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How to Get the Most Value out of the New TLDs.
By Michelle Roy
Expiry.com Staff Writer
August 2001

Like it or not, seven new general Top Level Domains are preparing to infiltrate the Internet. Although many consumers see these new suffixes as being just another scheme to keep the domain name gold rush around a lot longer, their value may never be measured in dollars the way the .com is.

We cannot ignore the new TLDs. Granted, many people will be rushing to their computers the day the new TLDs are launched. They'll be trying to get the "hot" names such as business.biz (because business.com sold for $7,500,000). However, it is predicted that generic domain names in the new TLDs will not garner the type of money or prestige that comes with dot.com. 

These new TLDs, however, will still bring value to your business. 

Don't Rely on A New TLD To Be Your Main Address For Your Website
Unless your business is solely Internet related and you can secure a catchy generic name under one of the new TLDs, your primary Internet address should always be a dot.com. Why? People (a.k.a. consumers) are already familiar with the dot.com. Whether we know it or not, when we hear "somesortofbusiness.com" we relate that site to the Internet automatically and equate that site with an element of prestige and familiarity. Our brains are already programmed to search the Internet without search engines by adding ".com" to whatever we may happen to be looking for. For example, if I was trying to find an Internet Site for the rock group Matchbox 20, before I even attempted using a search engine I would type "matchbox20.com" in the address box of my Internet browser. If the rock group didn't have a website at this address, they would be losing a lot of Internet traffic.

Register A Select Few New Top Level Domain Names
Don't go crazy registering every name you can think of in all the new suffixes (and beware, many of the new suffixes have strict registration requirements which will inhibit the domain name registration hogs from cybersquatting and mass registering). Instead, think about which suffix best suits your business, organization, hobbies, or personal life. Then, match that top-level domain with the name of your business etc.

.biz is strictly for businesses
.info is unrestricted
.name is for personal names
.pro is for professionals and professional firms
.museum is for museums
.aero is for the air industry
.coop is for cooperatives

Use the New TLDs to Generate More Traffic to Your Website
One of the greatest tools on the Internet is something called URL Forwarding. With URL Forwarding you can point an unlimited amount of domain names to one website (like call forwarding on a telephone) or pages within a website. URL Forwarding can help your website receive more traffic. For example, our business is called Expiry Corporation (DBA expiry.com) and our website address is expiry.com. Expiry.com will always be our main web address and will always be our main branding tool. But, some of the new TLDs will be of use to our company. We could register expiry.biz or expirycorporation.biz and direct this URL to expiry.com. Or we could forward expirycorporation.biz to a page within our site that is directly related to us as a business. We could then advertise, "for more information on our business, please visit expirycorporation.biz" allowing visitors to be taken directly to a page within our website (instead of advertising, for example, expiry.com/business.htm). 
It would also be advantageous for us to register a domain name such as expirynews.info or expiry.info and direct this domain name to a page within our site that is devoted to informative content such as our newsletter. Advertising expirynews.info is much easier than advertising expiry.com/newsletter.htm.
By using URL Forwarding, you can make these new top-level domain names work well within your already existing website. 

Help the Search Engines Help You
By URL Forwarding new top level domain names to your already existing dot.com website, then by listing these new top level domains in search engines, you can increase your website's ranking in search engines. 
One of the advantages with the new top-level domains is that they will make search engines easier to use. Search engines will learn to segregate web sites according to what they do by the domain name suffix. This way, when you want to search for information on cars you will be taken to sites with information on cars, not sites wanting to sell you cars. By taking advantage of the new TLDs and then forwarding them to specific pages within your site, the search engines will be able to better identify your site and your pages.

With all the hype about the new TLDs, it is important to register wisely and use the new domain suffixes to your full advantage.  But do not leave your dot.com name behind.  The dot.com suffix will always be the most advantageous to your business and your website.  Work the new TLDs around your dot.com (or hurry up and register a dot com because this suffix will always be the most valuable to your business), don’t work your dot.com around the new TLDs. 

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