When we think of a website, the first thing, which comes to our mind, is ‘www’ & the second is the extension, ‘.com’, be it an e-commerce, social media, news, sports, etc, every one of them uses the ‘.com’ extension, because the ‘.com’ has become the most used TLD since its introduction in the 80’s. Not only this, when we think of starting a business online, our biggest concern is finding a proper domain name & then deciding its extension, which again we prefer it to be ‘.com’.
However, there has been a big shift since the last couple of years, many giant companies have made their move by changing their extension from ‘.com’ to the future new domain extensions like .company, .ink, .in, .usa, .co, .video, .ink, .technology, etc.
And one of the biggest reason that has lead to this shift is the availability of domain names with ‘.com’ extension, even today, when you search for something cool & popular you will find out that the top domains are already taken, and most of them are having ‘.com’ extension. Moreover, for getting one such type of domain, you might have to pay a big amount, and in case, you are starting up a company then that’s definitely a good thing for you. For instance, remember when social networking site Facebook had to pay a whopping $ 8.5 million dollars back in 2010 to acquire FB.com.
And even today, most of the people wants to have a domain extension with ‘.com’, however, to get one you have to more creative & smart, unless, you are willing to shell out some extra dollars for getting your desired domain name with a ‘.com’ extension.
As we all know, the domain industry is booming every passing day, and it’s certainly not a good thing for those people or companies who fails to find their desired domain name with a ‘.com’ extension, so, to bring in some changes, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Name & Numbers (ICANN), back in 2010, thought of bringing up some new domain extensions, which will not only bring some relief but it will also make choosing a domain name with an extension much easier. For example, anyone thinking of starting up a new traveling site can now get a ‘.travel’ extension with their desired domain name.
List of some new domain extensions-
- .guru
- .travel
- .video
- .company
- .services
- .business
- .me
- .ink
- .info
- .agency
- .design
- .country name/ location( .in, .usa, .london)
- .hotels
- .tech
- .contactors
- .technology
- .game
- .bike
- .estate
- .camera
- .store
- .global
And much more, so now, not only choosing a domain name has become a lot of easier, but with these new extensions, you can also brand your website or blog. Furthermore, anyone visiting your website will have an idea about your business by just looking it at the URL. So, not only it looks cooler. However, for getting a new type of extension, you might have to spend some more money.
Nevertheless, if you are thinking of opening up your business online in 2016, then without a doubt these new gTLD goes surely sounds cool and makes more sense but it is still recommended that you go with ‘.com’, because they are more valuable, and incase, if it’s not available then the second best option to go with is ‘.net’. Because at present, there are speculations being made whether new domain extension will be a hit in the near future or they will take a fall.
Future Scenario
If you take a sneak & peak in history, then you will find out that those who have invested in this “virtual real estate” have gained huge profits. And here are some best examples of it.
- com tops the list, the domain was sold for a whopping 35 million dollars.
- As already stated FB.com was sold for $ 8.5 million.
- In similar fashion, Internet.com was also sold for $ 18 million.
- com is one of the few domains, which was sold for more than 30 million dollars.
- Back in 2001, Hotels.com was sold for more than $ 11 million.
Even though the future is uncertain but looking at the past, the future of the domains industry does look promising. So doing investment on them might not be a bad idea