Years ago, the options for business owners seeking to register their domain name and subsequent extension were limited. Options such as .com, .co.uk or .net were all available, but if your chosen name was taken, this meant a rethink. In response to ever-increasing demand, the registry companies have recently made available a whole host of other options. If you need further advice on your domain you could ask a Belfast SEO company such as ryco marketing as they have staff that will help you every step of the way. Here is a look at some of those opportunities and the resulting challenges.
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How it works
Three main types of gTLD have been launched: closed, restricted and open. Closed consist mainly of extensions where businesses have bought their own names for mainly internal purposes. Restricted are only open to those who meet particular criteria, such as geographic criteria for those considering a .london domain. Open domains are available in much the same way that .co.uk is today.
Freedom of choice
Companies are no longer restricted to the likes of co.uk or .com. Instead, they can place their brand name or property ahead of generic top level domains (or gTLD’s) such as app or secure. This allows you to add extra detail about your business within the domain, such as home for a property business.
There is an additional opportunity to protect your online brand. For example, you might own acmecompany.co.uk and acmecompany.com and choose to additionally register acmecompany.business.
The Challenge
Unfortunately it’s not realistic to purchase every single relevant domain. IT would be an onerous and expensive task, so the challenge becomes knowing which will achieve prominence and which to forget about. Move too slowly and you risk the domains not being available. Keeping an eye on what household names do in this regard might allow you to be a fast follower with minimal expense.
Monitoring the market
An additional challenge is to ensure you monitor your brand’s association with the more derogatory domains such as.adult. to ensure no subsequent brand damage.
The new domain extensions aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. It will pay to keep an eye on the market and subsequent developments and ensure you are in a position to move when the time is right to protect and maximise your brand.
