01.09.08
David
Top-level decision made on domain names
During the late 90’s when the .com revolution was in full swing, I remember Iceland jumping (rather belatedly) on the bandwagon and renaming all their storefronts Iceland.co.uk as if this was all you needed to make an Internet business. Not sure how many storefronts Iceland have left to put back to their original format, but I wonder now whether they should hold on for a bit as a new revolution in domain naming has recently been approved by ICANN – the organisation which regulates many of the Web’s top-level domains.
From next year, you will be able to buy your own TLD – top-level domain, which means Iceland could have the word ‘shop’ or even ‘land’ to make their web address www.iceland.shop or www.ice.land – no longer limited to the current crop of TLD’s such as .com and .co.uk. ICANN describe the change as “opening up a new world” and a “historic resolution” but I’m not sure everyone will be so excited.
To begin with, regular Internet users aren’t overly familiar with the latest crop of new TLD’s (think .biz and .info) and to some, only a .com (or country derivative such as .uk or .de) will be recognisable as a web address. For businesses (or brands), the issues of trademark protection and intellectual property right must be huge with scenarios such as microsoft.apple and pepsi.coke a real possibility.
But with proposed fees for the new domains ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 I’m not sure we’re going to be registered www.dusted.design just yet!
02.09.08
Matt
I think the last thing we need is overcomplicated domain names. Simple is best. Currently you can pretty much guess a company’s web address by taking their name and sticking ‘.com’ on the end.
Complicated URIs have already proved to be a miss with users. An example of this is the social bookmarking site Delicious. Their URI used to be
de.licio.usdel.icio.us (Had to edit this to get it right… case in point!). When they recently re-designed their site, they also took the opportunity to change their URI to delicious.com as users would frequently mis-type the old one.21.09.08
sharlene
yeah agreed….some things are just meant to be kept simple
27.09.08
Epic Urls
I agree with Matt. I think as long as search engines do not discriminate the extension but give equally to each extension then we may see a slight balance of power with .coms. Unfortunately, the coms are regarded as the only extension worthy of businesses.
27.09.08
SEO
I think they have gone to far with the “extension boom” newbies are getting more and more confused. If they would have stayed with the original 5 we would have been ok, but in the long run the new ones will fall and well be back to a less confusing dimension
27.09.08
DNEdition
The new .PRO extension seems to be a good idea. Not exactly sure how it will benefit branding but I like the aspect of providing domain extension for certain business professionals.