.Whatever! My Take On The New gTLDs

A lot of buzz about the new gTLD’s and I haven’t said a word about it yet, well until now!

Money!

Money is the first thing that comes to my mind. It is a pure money thing. Money for ICANN and money for the registries of the the gTLD’s and registrars playing the game. Registrars hate having to display that XYZ domain is TAKEN. If it was available, the consumer would likely buy! If we put .Whatever and people search… we can sell them this really cool looking domain for $X.

Just think if you could get this really great keyword with .Whatever. Sounds gooooood!

Money.WhatTheHellIsThis

Education!

Domain names. They can be a little confusing as to what they “are”. Is Google a domain name? No, Google.com is a domain name and Google is the company who owns the domain.  Typing Google.com into a web browser will bring you to “Google”.

What is a Sub-Domain? You mean there is something called a Sub-Domain? Wait a minute, what is a Sub-Domain? PayMe.com/Now.html right. The NOW is the sub? No! The Sub-Domain is before the domain! Money.PayNow.com with money being the Sub-Domain.

People have a very hard time with Sub-Domains. They forget to include the . even when a company plainly displays the way to visit the site in print or TV commercial.

It has become “natural” to type .com, .org after a word or phrase to visit a website. Typing a word . word seems odd. It feels out of place. Trying to tell somebody: Visit Big Dot Ninja, It’s my new website! Somebody outside the domain space is going to likely visit BigDotNinja.com or simply not visit at all because of confusion!

Hearing the word dot, becomes a period with com after it. Hearing the term with another word after it, the dot is like: DotWeekly.

Options

The good news about the new gTLD’s are they give consumers options. Don’t want to use .com or .net or .org… you simply have more options now! But, I think those options come at a cost, that the new owners have to consider! Confusion being the biggest hurdle IMO! 99% of people likely have never typed a “word” as a TLD! The 3 letter gTLD’s will have a little less fight with that problem.

Covering bases, just got a bit more expensive. Some typo domains are a wise investment for a domain owner. Some “other” TLD purchases also make sense, like if your main site is on a .org, it’s wise to own the .com to capture those who visit the wrong TLD. So it would be very wise to own the long versions of your new gTLD but in the .com.

Overall

I do not like the gTLD’s. They are really no different than many of the ccTLD’s and other TLD’s currently available… besides the availability. Yes, some are “words” but you get my point. So one needs to decide if the availability is better than say spending a little bit of money in buying the .com? Is a .Word better than an acronym?

I personally would rather have a two word .com domain, than a one word .cooking gTLD. The main reason? Clarity. People are familiar with .com! If keywords didn’t matter, there are plenty of “brandable” .com’s for sale and available.

Do your homework and do not buy simply on advertising! The new gTLD owners are passionate about there product, partly because they have a lot invested. Many do believe in the gTLD’s and that is cool with me as well. Novelty is fun! It’s no different than having a favorite sports team.  If you want to invest in or use a new gTLD, great!

Don’t get caught up in the marketing and I’m sure you will make a good choice on which TLD you choose to invest in or use. I will be sticking with .com and .org domains personally.