New York, NY – Since the invention of the internet back in the early to mid 1990’s, the dot com domain extension has always been synonymous with the world wide web. Categorized as a gTLD, Generic Top-Level Domain, which is the last end of a domain name after the dot, ‘.com’s’ make up the core group of gTLD including .net, .org, and .info. And while new gTLD extensions continue to pop up as the internet expands and innovation comes to fruition, dot com is still considered the ideal gTLD for businesses and investors. OnlineBusiness.com explores some examples that highlight dot com’s continued dominance and also discusses the future of gTLD extensions.
“Having the ability to control and manage a unique domain name or brand across multiple extensions is very powerful,” said Anthony Santiago, Marketing Director at OnlineBusiness. “First, your brand is protected from others for such a small investment if you are hand registering. The .com extension will always command a higher price in the market due to user behavior online. The .com is synonymous with a website. Other extensions like .co are a suitable replacement if the .com is not available.”
One example OnlineBusiness.com highlights that clearly shows the importance of a dot com domain in today’s digital landscape is Mural. Mural is a company that has tripled its annual recurring revenue in the last year and has switched its domain to Mural.com assumingly paying a high price tag to acquire it from Grupo Reforma, which is one of the largest print media companies in Mexico. They originally were known as Mural.ly and then switched to Mural.co before ultimately switching to Mural.com.
Mural may have started with the domain Mural.ly to align with the trend with the increase in popularity of these ‘new’ gTLD such as .co’s, .io’s and .ly’s in recent years. However, as one can see there came a point in which Mural felt it was in their best interest to acquire and rebrand to Mural.com as they continue to grow in brand and revenue. Since acquiring the domain, they have raised another $50 million in Series C funding this year.
This isn’t to say with dot com still averaging 3 out of 4 every gTLD domains, other gTLD haven’t tried to innovate the market. Since 2011, ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, assigned to unify the internet, has allowed companies to register their own gTLD such as .oldnavy and .google. And although some companies are looking to be at the forefront of this, there are other companies that have scaled back their efforts in this arena.
Three dot brand TLD experiments have called it quits this year which included a university, an insurance company and a consumer goods company and have cancelled their TLD brands:
- Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) (TLD: .rmit)
- Swiftcover Insurance Services Limited (TLD: .swiftcover)
- Dabur India Limited (TLD: .dabur)
Due to saturation of the core gTLDs and new TLD trends, as mentioned in a 2018 Wired feature, it may very well be that the landscape may start to shift to give more market share to other gTLD extensions within 5 years but as it stands .com’s still hold the most value for companies and organizations looking for a premium domain today.
To learn more about OnlineBusiness.com, visit their website or learn more by contacting the team directly at contact@onlinebusiness.com.
About OnlineBusiness.com
OnlineBusiness.com is a digital marketplace for premium domains and starter sites. They specialize in helping their clients to acquire the best domain name to increase credibility and brand power. Currently, they list over 3,500 domain names with a combined valuation of over $5M. To learn more visit https://www.onlinebusiness.com.
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