For a long time now, when asked what domain should I purchase for my business, we have advised trying to find a .com version of your company name or keyword because of the automatic response of adding .com to the domain when inputting the name directly into a browser to go directly to the website. The .net, .biz, etc. variations were recommended only when you wished to “protect” your primary .com variation of your domain name from your competitors potentially hijacking your clients using your domain with the variant extension.

Soon, however the .com appendage will be lost in a sea of domain appendages that may more closely represent the type of business or industry that you are in.

It will be really confusing for a while. Just as we were trained to put the www in front of the domain, (that is no longer required with today’s browsers), we will need to relearn and rethink how we get to websites of the near future.

So where might this all lead us? Consider the new domain extensions might be industry specific or service descriptive or something completely new altogether. Some examples might be:

• .restaurant for a restaurant. Now it would be much easier to search on local restaurants by searching for local .restaurant domains.
• .vet or veterinarian for pet and farm doctors
• .md for medical doctors
• .dentist for dentists
• .pharmacy for pharmacies
• .shoes or .running for shoe or specialty stores
• .ski for ski shops
• .llc or .inc to designate a business type.
• .accountant
• .law, .attorney, or .lawyer

But let your imagination run and these new domain extensions may not just describe your business type. Consider the domain Burlington Press as in burlingtonpress.com previously could become with variations:

• burlingtonpress.sucks – for complaints
• burlingtonpress.rocks – for testimonials
• burlingtonpress.givesback – our charity
• burlingtonpress.works – dedicated to our employees
• burlingtonpress.ny for our New York office if we had one

And consider that really short domain name that you have always wanted for your domain. These may be available in a very descriptive version. Soon I may be able to acquire BP.WS for Burlington Press Web Services to replace the longer variation we now use. It is certainly a lot easier to type rich@bp.ws for an email address.

Short domain names are tough to acquire today. But with the opening up of domain extensions, these will become much easier and less expensive to acquire than “purchasing” a domain name that someone has purchased purely to make a profit selling a high demand domain – often referred to as a squatter.

With more domain extensions come more potential to help direct your customers to website specific information. If you are a business owner or in charge of marketing your company now is the time to begin considering the possibilities, how you might put these to work for your benefit and securing these additional domains for your company to use.

The .com will not go anywhere soon. It will take some time for the new domains to reach a tipping point and be widely adopted at least as far as someone actually typing the domain with the new extensions because people can be slow to change and many people use a search engine rather than typing the domain directly.

You probably do not need to rethink your entire web strategy today, but a word to the wise, there are many who are already considering how to best dominate the new tidal wave of domain extensions for profit. It would be smart to think about what and how you might be able to use these new domain names as part of your future marketing strategy. Opportunities come to those who are prepared.