Much has been said about Meta’s launch of its Threads app on the Threads.net domain name. For many years, much has also been said about the impact of not using a brand match .com domain name when launching a product or a service. SimilarWeb, a web analytics company, illustrates the .com effect using Threads as an example.
James Iles highlighted this report today:
According to SimilarWeb, visits to https://t.co/gH5c9HzPro increased from 88,000 in June to 13.2 MILLION visits in July!
What happened in July? Meta launched Threads on https://t.co/xPo9OujEao, which recorded 109.9 million visits (SimilarWeb).
Did someone say traffic leakage? pic.twitter.com/56uQJlTAin
— James Iles (@jamesiles) August 7, 2023
For most businesses who launch using alternative extension, the leakage or loss of customers from using a non-.com domain name is unclear. It may be more of an existential threat than something that will actually harm them. Sometimes it’s simply a business decision – they assume they could confuse some people, but the .com would be too costly or impossible to buy, so they get the next best affordable domain name.
The beauty of the Threads illustration is that the platform is large enough for a company like SimilarWeb to really track. The fact that Threads.com went from 84.3k users in April to 88k users in May to 13.2 million users in June shows the general population just assumes a company will be found on its brand match .com domain name.
The app using Threads.com is the beneficiary of this misdirected traffic. It remains to be seen if Meta is willing or able to make an offer that is substantial enough to acquire its brand match domain name.
They bought Facebook without the THE and FB from the bank so why stopping here
It is just a matter of time… not a money issue
I suspect It definitely is the “.com effect,” but I’m still wondering if they also may have made a mistake somewhere and added links to the .com by a developer making that mistake. Is it just one or the other, or “both/and”? I posted this at Rick’s blog the other day:
Does anyone know EXACTLY why the surge in traffic to Threads.com?
There is a huge difference between this:
1. Because people simply thought “Threads.com” and went their naturally.
And this:
2. Because whoever put together Threads.net mistakenly created links to Threads.com, otherwise there would not have been that much extra traffic to Threads.com.
They probably tried. And likely got a rejection or a counter offer to buy the entire business. So there was not agreement on the terms. Now, the .com is worth much more.