Are You Getting The Most From Your Domain Name
The value of new gTLDs (or Generic Top Level Domains to give you its full name) for targeted marketing took another twist late last year with Amazon reportedly winning the ICANN auction for the right to run the .book domain name as well as the .pay domain.
With speculation that the .book domain on its own may have cost up to $10 million in addition to the $4.6 million it Amazon recently paid for the .buy domain name and $2.2 million it paid for .spot, it is pretty obvious that Amazon views these generic top level domains as hugely important.
However, why do you think that this is?
Improved Marketing Targets
With Amazon widely acknowledged as leading the way in global e-commerce, it is a natural next step for them to make effective use of the use of the world’s newest online 
real estate as well.
Whilst .spot and .buy are extremely likely to have been purchased for corporate use – the purchase of the .book gTLD looks to have been made in an effort to consolidate Amazon’s place (or .spot!) as THE go to place for books on the internet.
Opening New Horizons
Whilst the figures quoted above are a little mind-boggling and therefore very likely to be miles out of reach of most companies, this does not mean that some of the newer gTLDs hitting the market should be ignored.
Adding something along the lines of .club or a .dating or even a .expert (depending on your line of business of course) to your website may possibly offer a potential customer confirmation that they are already looking along the right lines before even visiting your website.
Impacting Search Engine Optimisation
Google and the other search engines are yet to provide any insight into how they are going to deal with new gTLDs but will need to acknowledge the impact these domain names are likely to have in relation to the way people do business, both from a customer and from a business point of view sooner rather than later.
Changes to the value of an aged domain and the ability to group domains together to get full brand value could well be on the horizon if domain name marketing is to be given its full potential.
For a little more information regarding gTLDs, please click here.