Where do you see the future of new extensions going?

[mole]

As .EU starts a new landrush of speculative hope in the coming months, I think it may be a good time take stock on where you think the future of new extensions will head.

Do you think all this confusing new tlds will make .COM even stronger, or are Internet users starting to get a lot more sophisticated in understanding web addressing?

 

[gazzip]

Do you think all this confusing new tlds will make .COM even stronger, or are Internet users starting to get a lot more sophisticated in understanding web addressing?

I rekon people are getting more used to other extensions, the price has got to go down apart from those prime .com's.

I have noticed wealthy countries using their own extensions even when sometimes the .com is available or for sale, if you are only advertising online why pay thousands of dollars to reg the .com if you can get the same name with country extension for $8 or so ?

Yes, .com's sounds nice & rule for type ins but in reality in many cases there are only a minimal amount of type ins on most names and you would never get a good return if you've just paid $150,000 for a name that is available for $8. IMO

As far as I know the extension does'nt make alot of difference with search engines, please let me know if this is wrong.

 

[mole]

As far as I know the extension does'nt make alot of difference with search engines, please let me know if this is wrong.

As meta contexting becomes an increasingly important component in finding the right context for the right content, it is apparent that search engines will increasingly consider the extension as an additional clue on intended content meaning.

The web is classifying itself in greater depth today;

New restricted sTLDs like .TRAVEL, .MOBI

New country-qualified zTLDs like .EU

The new 2nd level ccTDLs like .US and .CN and .IN

Old gTLDs like .edu

Relatively new gTLDs like .INFO and .BIZ

All this will help search engines context content more meaningfully. engines like http://www.exalead.com

In the coming years, you should be seeing more work being done on metadata contexting and semantic web relogic building, so yes, extensions can and will play an increasing role in this.

Only an estimated 10-15% of all web traffic comes from type-ins, so one can safely assume that 9 out of 10 Internet surfers won't give a jot what the extension is, so long as its content they like.

But the search engines, will increasingly depend on extensions to metaguide search relevance. Google has been toying with this for years, especially with local ccTLDs.

I always find it amusing that many domainers still see .BIZ as cheesy. I can assure you, that where I come from, .BIZ is a very well accepted vernacular of modern professionals.

.COM as a namespace has been terminally bastardized to the point that every dog and his toad uses the extension, and may be too late to save.

Which may be a good thing, .COM is probably one of the most overrated vestiges of the past, see the http://www.mrx.com story.

 

[mole]

So is there any relation between the word searched and the extension? For example I type in travel...with a new travel extension it would make sense, no?

Yes.

sTLDs (sponsored TLDs) are ideal for ensuring a good degree of control on the contextual meaning of the word searched.

Registering .TRAVEL, for example, requires you to prove you are in the travel industry, and that it is your corporate name you are using on the left of the dot.

.JOBs, as another example, goes through the same rigorous screening for compliance.

.MOBI, another sponsored TLD, has similar strict guidelines on who can register names under that namespace.

.XXX, if it finally gets out of the prudish whiplash of self-righteous individuals, will be a great step forward in safe surfing.

You can see why the search engines will lap these considerations up in designing their future algos - it is a big leap forward towards ensuring relevant and quality content.

Once it becomes clear to people that search engines do factor in domain extensions seriously, you will start to see a major rennaissence in how people look at new namespace. Developers will be motivated to use these namespaces even more.

Best guess right now;

1. Definitely a large extension relevance weightage towards sponsored TLDs
2. Moderate extension relevance weightage towards the more generic new gTLDs like .INFO and .BIZ, and old extensions like .ORG.
3. Low extension relevance weightage towards .COM

4. The ccTLDs will continue to stand as a class act of its own with regards to local country relevance.

 

[Macke]

I strongly believe that ccTLD's will increase in value and the interest for "low traffic" .com's will go down

 

[mmoebk]

what are ccTLD's ?

 

[Kate]

...
Do you think all this confusing new tlds will make .COM even stronger, or are Internet users starting to get a lot more sophisticated in understanding web addressing?

There are two proposals here and my view is that both may be true.
IMO .com will still be the king for a long time.
A company holding the .com version of its name suggests it's been there for a long time, possibly has been an Internet pioneer.
company.com looks more established than company.biz after all.

I also think country TLDs will continue to rise along with .com, at least those of major countries.
As for sponsored gTLDs like .info or .biz I think we will still see some nices sales but these TLDs may not be for everyone.

As for new extensions like .travel or .mobi: as long as they are restricted to certain industries, registration figures will remain low and TLD awareness will remain low as well IMO

 

[maximum]

what are ccTLD's ?

As TheLegendaryJP explained: they are country code top level domains. To be more specific, they are the extensions that represent a certain country (like .us for United States, .uk for United Kingdom, .jp for Japan, ect.) The full list, and links to the registries responsible for each, can be found here.

Kate (sdsinc) - Agree with you on that one. Might I add .tv to those I think will grow even much bigger soon :imho:

 

[MistaPrimeMinista]

honestly,

i think they should stop with the new extensions....

 

[JMJ]

I think with ICANN's idea of unleashing a mass approval of new extensions it will greatly decrease the value of all sTLD's. It might however increase the value of ccTLD's. If someone is going to choose a .com alternative they will spend more for their country code over anything else. As with any new extension release the best names will be taken with false trademark applications so it will still be up to negotiating on a prime keyword.

 

[smub]

i think this will get .com's even more hits because people who are new they just type in blahblah.com (their first choice) then they go back and fix it. Also it can cause the value of domains go down because then we'll have more and more available names such as sofa.jrx for ex. who knows

 

[Badger]

nice post le..

 

[Binfus]

.XXX, if it finally gets out of the prudish whiplash of self-righteous individuals, will be a great step forward in safe surfing.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is crafting the legislative package that would require the Department of Commerce to create the new domain name. Pornographic Web sites would be required to abandon their ‘‘.com’’ addresses, ideally consolidating them all in one Internet neighborhood.

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/02/06/montana_top/a01020606_02.txt

Its just a matter of time before DNS starts functioning the way it is supposed to. With ever increasing amount of web-based content, its not just rational and logical but a given that the Iternet users would expect, demand and find the content they are looking for where it should be....of course, there'd always be outliers but the *mainstream* web would change for good!

 

[harpo]

secular individual country codes [drops of water}
all pervading collective mainstream {the ocean}

there was a time when the drops fell into the ocean , but is their a time when the ocean falls into the drops .....

 

[khuldun]

you forgot this one

.pk

another new ccTLD