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6 ways to choose a meaningful domain name with a new gTLD, like .PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Internet expansion program continues growing, with 7+ new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) becoming available every week for the public to register new domain names. The 2 most popular so far are .GURU and .PHOTOGRAPHY, with 35,000+ and 18,000+ registered domains, respectively, at the time of this blog post. I’ve found it much more understandable to see these new gTLD domain names in action, rather than merely hearing about the potential usage of new domain extensions.  So I searched for .PHOTOGRAPHY websites already launched, and I noticed these 6 patterns in these new domain names:

headshots.photography

(1) Get a domain name = FullName + .photography ::

(2) Replace the generic domain name (xyzwhatever.com) with one that clearly is about photography ::

(3) Or just shorten up a similar domain name to indicate you’re open to new ideas ::

(4) Get a name for a specific type or genre of photography ::

(5) Go short and meaningful ::

(6) Go geographical ::

As the general public sees more websites with new gTLDs in use, and they’re going to show up in marketing and advertising, people will get accustomed and acclimated to website addresses being about the DOT instead of the WWW or a .COM. (Notice I didn’t use any WWW in the above URLs)

Remember when people used to use Alta Vista as their search engine? Netscape as their browser? AOL or Juno as their email? Change is constantly happening on the Internet.

There’s no permanence with website URLs either. Every domain name has an expiration date, and when the landscape will look very different by 2015, that’s next year, companies and organizations have to be agile. Just as websites need a redesign every once in a while, so does its branding and logo design need a refresh occasionally. And add to that, its domain names. IMHO. YMMV.

This post is part of a blog series tagged gTLD. Oh, there’s 1 more thing I want to say about this. There will also be 2 other new gTLDs, .PHOTO and .PHOTOS, for new domain names. (They’re available for public registration on 4/15/14 and 3/05/14, respectively.) I recall reading somewhere that photography is the most popular hobby. With these very similar domain extensions, serious branding will be needing to register all 3 of these domains (.PHOTOGRAPHY/.PHOTO/.PHOTOS) the way many currently register the trifecta of .COM/.NET/.ORG for domain names.

[disclosure: my interest in this topic is informally related to my work as a member of the .BIBLE Registry launch team] 

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