Unless you’re Steve Jobs, Larry Page, or some other CEO with an internationally recognizable brand – and if you are, I’m not really sure why you’re reading our little blog – you can ignore the recent announcement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers concerning some new top-level domains.
Quick refresher: ICANN oversees the Internet and examples of top-level domains are .com, .org, .travel, etc.
Well, ICANN will start accepting applications for customized top-level domains at the beginning of 2012. This will allow big companies to get domains like .apple, .google, and .walmart. I’m assuming other companies will also be able to bid on domains like .money, .diet, and .cars.
There are two reasons why, if you’re reading this post, you don’t have to worry at all about these new top-level domains:
- The new top-level domains are going to cost at least $185,000. If you’ve got that kind of cash sitting around to invest in a TLD, please give us a call.
- Having a new, fancy, custom TLD will not really improve your business or online search results.
Consider the second point. Search for “travel” and see how many .travel sites come up – practically none. So would your pet supplies website benefit from the .petsupplies top-level domain? Probably not, and you’d be out $185,000.
So instead, keep taking a focused approach on your own website, providing quality content, and improving its organic search results. Don’t think that having the right top-level domain is going to make the difference between millions of dollars in revenue and a floundering business.
It well be interesting, however, to see how many businesses take up ICANN on this offer, how many choose not to , and if there are any battles for some more generic TLDs. Will Payless or Footlocker get the .shoes domain?
Or maybe we can all pool our money together and buy it out from under them.