New Web Addresses

Welcome back. Tell me. Would you be more inclined to click on this blog’s web address, its URL, if instead of being www.Retired--NowWhat.com and ending in .com, it ended in .blog or .club or .fyi? Or how about www.Retired--NowWhat.exposed? There are a boatload of new endings. Some are very cool, including .cool. 

Some of the new domain endings. (From
 www.forbes.com but on multiple websites)

Come to think of it, you might want to grab or sign up for an address with one of the new endings. You could certainly find uses other than blogging. I’ll get to that, but let me continue with the blog’s web address.

Blog Address History

When I started this blog in 2011, I picked the blog’s name, Retired--Now What?, and that was that. The blog web address was fixed. The domain name, which is everything after the www., was predetermined by the account holder and that included the ending, the generic top-level domain, which was .com.

Though I later switched to the blog’s current web address, whose domain name is shorter than the original, the only choice was to stay with .com.

Then, about 18 months ago, the blog’s domain name expired due to my oversight. I had to reclaim it from another account holder, and I was offered the opportunity to change the ending to .net or .org. I also learned that all sorts of new endings, new generic top-level domains, were coming. They’ve arrived.

New Generic Top-Level Domains

Today there are several hundred endings which you can buy or register for as part of a domain name, presuming the domain name isn’t already taken. If that’s not enough, there will be many more; expect about a 1000 this year. 

One website categorizes the current endings under 19 headings. Here’s a sample with examples of new endings: Arts and Entertainment (.actor, .art, .band, .photography), Education (.mba, .phd, .science), Food and Drink (.catering, .cooking, .recipes, .wine), Identity and Lifestyle (.bio, .black, .ceo, .republican), Interests (from .active and .app to .yoga and, in Chinese, .gossip), Money and Finance (.broker, .cpa, .gold, .rich), Novelty (.best, .fun, .wow), Sports (all the majors) and, of course, Adult (.adult, .porn, .sex).

There’s been a fair amount of discussion about the benefits of having a more focused web address. Are the benefits less than they seem? At least initially, business and trade associations thought the proliferation of endings was unnecessary, confusing and costly. Further, not all browsers and applications are ready to recognize the new endings; extra steps may be needed. Probably the pivotal question is if domain names are at all important. People increasing rely on social media or aggregators to round up the content they see.

Wrap Up

Beyond blogging, I see this as The Moment for anyone who wishes to stand out, to be noticed, to be distinct, whether it’s through a personal website, résumé, social media account or email address.

Imagine having a domain name that consists of your name or expertise with the ending .expert, .guru or .vip. Or how about integrating the ending with what’s before the ending: NoPain.dentist, IPlay.guitars, IAmThe.one? If your surname happens to be one of the endings--black, coffee, glass, gold, green, irish--you could add your first name and…well, there so many possibilities. I should forget the blog and sell web domains.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Background and example articles on new generic top-level domains:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain#New_top-level_domains
iwantmyname.com/blog/2015/06/how-to-pick-the-right-domain-extension.html
www.inc.com/peter-roesler/will-new-top-level-domains-matter-in-2015.html
name.kitchen/stand-out-from-the-crowd-a-new-way-to-get-creative-with-your-online-resume/
Lists of generic top-level domains:
iwantmyname.com/domains/new-gtld-domain-extensions
www.newtldlist.com/
Example web domain sellers offering new generic top-level domains:
www.godaddy.com/tlds/gtld.aspx
www.enom.com/tld-queue/pages/watchlist.aspx#q=watchlist|pre-registration
www.hover.com/