By: Raymond Hackney
TheNextWeb.com did a piece today on the coming new gTlds, "With so many new top level domains launching, what should your strategy be?"
The article did get viewpoints from both sides of the aisle.
On the New gTlds are the future side:
But why are gTLDs relevant? Elisa Cooper, director of product marketing for brand protection firm MarkMonitor, says new domains give companies the opportunity register something more meaningful and search-friendly.
Rather than a random company name followed by .com, the customized domain helps give businesses more context. The new domain names will also be helpful for those who were unable to snag the right phrase or word if someone’s already claimed it.
On the .com is king side:
The .com isn’t going away, says Lou Hoffman, CEO of The Hoffman Agency, a global public relations firm based in San Francisco that specializes in corporate business strategies like these. “While the nine new domain names mean some ‘heavyweight’ phrases will once again be in play, there’s no getting around [the fact that] .com remains a powerhouse domain,” he says.
Read the full article here
What most fail to realize that gtlds already are out there, and they are not being utilized, .travel, .biz., .mobi and of the biggest losers of them all .us, dropping like flies… I just don’t get it, they have been out for years, but end users will ignore you if you mention Generic Keyword . Obscure Extension to them… Anyone see this?
Clearly what’s different this time is that there are so many strings coming. Demand for all domains is going to grow in the very long run as more consumers come online (there are 7-8 billion people on Earth and only 70 million registrants). Many of these new G’s offer better utility than existing mismanaged strings and they offer better meaning, brevity and catchiness.
So that said, there will indeed be a lot of names and there will initially be a glut of great names, that I personally see as a buying opportunity for the far-sighted. You just know there is going to be demand for the good ones in the long run (8+ years). The best names in .US and .BIZ (two average spaces) are always taken. Also, you have to know that the better SLD’s in new G strings “could” marginalize long tail strings in com/net and CC’s so you’d be wise to hedge your existing portfolio of .WHATEVERs by taking good names in the new extensions, run by good registries.
The trick is to buy low (avoid overly expensive variable priced sld’s unless you simply “must” have them) .. Avoid strings that have high renewal costs.. avoid extensions in heavy handed registries that discourage investment and have dictatorial registrant policies. Basically use common sense.
Clearly I’m biased, but I like Uniregistry strings and the way we are bringing strings to market, we’re going to leave opportunity on the table for the registrants of the future. A lot of registries are levered up and have a monkey on their back (debt, greedy short sighted investors). Those registries will probably set policies that are not in the best interests of commercial registrants (domainers). Domainers are a smart bunch and the blog posts of the future will be brutally honest about negative mercantilist policies in new extensions and pitfalls to avoid. I think there will be great opportunities for future domainers hoping to glean a living in new G’s.
When I started domaining, people laughed at longer names with high search volume like freepsychicreadings.com or conceptual names like sleepdeep.com and odd dictionary words like shrouds.com .. Those are solid names today. Similarly lots of people will completely write off .tattoo .sexy and .link .. In life there are people who make it happen, people who watch it happen and people who wonder what happened. Be the first, stay focused, use common sense, tune-out the haters and you’ll make a good living in the new spaces.
Good luck to all.
Thanks for the comment Tom
Thank you Mr.Schilling for the comment.
When domainers talk about .biz and .mobi being gtlds that have already failed, they have failed to realise there do not lead anywhere. .Travel is huge but not in the domaining world.
When I say not leading anywhere, I would suggest that .shop and .blog for example are domains that will lead you to a purposeful and dedicated website.
And the short catchy one word names are likely to be very successful. IMO