址後綴是什麼沒太大差別？

[哈啦]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...23&newsLang=en

根據一家叫Lexicon Branding的公司對二千五百人做調查，發現大多數人對於網站的後綴是.com, .net , .biz...什麼的，感覺並無太大差異。

該公司的CEO說，「這年頭人們對於"."的右邊是什麼並不太在乎，他們比較在乎的是左邊的那個名字和網站的產品。」
Lexicon CEO David Placek. "But in terms of actual usage today, people just don't care about the word on the right side of the dot. What really matters is the actual name of the company or the product."


他們找受測試者來看三個網站，例如是 webmasterclub.com, webmasterclub.net webmasterclub.biz..，結果受試者對後綴的差異反應並不大，頂多是.biz稍微落後於其他後綴。

March 16, 2006 06:01 AM US Eastern Timezone
.com, .net, .biz...Is There a Difference? Perception Says Yes, the Survey Says No; Lexicon Branding Survey Looks at the Real Differences in Internet Names
SAUSALITO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2006--Internet domain names ending in .com are no longer the only viable option for companies doing business on the web. In a first-of-its-kind survey released today, Lexicon Branding is able to show that there is very little difference in the actual consumer acceptance and usage of domain names ending in .com, .net and .biz.


Once considered the "gold standard" of Internet naming, the .com top-level domain is facing strong, viable competition. "There are more than 40 million registered .com names, and for years we had been seeing a distinct bias toward domain names ending in .com," said Lexicon CEO David Placek. "But in terms of actual usage today, people just don't care about the word on the right side of the dot. What really matters is the actual name of the company or the product."

Lexicon Branding, in partnership with comScore Networks, a leading web research company, surveyed more than 2,500 people to measure both the perception and the reality of consumer response to websites with three unique domain suffixes.

While consumer impressions rate .com above .net and .net above .biz, how consumers react to real websites appears to be much less dependent on the top-level domain suffix. In this study, respondents were exposed to four test websites, each of which differed only in their domain suffix. For example, they would see the consumer electronics store as either OneDigitalSquare.com, OneDigitalSquare.net or OneDigitalSquare.biz. By comparing the data, Lexicon was able to draw statistical conclusions about the effect of the domain suffix on the perception of the site.

The survey revealed that in this "real-world" situation, the difference between .com and .net very nearly disappears, while .biz lags slightly behind both .com and .net.

Among the findings of the Lexicon/comScore survey:

Perception

-- When asked their general opinions about websites with different domain suffixes, 41.2% of respondents had a very positive opinion of .com. and 27.2% had a very positive opinion of .net. Only 10.7% had a very positive opinion of .biz.

-- When asked which domain suffix was viewed very negatively, 15.9% of respondents selected .biz. 3.8% said .net. Only 1.1% said .com was viewed negatively.

Real-World Reaction

-- When asked about doing business with a bank, 12.3% responded that they had a positive impression of a bank with a .com address. 11.2% responded positively to a bank with a .net address. A bank with a .biz address received an 11.1% favorable rating. These results point up very narrow differences in a real-world setting.

-- When asked about doing business with a consumer electronics store, 28.7% responded that they had a positive impression of a consumer electronics store with a .com address. 27.8% responded positively to a consumer electronics store with a .net address. A consumer electronics store with a .biz address received a 24.7% favorable rating. Again, very narrow differences.

"Our overall conclusion is that a business would do well to create the most effective name it can, and secure it no matter what the domain suffix," said Placek. "If the name is available in multiple domains, then .com followed closely by .net are preferred to .biz at this moment in time. But in terms of actual consumer acceptance and usage, it doesn't make much difference."

Lexicon expects that the perceptions of .net and .biz will begin to equal their real-world performance as web suffixes as familiarity with both increases. "At this point, .biz suffers certain liabilities that .net doesn't," said Placek. "It is the least familiar of the three, and some of our survey respondents tell us that they think .biz sounds 'cheap and slang-y.' It will be interesting to see if .biz can overcome these perceptions as time goes by."

Future iterations of this study are planned.

Methodology

Lexicon and comScore surveyed 2,509 regular Internet users who had purchased products and/or services using the web in the last six months of 2005. The study approached respondents indirectly. They were exposed to five different new websites, one control website always seen first, and four test websites seen in random order thereafter. After the home page of each website was viewed by the respondent, he/she was asked a series of six ranking questions using a ten point scale. The only differences respondent to respondent were in the suffixes on each website. One respondent might see OneDigitalSquare.com (a hypothetical electronics store) and the next OneDigitalSquare.biz. This disguised the purpose of the study.

Respondents weren't responding to the suffix alone, they were responding to an actual website home page whose name included that suffix. The assumption was that over a large scale study, nuanced differences would be identified. There were six cells in the study. Each respondent saw a combination of two different sites using one suffix and the remaining two sites using a different suffix. Each cell had 400+ respondents. The ratings on six attributes for each of the four test sites were designed to test the reality of consumer response to websites with varying domain suffixes. To determine the perception of domain suffixes, each respondent was queried about his attitude towards the two different suffixes he had been exposed to in the website ratings. So an individual might be asked about .com and .net, .com and .biz, or .biz and .net.

About Lexicon Branding

Lexicon Branding is headquartered in Sausalito, CA. Founded in 1982, Lexicon believes that a strong brand name is the first step in the marketing process. The company combines consumer insights with small-team innovation to create some of the world's most recognized names, including the Apple PowerBook, RIM Blackberry, Intel Pentium, Centrino and Viiv chips, General Motors OnStar, Proctor & Gamble Swiffer and Febreze, Coca-Cola Dasani, Toyota Scion, Honda Ridgeline and Subaru Outback.