February 13, 2014 / in General Information / by Jason Terry
Post written by Jason Terry, Entrepreneur | Social Coach | Web Developer | Scuba Instructor | Guitar Player | Cruise Traveler | Lego Collector
If you aren’t technical, please read at least the first part of this post. I wanted to let you know about some new domain extensions that are available for you to purchase through companies like GoDaddy or Network Solutions. I hope you will agree that this is an important “heads up” for protecting your brand on the web.
(Shout out to my friend Lucas Fender for telling me about this a couple of months ago!)
The technical term for these new domain extensions is Top Level Domain. In addition to .com, .org, .us, and .biz, they have added a bunch of new extensions. (“They” being ICANN if you care. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.)
.guru | .company | .management | .support | .technology | .careers
For an extensive list of the domain types available, check this Wikipedia entry out. And yes, we were able to purchase the domain blue.guru through a pre-registration process with GoDaddy. Awesome. And I have talked to three of our clients in the past couple of days that are also taking advantage of the opportunity to pre-register new domains for their companies.
You may be saying to yourself, “who cares?” Do you remember a few years ago when there was a .com rush? Companies were scrambling to buy the .com for their business brand. Domains like coke.com, target.com, nike.com and more. As the .com domains were bought up, people had to start getting more creative with the domains they could purchase.
For example, thepinegroup-kc.com, mydomainiswaytoolong.com, etc. (I am NOT a fan of hyphens in URLs.)
It got to the point that people had to go with other domain extensions. teamoffice.us, .neustar.biz, marianhopecenter.org, etc. Companies went to these different domain extensions so that they could have a shorter URL, or a URL that more closely resembled their company brand.
I think you should consider pre-registering the .company domain for your brand. I pre-registered bluegurus.company with GoDaddy for $24.99. There are a lot of ways you could use this new domain, but most importantly you will be protecting your brand. If the .company extension becomes the next big .com extension, you may find that someone has already secured your company name with the .company extension. Not good.
One of the ways you could use these new domain extensions is for marketing. You could have a shorter URL listed in advertising on magazines, mailings, business cards, etc.
I know that people will struggle at first typing in blue.guru instead of blue.guru.com, but they will figure it out. Businesses will continue to use these additional domain extensions in new and creative ways. Get ahead of the pack by securing your brand with these new extensions. I would really appreciate you letting me know if this was the first time you had heard about the new domains!
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What an innovative and energizing approach to building a website.
I have partnered with Blue Gurus on multiple sites and referred many of my own clients to them. They make the whole process simpler, easier, faster and more fun than you would ever imagine. If you need a new website for your business, consider Blue Gurus! Also talk with them about LinkedIn training for your execs and/or sales staff. If anyone can convince people of the value of LinkedIn, these guys can!
Julie Bartels Smith
President at JBSmith Communications, Inc.
Again….thanks for great info! I had heard of the new extensions….but hadn’t really thought about it in this way. Its nice that you gurus are awesome curators of content important to business! :)