The Definitive TLD Tier List (Fight Me)
S Tier: The Establishment
.com
The undisputed champion. The domain equivalent of a navy blue suit. Nobody ever got fired for buying a .com, and nobody ever will. It's boring, it's expensive on the aftermarket, and it's the only TLD your parents would understand. If you can get a good .com, take it and never look back.
.org
The domain of nonprofits, open-source projects, and people who want you to think they're a nonprofit. There's a quiet dignity to .org. It says "I'm here to help" even when you're running a blog about conspiracy theories involving pigeons.
A Tier: Respectable Alternatives
.co
The domain you buy when the .com is taken and you're not ready to admit defeat. It works. People have built real businesses on .co domains. But there's always that tiny voice in the back of your head whispering "you settled."
.dev / .app
Google's vanity TLDs for developers. They force HTTPS, which is nice. They signal "I write code for a living," which is useful for portfolio sites and startup landing pages. Slightly pretentious, but in a forgivable way.
B Tier: Character Choices
.io
The official TLD of startups that haven't made money yet. Once the domain of the British Indian Ocean Territory, now the domain of SaaS products with names like "Fluxify" and "Datanaut." Costs three times what it should. You'll buy one anyway.
.xyz
For people who want to seem edgy but not too edgy. Google uses abc.xyz for Alphabet, which gave this TLD more credibility than it deserves. Your chad-crypto-picks.xyz is not the same thing as Alphabet's corporate domain. Stop pretending it is.
.net
The participation trophy of domain names. It exists, it works, and absolutely nobody is excited about it. Perfect for that side project you'll abandon in three weeks.
C Tier: Questionable but Fun
.me
Useful for personal sites and portfolios. Less useful when you register ignore.me or judge.me and convince yourself it's clever branding. It is not clever branding. It's a cry for help that costs $19.99 per year.
.club
Who is this for? Nobody knows. And yet it persists, like a strip mall karate studio that somehow stays open for decades.
.gg
Originally for Guernsey. Now for gamers and Discord communities. If you're over 30 and you own a .gg domain, you're either running an esports team or having a midlife crisis. Possibly both.
D Tier: The Wilderness
.biz
The domain equivalent of a Guy Fieri shirt. Bold? Sure. Appropriate for professional contexts? Absolutely not. If your business card has a .biz domain on it, people will assume you also have a dedicated fax line.
.info
Nothing says "I'm about to read unreliable information" like seeing .info in a URL. This TLD has been irreparably damaged by spam sites and SEO farms. It's the domain equivalent of a van with no windows.
F Tier: Crimes Against the Internet
.pizza / .ninja / .guru
These exist because ICANN decided that chaos was a legitimate business strategy. Nobody has ever typed meditation.guru into a browser on purpose. If you own a novelty TLD, you bought it as a joke, and the joke cost you $35 per year, and it stopped being funny approximately four seconds after purchase.
.zip
Google thought it was a good idea to create a TLD that's identical to one of the most common file extensions on earth. It was not a good idea. Every .zip domain is a potential phishing vector, a UX nightmare, and a monument to hubris. This is the TLD equivalent of naming your child "Folder."
Agree? Disagree? The comments don't exist because this is a static blog, so you'll just have to seethe quietly. Or buy a domain to express your feelings. You know you want to.