New domains names are here!

It's been a long time coming but from late 2013 onward somewhere around 1,000 new domain name suffixes will be available, check out this post for a quick update and how it affects you.

Digital Marketing
domain-name-feature

It’s been a long time coming, a number of years in fact to get to this point. During 2014 there will be a lot of new domain name options available for businesses and individuals alike.

Until now .com and .com.au (for Australians) have been the prominent domain names that people have gravitated towards, this will slowly change when over the next 12 to 24 months when somewhere near 1000 new domain name endings (gTLDs) will begin to be available.

This is a quick selection that are available to register already:

  • .photography
  • .clothing
  • .bike
  • .estate
  • .plumbing

It’s not centred around English names though, many of the new extensions are in other languages and scripts like Chinese and Arabic.

I have a domain name, why I should care?

The domain name landscape has long since been regarded as a land of opportunity, in fact there are many around the world that invest in domain names hoping to on sell that at a point in the future.

The opportunity right now is unique as these new domain extensions are being made available for the first time.  There are many reasons why it’s worth a second look and to consider the implications for your business.

For example, say you have a product that you sell into a country like China or somewhere in the Middle East: now you could register that product name in the local language and script – making it more accessible to your target market.

How do I learn more?

ICANN is the organisation that overseas the domain name space internationally, their site here has some information but a lot of it is geared to those in the domain name industry.

WhatDomain.org is probably a good place to have a look at as well, it’s in plain English and has been setup to education the average Joe about all of these new changes.

As far as actually registering one of these new domains, there is not a lot of Australian Registrars that have them available yet. Melbourne IT has a section on there web site that offers registrations but also have a look at GoDaddy.com from the US – perhaps a little cheaper!

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