This blog post seeks to look at what domain names are, what they signify for businesses and to look at how their use has evolved throughout the years.
What Are Domain Names?
Domain names are the part of a network address which identifies it as belonging to a particular domain. Premium names are shorter, more valuable and memorable than other domains of their kind, so the registry offers them at a higher price than the standard registration fee.
Casalicchio et al, (2013) discuss how the domain name system constitutes the hidden backbone of the Internet. Without it's services almost all the applications making use of the public network would not be able to operate in an efficient manner. This is the main advantage from an infrastructure point of view.
The importance of domain names has tended to be up and down in a cyclical trend with a study in the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal (2001) stating that domains were in great demand throughout the booming technology market of the late 1990's, sadly they were no longer fetching the prices that were estimated in the 2000's. A decline in value of domain names was thought to represent a permanent state of affairs, yet this decade and the introduction of region specific domains and the popularity that they have gathered shows how it is changed again.
How Can Domain Names Be Utilised?
Financial Times (2003) discuss the advantages of using specific domain names for companies. Sita proposed airlines to register all of their flight numbers as individual internet sites. Advantages of this would be that air travellers can have direct access to their flights too individually register and book and make changes. The more positives that the company can give to their customers and more direct access the better.
Companies that are based in London could use the new domain name as a marketing tool almost. For instance www.TheShard.London could be quite effective for Shard. There would be a problem though for large corporations that are in other cities such as www.Mcdonalds.London - considering London is one of the first cities to have this premium domain name it may be quite a tall order for companies and for registrars to give every single city their own domain name and it would take away the premium.
Shockingly, over a third of UK SMEs still do not have a website, and just a third are selling goods and services online. Is 4 Profit (2014) Even more alarmingly, only half of businesses and charities in the UK have an online portal. This showcases the fact that although domain names are out there, some companies do not even have a website let alone are concerned about the website they can go too.
Are you a company without a domain name and website?
If you are a company looking to buy a domain name and create a website for your business then a website to buy domain names including the new .London domain is: https://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/
References
Cambridge, M (2014) 'LONDON Now Available at United Domains' Digital Journal 14th May 2014 [Online] <http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1916147> [Accessed 2 May 2014]
Casalicchio, E., Caselli, M & Coletta, A. (2013), 'Measuring the Global Domain Name System' [Online] Vol 27 (Issue 1) Available at <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/xpl/abstractAuthors.jsp?arnumber=6423188&tag=1> [Accessed 1 June 2014]
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