You’ve come across domain name extensions many times before, maybe without even knowing it. Also known as a Top Level Domain (TLD), these are the .com, .ca, .us, .biz,… etc. part of a domain name. While many might just pay attention to the unique part of a domain name, it’s important for webmasters to know what domain name extensions are, and how to use this knowledge to their advantage.
Categories
According to Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, there are certain categories of extensions.
Generic
If you have an opportunity to grab your unique domain name with a .com extension, do it! Most people will assume your website is at a .com extension, so that is one surefire way to maximize traffic potential to your site.
- .biz might be a good one for businesses. Named after the hip way to refer to “business,” the .biz extension is reserved for those intending to use their website for business or commercial use.
- .org (from “organization”). It’s an old one and a good one. This one’s most popular with non-profits, schools and communities, but is gaining popularity with for-profit organizations as well.
Other generic top level domains include .net, .info and more.
Country-Code
You might have to fulfill certain requirements in order to acquire one of these bad boys. For example, for .us or .ca, you might need to be a resident or own an office in that particular country.
Other country-code domain extensions include .tv, .eu and more.
There are also sponsored and test domain extensions, which you can read more about at iana.org.
Why is it important to think about domain extensions?
Several reasons:
- Find out which extensions are right for your company.
- Consider which extensions your clients would be drawn to.
- Think about how many domain extensions you should snatch up to increase the amount of visitors to our site.
With all these different domain extensions, it would probably be wise to purchase more than one. This can help to increase your site traffic OR to create sites with unique content in the most economical way possible. In our next article, we’ll differentiate between parked domains and domain add-ons, so get ready!