Will gTLDs Change the Domain Industry?


I don’t want to weigh in here to possibly influence the vote tally, but I am curious whether you think the new gTLDs are going to change the domain industry. I am not asking about specific changes to any particular TLDs, but I am wondering if you think they are going to change the landscape of the domain investment space.

Of course, you may feel free to post commentary about any changes you expect or why you don’t expect changes in the comment section. This may seem like a loaded question, but I am wondering if you think the industry and way we do business will change when new TLDs are released to the public for purchase.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

13 COMMENTS

  1. Yes, but only to the extent that they’ll draw more attention to the domain name industry, in general.

    The fact that there have only been a ‘couple of hundred’ applications, to date (despite there being approximately 644M active websites http://goo.gl/f9Mlp , and 7B people on earth), is a pretty good gauge of the lack of interest – at least early on.

    There have probably been 5-10 times as many articles on gTLDs published as there are actual applications. The high cost is certainly part of that, but not the only reason.

    Let’s face facts: Domainers are business people, and if they though that there was a real opportunity to profit from holding a gTLD, they, themselves, would have already pushed-up the number of applications past 500, or 1,000.

  2. I think as in the past, a handful will be successful, but most will fall by the wayside. I could see extensions like .cloud .game being wildly popular, but a lot of extensions won’t make the grade.

    .Com will always rule the net (in my humble opinion.)

  3. If they become popular, people will start thinking before they type .com
    I think of 1-866 as an uptodate toll free number ….maybe because shows like American Idol…when they would say these are not 1-800 numbers it’s 1-866
    If enough exposure to “this is not a .com” it is “.whatever”
    people will catch on.

  4. An influx of gtlds will, imo, prove to show the consumers need for simplicity by strengthening a .com asset. Money and great PR will always be able to launch a new gtld brand and the brands that do this will inevitably push more registrations of that particular gtld but the memorability and trust that a .com retains will only compound with the introduction of new gtlds.

  5. Yes they will, like .info / .biz / .mobi / .me / and .co did.
    Now don’t get me wrong, I mean it. They will change the industry, but it will be a minor change.

  6. I think many domainers saw this in the highly touted .xxx extension, even .co, the follow through typo traffic which was expected was not there.

    I don’t see to many domainers snapping this up, to do the legwork to get some of these new tlds recognized. You can build all the crappy condos you want next door, but at the end of the day everyone still wants to live in the 90210 zip code.

  7. *

    I believe that MOST domainers will NOT get rich off these new gTLDs.

    IMO, new generic TLDs = Fail…Lawsuits…Confusion…

    However, I do believe that large companies will secure their brand name TLDs, first as a defensive move, but, eventually, they will figure out that running their own registries for their web sites will accomplish two benefits:

    (1) Trustworthiness (that is, if their domains are limited to in-house use and not opened up to their customer base as a perk); That way, they can assure their web visitors that visiting their site is safe and free of malware and phishing schemes.

    (2) Advertising. Businesses will never stop buying advertising on TV, the net, and print, but having their .brand will simply be another prong in their budgets and could help them cut those expensive advertising compaigns somewhat.

    In any case, it will be interesting times!

    *

  8. I thought it was interesting how Matt Cutts announced last week that new gTLDs will have no bearing on search engine results. I do think that a lot of companies who applied for new TLDs were hoping to boost their search ranking for the .term

  9. Will gTLDs Change the Domain Industry?
    Will ICANN gTLDs Change the Domain Industry?
    Will ICANN be relevant in 2 years ?

    There is a new DNS coming. It will likely change the Domain Industry.

  10. ICANN has got a flop on their hands and they know it!

    254 gtlds…with each applicant getting the right to 50 domain names. That is just a little of 12,000. Give me a break. How are these gtlds going to enter the internet lexicon.

    It took ten years for the consumer to grasp just .com

    There are a 110 million .com names worldwide.

    These will never catch on as price knocks out all but the largest brands.

    Who remembers a URL anyways we all just use search engines.

    This was just a fast get rich scheme by departing members…and not well thought out!

    Nobody is shelling out for this manufactured hysteria by paid shills who profit.

    Can anyone remember .museum?

    Who is using .travel.

    This is a “.disaster”

  11. With more than 1/2 of the internet speaking other languages than English the big winners will be Chinese, Russian, Korean, etc. IDN.com names.
    Iccan’t has squandered an great opportunity to push domain names in the .com extension for idn’s. Lumping them in with the .crap names shows their true colors. Money hungry parasites. oops. too much yerba mate.
    🙂

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