Everyone punches in domain names on their keyboards like they aren’t a big deal. .net. .org. co.uk. The oh-so-famous .com. It’s become natural to us now. Something we don’t even think about.
Are there any internet guru’s out there? If you’re nodding right now, the odds suggest that you’ll be all-too-familiar with the fact that a domain name’s spelling can actually considerably influence the performance and ability of a website. Just over a year ago, serial entrepreneur Daniel Negari decided to launch a fresh three-letter version. He called it .xyz – labelling it as the next big thing. His aim was for .xyz to be registered to one million different sites 365 days from launch. He fell about 50,000 short – but it was still an impressive statistic given the incredible amount of backlash he was subjected to when he issued his initial mission statement.
Negari might have done a decent job at convincing website owners that his new domain was a fine solution, but is .xyz really as good as he claims? Truth is, the jury is out. Some are dancing across the internet singing the new domain’s praises, whereas others are tearing Negari’s idea limb from limb.
So is the .xyz domain a big fat phoney? Let’s weight up the evidence and see…
Google Are On Board
Back in August, Google’s associated business Alphabet announced that they were all set to set up shop at abc.xyz. Endorsements don’t get much more comforting than a Google affiliate. Like ‘em or loathe ‘em – it’s pretty safe to say that Google know their way around the internet. If they reckon it’s a good idea, the odds suggest that the ability and potential is very much there…
The Network Solutions Debacle
If your domain name is registered through Network Solutions, you probably got an e-mail earlier in the summer urging you to renew your domain name membership, and fork out for the .xyz domain name that you ordered.
No, you’re not going mad. You didn’t order it all. Network Solutions entered into an agreement to switch the vast majority of their client domain names over to .xyz a while back, and you only get a year’s worth of this domain for free before you need to start coughing up. Pretty sneaky huh?
With .xyz being issued in this manner, some might argue that the capability of the domain is irrelevant. Why bother with the hassle when .com works just fine? Verisign has launched a campaign urging Network Solutions to offer some sort of explanation for their deceptive marketing actions, but there remains a heck of a lot of vague information surrounding the whole debacle. Indeed, being in with the .xyz crowd might not be as cool as you think. On the contrary – it might actually be ripping you off.