Forget the old-fashioned web suffix “.com”— coming up with eccentric names to make websites catchier and easier to remember is the new trend on the Internet.
Icann, the global internet body that creates new web addresses, announced it will be taking applications next year for domain suffixes of almost any word and in any language.
From the current 22 domain endings available, websites ending with the adverb-sounding “.ly”, the broadcast-hinting “.tv” or the captivating “.me” are now the hippest choice.
“Businesses always need quirky names that are easy to spell and to remember. If you come up with a more brandable name for your website, then you should go for it,” marketing expert Andrew Girdwood from global digital media company bigmouthmedia told Metro.
As Girdwood explains, the downside is that websites ending in .ly — the country code domain for Libya — are designated as formal property of Libya’s state-controlled telecommunications corporation, whose status is uncertain due to unrest in the region.
Montenegro has arguably the coolest-sounding ccTLD (country code top-level domain) with .me. Indeed, it has been a real gold mine for a country born only in 2006. According to Hosterstats.com, more than 500,000 .me domains have been registered, so far.
Yet despite the rise in trendy domain names, old habits die hard, as major online search engines still favour the old-fashioned.
“Dot-tv sounds perfect for a broadcasting company, but for search engine optimization, the dot-com is more popular,” Mick Say, an expert at England’s Online Marketing Academy, tells Metro.
“If a person is searching the Internet for a service or a global business, Google gives priority to the dot-com extension. It tells the search engine that ‘I want to be known internationally as an international business.’”
