I mean it's only a domain name choice, not a huge deal, and I think empire.us is great because it's shorter, but here are many disadvantages that may have not been considered: - The name alienates non-American players, as it is a national extension (.us). - The name doesn't contain 'minecraft', meaning: --> There is no direct association to the game. Some number of people who see the URL will not associate it as Minecraft. --> Worse search engine optimization. Having a major keyword (minecraft) in the URL means a great deal to be found with the major search engines. - A small number of visitors may forget the .us and try to visit empire.com - As with any change of brnading, a number of people can confuse whether the two are the same, and a certain degree of unity is lost. You can also see from Alexa, that your players still heavily prefer the 'old' domain: - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/empireminecraft.com - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/empire.us It's true that some number of visitors will manually type the domain and be inconvenienced by the longer name, however I believe the majority of visits to your site are referrals from search engines, top listings, or links on the web, as well as bookmarks. In addition, most modern browsers fill in the domain anyways. For example, I usually get to the site by only typing 'emp' and the rest is filled in for me when I hit enter. Just some food for thought.
Honestly, we wanted a shorter version of a URL to use for typing out in things like graphical ads and for making mass changes in server lists. (it's much easier for us to add smp1.empire.us, smp2.empire.us (etc. up to 9) than smp1.empireminecraft.com, etc. etc. It's more of a friendly shortcut than who we ARE. We'd never get rid of EmpireMinecraft.com and it will always be there.
I really don't see where this would turn into an argument, haha. It was a very valid point the OP had here and was just seeking clarification.
As for SEO, the empire.us domain is a redirect to empireminecraft.com it's simply the same thing as bit.ly and tinyurl really. everything still goes through empireminecraft.com
Why not use empireminecraft.com? Empire.us is much shorter, and easier to type. I am a non-american player, but I quote JustinGuy:
