Updated: Sep 11, 2022
We all know .com is king. You've got to wonder if ICANN left things as they were and did not issue any more extensions. That would be like in a city where all you have are streets. It could not be visible.
Hélas, ICANN, with their continued expansion drive, has not and will not stop. No, 1000 extensions are by far not enough. The startups are rejoicing today because they can have just about any domain name they want because of extension galore. Be careful and think twice before ending like New Coke.
However, an extension other than .com often does make sense. For example, whole countries' tourism offices have taken to .travel extensions, much to the dismay of domain name collectors who held the .com version.
It sure makes much sense if you own a hotel and add a .hotel extension to your name. It probably does as well with a .hotel suffix, as the .com version. In addition, the purchase money saved over the .com version might make it easier for a startup to keep funds in its pockets.
While .me and .xyz still seem to struggle to find their place, other extensions, to mention a few, like .city. .pizza and .app seem to be doing rather well.
My all-time favorite non .com, of course, is Vacation .rentals. It is the ultimate in a non .com extension. Keyword loaded, not being used as the final URL, but forwarded—the perfect link example.
Any extension other than .com can be undoubtedly helpful when it fits the domain name, as long as the domain name and extension complement each other.
Make sure your website's title, name, and extension, ring a bell to your targeted audience. The right keyword domain with a content matching extension is the best for your website address.
The positive about ICANN is that it allows anyone to register any available extension they fancy, as silly as that might turn out.
AOL(.)com might not have been the last bummer that experienced domain name sunset.
Updated: Sep 11, 2022
One of the ways to describe the importance of keywords is to talk about movie titles. Mention a particular movie, and people who have seen it too will remember it or what it is about. The title alone usually provokes a reaction from anyone involved in such a conversation.
Besides big movie stars who might be the most crucial draw for a blockbuster production, it's the title itself, revealing what the movie is all about. Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T., and Titanic are potent titles crafted to fit the story precisely. The titles couldn't have been anything else, or could they?
Without any seriousness and just for its fun, we could change Gone with the Wind to 'How the South was lost.' Stars Wars could have been called 'Choobakka and the Princess.' The Sound of Music could have been shortened to 'The Nanny.' E.T 'To love an Alien' and Titanic would have been just as high a success if it had been called 'The Iceberg.'
Now, if you think that's silly, you are right. Whoever created the movie titles, or wrote the book for those blockbusters and every other movie ever made, was looking to achieve (besides getting rich) only one thing: The title has to tell the story, the plot, set the mood, tension level, implying love, romance, and adventure.
It all has to be in the title.
Sometimes that's achieved in an excellent nailed-down-to-a-single-word title, as we see in Avatar, Terminator, and Jaws, but that's not always that easy.
Looking at the top 25 highest-grossing films, we see that it takes over a one-word title to craft the message: Beauty and the Beast, The Fate of the Furious, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight Rises, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The headline leaves no doubt as to what the movie is all about. However, if all words but one is taken from those titles, the film's anticipation would not have been the same.
So it goes with domains and your title for the correct website address. Keep that in mind when choosing a content-matching website address. Your title domain should leave no doubt that the following content is precisely what the title promises.
Agree? Comments? I love to hear from you.