Forbes just published an article on the new gTLD”s and its less than glowing.
Here are some of the highlights of the piece written by Roger Kay:
“It’s been nearly a year since a whole set of spanking new Internet domain names first came to market. These names —which in technical circles are called “generic top-level domains” or gTLDs — were just becoming available in January 2014…fresh extensions — snazzy end-tags like .apple, .guru, .pizza, .bike, and .singles — which were added to the familiar existing domain suffixes — like .com, .net, .org, and .edu.
At that time, I took a stab here in Forbes at what consequences might follow from the instant creation of all this new digital real estate.
And it’s pretty much turned out the way I thought.
“The additional virtual territory does not seem to have been a tremendous bonanza — at least so far.
“All the fancy new Internet suffixes have failed to set off a gold rush”
“In a recent study conducted by Moz, 62 percent of Americans, 53 percent of Australians, and 67 percent of marketers said they were unlikely to trust a quote from .insurance based on the domain alone. So, it’s possible that consumers aren’t ready to place their full faith in the new domains. In addition, industry participants have observed that, despite some claims to the contrary, the new names offer no discernible improvement in search-engine-optimization (SEO) results.”
“And if consumers aren’t flocking to the new domains, commercial entities have their own reasons to be wary of them.”
“And as if that weren’t enough, the new domains can breed confusion through something as simple as the distinction between singular and plural names. Not only will there be suffixes for both singular and plural word forms (e.g., .car and .cars), but also synonyms (e.g., .realestate and .realty) and different verb forms (e.g., .vote and .voting). If a would-be customer tries to visit davidsamazing.car, but accidentally ends up at davidsamazing.cars, David’s small automobile restoration business could lose a customer.”
“There’s also a cost aspect to this problem of prismatic domain names. If David wishes to register davidsamazing.car, he also has to register davidsamazing.cars, just to keep someone else from grabbing it and causing reputation damage or a loss of business. And these costs include not only potentially inflated upfront costs, but also less obvious costs associated with standing up a new domain, like new letterhead, business cards, and other branded documents.”
“In contrast to the slippery territory of the new domains, the existing names are solidly established. The .com extension has been around for almost 30 years, and every Fortune 500 company has a .com registration.”
“The top 50 global brands direct customers to a .com homepage.”
“Almost all educational institutions use a .edu suffix.”
“And others, like .org, clearly stand for nonprofit organizations. People have come to rely on these familiar domains and are more than a little hesitant to incur the costs and uncertainty of venturing into new territory. Not a single leading brand has switched its online identity to one of the new domains, despite all the hype surrounding their introduction a year ago.”
“Perhaps this situation will change as more branded domains come to market, but it might not, as even supporters of the new names are not as sure as they once were about their prospects.”
