3

I've received a few marketing emails in the last couple of days trying to sell seats at conventions wanting to explain the concept of gTLD's.

My understanding is that gTLDs will allow the average joe (or at least, an average joe with $xx,xxx) to register custom domain extensions? For example '.sony' or '.band', allowing for phones.sony or metallica.band to be full domain names.

Is this new functionality of any concern for the regular web user? Obviously it won't (or shouldn't affect search rankings - after all, it would allow those with the money to spend to buy their way up SERPS, but thats a different kettle of fish). Is the new gTLD system going to be another kind of 'domain' rush like in the late 90's?

Is my understanding completely wrong?

|improve this question
6

No, gTLDs are of no concern to the "regular web user". The only ones that might be interested in acquiring a gTLDs are large companies and organizations with enough money to be able to afford the $185,000 dollar application fee and the ongoing cost of operating a TLD.

Unless your employer fits that description, you can safely ignore these.

Furthermore, these conventions seem a bit iffy. No new TLDs have been approved under the new scheme and it seems likely that ICANN will be moving cautiously with the first few approvals. Until a few applications have gone through and the new TLDs go live, it is very difficult to say what effect they will have (if any) on the Internet as we know it. I'd save my money.

|improve this answer
  • Thanks for the answer - very clearly written. Would I be correct in thinking that should a company register a gTLD, do they effectively become the 'broker' for that extension? The company I work for would be able to afford a gTLD, it just sounds like a bit of a pointless gimmick to me though, unless you are a house-hold brand name that people know - e.g, sony, apple etc. Should Sony have a .sony extension, what do you suppose their home-page domain might be? sony.sony/home.sony, all sounds a bit... wrong? – Anonymous Aug 12 '11 at 9:08
  • Maybe just sony. So their webpage might be at http://www.sony/ and an employee might have an email address mike@sony (not sure if this one is well formed or if it has to be mike@mail.sony). But as Kris says it will take a while to see what the effects are: I know if someone told me one of those links I'd assume a .com had been left out by mistake. – RoundTower Aug 12 '11 at 12:12

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.