In a recent press release dated June 20 2011 ICANN the governing body responsible for domain names on the internet has made a startling announcement which will change how the internet is used forever. They stated that after much deliberation with governments, businesses and internet organizations they have decided to implement a limitless new amount of domain name extensions. At the moment there are 22 top name domain extensions i.e. .com, .net, .org being a few of the most commonly used variations. As of yet, there seems to be no restrictions mentioned as to who may purchase these domain names and it seems that it will lead to a “free for all” come January 2012. It seems that one will be able to register a [dot] anything. For example a city could use .newyork as an extension.
How this will affect rankings within the search engines remains to be seen. Up to now the .com variant has been proven to be the strongest extension for achieving placings and is definitely the most well known for most internet users. In fact, any business up to now would always try to get a brand / keyword in the hostname and a .com extension. This has always led to initial priority for the domain name. A sort of leg up, if you like before the SEO process is initiated. It also allowed the search engines to prioritize websites semantically for ranking (indexing) and giving pagerank authority based on other factors such as SEO. (I apologize for the simplicity but this is not an SEO article)
So what is going to happen, will chaos ensue?
I don’t know about chaos but sitting in bed this morning thinking about the possibilities certainly caused a few giggles.
How exactly will Google and the other search engines measure the relevance of content or allocate strength to these new domain extensions when semantics come into play? In the internet marketing world folks have been trying to create software to produce original content of a high level from scratch but the complexity of language structure has always made this task impossible as the results lack that human touch and sound like gibberish. So how much more complicated will it be for the search engine algorithms to decipher the true nature of content linked to these new domain extensions.
It all seems relatively straight forward, harmless and self explanatory, but is it really?
Think about these two domain names “boston.terrier” and “terrier.boston”.
The meaning may seem obvious but which part will the search engines allot the most weight?
Will it be the hostname or the extension?
The onpage content for these domains would probably make it clearer to the spiders and although Google has been focusing more on content recently with their last 2 monumental shakeups other engines have always focused less on the domain name as a key to relevance.
Also, will the number of cease and desist letters go through the roof or will the same “soft” rules apply to extensions that now applies to the hostname? I can see the introduction of much stronger regulation concerning this issue over the next couple of years.
So lets say hypothetically I was purchasing the domain names for the company XYZ.
So suppose I buy support.xyz, sales.xyz, store.xyz but I forget to buy, say, jobs.xyz and a squatter buys it as an investment knowing that my firm has probably forgotten to buy it, where does that leave me legally. (In reality, I believe that the domain squatters are well aware of the impending avalanche of names available next year and will buy as many as possible when the floodgates open)
Come to think of it, this could be a great niche to work for the next 6 months. Advising companies to be prepared to purchase their online real estate ASAP in 2012. But lets not digress….
I have some great ideas in mind as to how I can use these new names and look forward to doing all kinds of testing on these new babies.
I live in Essen Germany and the thought that made me giggle most was the domain names “essen.menschen” and “menschen.essen”. (german words menschen=people and Essen is a city name but it also means “to eat”) So the first domain name would be great for people meeting in the area and the second might be good for a cannibal cult! LMAO
The only way I can see these new domains working is if the content on the pages is the only factor taken into account but this is probably a naive perspective considering the preference I believe will be given to specific brand related extensions. I have only touched the tip of the iceberg here but hope it is food for thought and would seriously suggest you consider the effects of these new changes.
Feel free to leave a comment and give your two cents.
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Why would someone type this into Google, well maybe they probably knew that I would find it on my stats. Some idiots are just plain vicious I suppose…so after proclaiming me a moron they proceeded to my Business English website and stuck around to study my grammar lessons? Who knows? lol
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