Every time new top-level domains arrive, the same two predictions follow. One says the established extensions will lose their premium as buyers spread across the new ones. The other says the new extensions will be ignored. Neither has held up particularly well.
What tends to happen
New extensions add choice at the edges. A company that cannot get the exact match it wants may take a name in an extension that suits its sector. That choice puts a ceiling on what some buyers will pay for a mediocre name in an established extension.
At the top of the market the effect has generally run the other way. Clear, short, generic names in the most familiar extensions remain the default customers type, and the existence of alternatives tends to underline that rather than erode it.
More extensions make good names more distinctive, not less.
Defensive registrations
For brand owners, each new extension raises the question of whether to register the brand in it. The honest answer is that very few are worth it. A sensible policy registers the brand where confusion or abuse is likely, in extensions tied to the company's sector or markets, and relies on monitoring for the rest.
- Register where customers might reasonably look for you.
- Register where an impersonator could do real harm, such as extensions associated with payments or security.
- Watch everywhere else, and act on actual abuse rather than theoretical abuse.
Trademark owners can also record their marks with the clearinghouse most new extensions consult during launch, which brings notice and early access when a matching name becomes available.
For portfolio holders
Investors should resist the instinct to register widely in every extension that launches. Most of the value in a new extension goes to the handful of names that fit it obviously, and to the registry itself. Buy the names that make sense on their own, not because they echo something you already own.
