I was recently asked for my opinions on gTLDs (generic top level domains) – here are my thoughts.
- When a client runs a gTLD, there is (IMHO) a high cost (it’s $185k application + $75k/yr).
- What gTLD do you get? .integralblue, .integralblueinc, .ig, etc
- How do you use the gTLD, and tell people it’s a URL they can go to? Right now, if someone sees a string ending in .com, .net, or .org, they know they can enter that in their browser. For example, if I see a billboard that say “go buy stuff! integralblue.com” I know what to do. If I see “go buy stuff! www.integralblue” that’s just confusing. Where’s the .com? Perhaps that should use “http://www.integralblue” as the url? But that looks funny, and I bet users would still be baffled.
- There are a LOT of technical issues with gTLDs. The owner has to run DNS for a TLD, which is not technically trivial – and probably very expensive.
- I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of software has problems with these TLDs (for example, link validity checkers, web crawlers, search engines, web browsers, email clients, etc)
- It’s not clear gTLDs will ever happen. The US government is not happy about it.
