New Top Level Domains

In the last few years, the number of Top Level Domains (TLD) have exploded.  What’s a TLD?  It’s the part of a domain name like .com or .net or .org that you’re already familiar with.  Some are restricted, like .gov.  We can’t register yourcompanyname.gov for you because you’re not a government agency.  There is an entire system set up to make sure you’re an actual agency before you’re awarded a .gov domain.  Similarly, you can’t use a .us domain if you’re not living or working in the United States.

So there are country-specific TLDs like .us and .fr (France) and .de (Germany) and there are generic TLDs like .com and .net.  But those are the old gTLDs!  There are now hundreds of new gTLDs.  Here’s the first of about 500 known new gTLDs:

So, should you get a new domain name using one of these gTLDs?  Generally, the answer is “no”, although as a disclosure we own BlueCrab.software, and TakomaPark.directory.  Many of these new gTLDs are owned by individual organizations, so you may not be able to register your own name at all, or if you can register, you have to find the registrar.  Blue Crab can’t register most of these new names for you.

There are also no advantages in Search Engine Optimization if you get a new domain that is highly descriptive.  These new gTLDs rank the same as the old ones like .com and .net.

Our recommendation is that you consider this only when you feel your current domain name is not what you want.  If so, give us a call and we’ll look up your name for you and perhaps point you in the right direction.  Then you’ll have to set the DNS pointers to your website yourself; we do all that for our clients, and we can tell you what the numbers need to say, but you’ll have to make the actual entries yourself.