Is that Really a Domain Extension
You might see the title to this article and wonder what the article is going to be about. The answer is, crazy new domain extensions. Now, many people aren’t familiar with the term “Domain Extension” and for those who don’t know what a domain extension is, here is the easiest definition I know. A domain extension is the suffix at the end of a domain name, like the most common .com or .net you see at the end of a website address.
So to break it down to basics, the domain extension is the part of the web address that starts after the “.“ (DOT) near the end of a website address. Now that you know that I am talking about the part of a website address that starts after the last dot at the end part of a website address we can move forward forward with the basic understanding of what a domain extension is.
If you spend any amount of time on the internet I am sure you have come across some websites with an unusual domain extension in their domain name. Something like .website, .club, .guru or just something that you haven’t seen or heard of before. I have owned many websites in my life and I have always had either a .com, which is the most popular and common domain extension or even a .net which is less common but most people have heard of it.
Since I have been an owner of many domain names and websites in my lifetime and being around the domain name forums and related websites over the years I have seen some unusual domain extensions (and domain names as well).
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ICANN (the organization responsible for the management, maintenance coordination of the domain extensions) has decided to approve the releasing of some very interesting, to say the least, domain extensions. Some include .christmas, .blue, .farm, .guru, .ninja (my favorite new and weird domain extension) and so on.
There are hundreds of these new, unusual domain extensions being released to the public for use. Some of the new ones are just crazy and I would really like to know exactly what these people are thinking when they approve these strange (to say the least) new domain extensions to be released.
The prices for these new domain extensions can be many, many times more than the cost of the traditional domain extensions to register the for the end user (the person who buys the rights for one to use.) This can lead me to one main conclusion and that is the ICANN is releasing these new domain extensions just for the main purpose of companies cashing in on a new fad!
I can understand that more and more new people and businesses are getting their own domain names registered. This leads to some of the better domain name extensions running out of short and easy to pronounce domain names that are available for registration.
So as a person who knows quite a bit about domains I can understand the need for a few new domain name extensions. I just see some of these new websites with these new domain extensions and think to myself “DOT What?”. Is that really a domain extension or just some kind of weird joke?
(Learn more about domain names, HERE)