Who has already crossed the path of .xyz or .pw?

[Christophe 362]

Out of curiosity, who has already crossed the path of .xyz or .pw?

Both are now considered generic extensions.

For a non-profit organization, I use(d) a .xyz for the development/tests/copy of the new version of a website with the .fr extension.
The acquisition price was 0.5. Currently it's 1.25. But the renewal will be 10. So perhaps a .pw will be used instead.
And for Matomo, I will use a .pw. 6.20 then 6.20 the renewal.
So, in total there are 3 different SFTP accounts/"Worlds" which share a certain amount of resources.

[adrian 11,953]

I haven't registered either yet, but I am curious why you don't just use a "dev" subdomain for the development version of a site?

[Craig 600]

I had a .me domain for an still-in-progress side project, but the high renewal price prompted me to look elsewhere. I ended up getting a .xyz for a much better price 🙂 

[LostKobrakai 5,196]

2 hours ago, adrian said:

I haven't registered either yet, but I am curious why you don't just use a "dev" subdomain for the development version of a site?

Since google bought .dev it's supposed to run with HSTS autoenabled. It's no longer a great option for local development and HSTS can be a pain for hosted development pages.

[adrian 11,953]

Just now, LostKobrakai said:

Since google bought .dev it's supposed to run with HSTS autoenabled. It's no longer a great option for local development and HSTS can be a pain for hosted development pages.

I am talking about using dev as a subdomain, eg dev.mysite.com

[wbmnfktr 1,202]

I used some .xyz and .pw domains but for real projects. Not as dev/stage domains.

I dropped the .xyz because users don't click them at all. You can have a #1 spot in the SERPs but still CTR is super low. At least in non-fancy or super small niches these domains didn't work out that well for me. Same content on a .com/.net and even .org workes way better.

There are some areas users seem not to care at all. Like Linux or less usual topics as crypto, privacy and security. 

For client projects I use my regular domain - most of the time.
Something like clientname.dev.domain.com

.pw domains are... well... some kind of special as well. I kept most of them for the time being.

[Jonathan Lahijani 1,157]

I bought a generic sounding ".run" domain name and have my client sites as subdomains of it.  .run sounds very developer-y.

[Christophe 362]

Hi Adrian,

When I started migrating the already existing content from Joomla! to ProcessWire and developing the new version, the domain name was still on the old version that was running at another hoster.

With the .xyz domain name at 0.5 for the first year, it was (or seemed) a no-brainer.

At the new hoster (not new to me and other clients), with the same account I can easily set up a new "World" and choose a domain name.

But I guess I could now use a .dev subdomain. I won't have to be more careful than between 2 websites with only a different extension.
At first, it was also in case I would have had to change a lot of "instances" of the domain name (database, etc.). But with ProcessWire I just had to change the extension in config.php of course and the links were modified automatically (including in CKEditor fields).
With a subdomain it would have been the same for sure.
Perhaps, it would have been better to have a more distinct domain name.

But I always put the old version on the left side of my Vivaldi split tabs. And the Joomla! website was quite different.

I have to look how easy it is to use a subdomain pointing to another "World" (better than to a subfolder) with the hoster. Also I have to check how not to have the .htaccess file redirect the subdomain to the domain as it's normally what it does, if I remember well.

Happy New Year 2021 - to everyone here (and in the Forums)!

Edited January 16 by Christophe

[adrian 11,953]

12 minutes ago, Christophe said:

When I started migrating the already existing content from Joomla! to ProcessWire and developing the new version, the domain name was still on the old version that was running at another hoster.

Sorry if you already know this, but it's simple enough to point a subdomain to a different host / server so you can keep the current live site running on its existing host but point the dev subdomain to the new server.

I am not saying this is the only or best way, but it's what I have always used and means no additional temporary domain costs.

15 minutes ago, Christophe said:

But I guess I could now use a .dev subdomain. I won't have to be more careful than between 2 websites with only a different extension.

Remember I am talking about a "dev." subdomain and not a ".dev" TLD.

I rely on Tracy's "Server type indicator" to give me a visual cue for which version of the site I am on - I find the favicon badge option really useful - I am sure it has saved me from making a mistake on several occasions.