Yet another piece of information you didn’t know you didn’t know. At the dawn of the Internet, there needed to be a way to define websites better than the numeric IP addresses originally used to name them. In 1998, the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) service was tasked with worldwide authority to release and monitor alphabetic domain names.
In the 1980’s, there were only three designations that were open to the general public: .com, .net, and .org). By 2002, four more were released to the public: .biz, .info, .name, and .pro. However, the .com designation became the preferred extension for businesses, since from the beginning most people identified the .com as the extension for commercial websites.
With over 1 billion published web pages by 2014, the ICANN organization decided it needed to add new domain name extensions. And it did it in a big way!
1300 New gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains) Released in 2014
That means that even if your .com web name preference is taken, you can use your preferred name in the first part of the domain name and use one of the new extensions for the part after the dot. While it may take a little while for the public to get used to these new extensions, it really is an exciting time, as anyone can now use one of these extensions to further describe themselves or their businesses. In fact, the extensions are very descriptive. For example, you can have eatatjoes.restaurant, johnsmith.cpa, or even themarketing.guru or fido.dog.
Why You Should Consider a new gLTD
The most obvious reason is that you will be able to find a domain name that describes your business. Adding a new extension to your business name that describes your industry could make it easier for viewers to understand what you do. For example, Mary Smith could not hope to register the domain name MarySmith.com, but she has a good chance of getting MarySmith.Realtor. And who could misunderstand who she is and what she does?
Because Google pays attention to URL’s when returning websites in organic searches, including your industry or your area of expertise in your domain name is important. You can now have your industry in the first part of the URL, and add a description after the dot. For example, while accounting.com will probably never be available again, accounting.ninja might just get you higher in Google’s search results while interesting prospective customers.
There are also many geographic extensions now available with a promise of more to follow, which could give a big boost to local businesses trying to attract people from their local areas. Since many searches do include locations, this could be another boost for your SEO.
While there are rules and restrictions on some of the new extensions, there are still many available to all of us. A list of some of the extensions available can be found at http://name.com
Do you have a great idea for your next domain name?