The .COM Strength Holds Its Own in an Increasingly Popular gTLD Marketplace

 

The World Wide Web, in all its infancy is a grand place to conduct business, it is the modernist invention of business functionality and deliverability since the invention of the railroad! The saturation of the .COM domain is frustrating, yet it still holds its own, in terms of strength, recognition, and credibility, while gTLD’s are gaining popularity, they aren’t anywhere near capturing the audience of the .COM generation.

 

In a marketing economy, where domains are king, figuring out “which way is the better way to go”
for your new business is an increasingly challenging question.

The release of many new gTLD domains are hitting the market, giving domain name registrants a variety of avenues to take their business in. It’s important to remember that while the .COM domain may be saturated, there are many domains available for sale through auctions and private sales, and even direct purchasing ability at times, or for the right price.

You can however take the alternate route and opt for one of the newly released gTLD’s, which can assist with categorizing your business or services, it may even help with defining your target action or audience, but there are downfalls in this market as well.

Currently, more than 420 new gTLDs are available to purchase. This alone has left businesses reeling in purchasing power, but also a feeling of “If I don’t buy now, I’ll miss out again!” syndrome. This can be a great move for your business, or it could just be a business expense. Don’t get me wrong you take the same risks with a .com, .net, .biz, .org, or .info domain name; with the exception of available market research for those domains in a performance over time lineage, compared to the new arrivals with relatively no compiled data.

Even as popularity of newer TLDs grows, so does the .COM level of global recognition,
thus increasing trust levels and the credibility of its domain owners in the eyes of its users.

Here are a few examples of big names that have taken a ride along both sides of the domain name fence, and inevitably ended up back on the .COM side:

• Overstock.com for example rebranded under the name O.co, after footing a $350,000 for the domain, only to realize that the name change had a negative impact on their business by seeing a reduction in brand recognition and sales traffic. They returned to the Overstock.com domain just four months later.
• Visa International, who is instantly recognizable in any form, purchased V.me, then rebranded as a more descriptive domain, using VisaCheckout.com to more accurately describe the benefits of the new Visa product.
• Connectify, a Philadelphia based company on the smaller end of the business scale, also made the .switch when switching from connectify.me to connectify.com after a three year battle for the domain rights.
• The Guardian opted to use its .com name in exchange for the guardian.co.uk domain, when strategically planning global expansion recognition for the company to have a greater international readership rate.
• TeamworkPM made the switch to a .com dmain after acquiring the teamwork.com domain in a private sale earlier this year, and has rebranded to make the best possible use of the domain.
• Charleston Daily Mail sold dailymail.com to the UK’s Daily Mail Newspaper, and purchased charlestondailymail.com to be more descriptive and less confusing for users.

Perhaps you can think of the options in marketing terms of A/B Testing. Purchase a .com as well as a gTLD such as .me, .co, or .something else that meets your meaningful or descriptive category terms, and A/B Test them. Market to the A Group (.com) in the same fashion that you market to Group B (gTLD) and see which avenue is bringing you the most traffic, sales, repeat business, and value for your costs. From there, define which has more potential and reach for your desired results and proceed onward.