From 2012, ICANN began to accept a huge number of applications that led to the dramatic expansion of domains. As of August 2017, thousands of new TLDs were available, making it easy for small business owners and individuals to discover their dream domain names.
Due to the fact that .com has been around almost 30 years, many valuable domain names have already been taken and registered.
Recent extensions allow you to be more adventurous since one-word domain names are available once again. These new TLDs are being used in unique and unexpected ways.
The new gTLDs include domain extensions in different languages including Chinese, Arabic and those based on the Cyrillic alphabet such as Russian.
The .tech gTLD is the all-rounder for tech companies and startups while .shop is a nice fit for anyone interested in owning an online store.
If you own a business, a .biz might be the ideal choice. This gTLD earnt itself a bad reputation because it was introduced so early and became associated with spam sites. These days it’s considered as a viable backup gTLD.
The .club extension was a surprise hit and one of the most successful gTLDs, with over 1 million registered domains. Consider the number of leagues, organizations, nightclubs, and hobbyists this is a natural fit for.
Manufacturers and printers have also jumped on the new appendages with the introduction of industry-specific gTLDs such as .cards and .bike. Even the niche tattoo industry has a complimentary extension with .ink.
Creative industries have plenty to choose from such as .live, .photography, and .music.
Brand TLDs are on the rise. Big names across many industries like Amazon, Axa, Barclays, BMW, Canon, Google, and many others have applied for a brand-specific extension.
With the introduction of industry-specific gTLDs, site owners called for a similar gTLD available for adult websites. As a response to the interest in this field, .xxx, .sex, and .adult were considered until .xxx went live in 2011.
Interested in finding out who owns a domain? It’s easy to discover site owners when you use our useful Whois Lookup Tool.