"... today we’re updating the algorithms that display URLs in the search results to better reflect the names of websites, using the real-world name of the site instead of the domain name, and the URL structure of the sites in a breadcrumbs-like format..."--Google, April 16, 2015 (emphasis added)The bad news for ICANN's new gTLDs just keeps piling up. While the domaining-domainer blogosphere was all lit up last week about Google's new search change now rolling out in mobile--the domain name extension (TLD) of the destination URL will not show in the search results--they missed the most important effect of the change: Google just killed the last remaining rationale for new gTLD domain names. Countless promoters, hustlers, speculators and "consultants," have invested their time and treasure in ICANN's new gTLDs based on the premise of the significance and importance of the "right of the dot" word for "branding" purposes! Oops! Never mind--Google is just serving up the website "title" without the TLD ("right of the dot word").
UPDATE: Many are still confused about "what just happened?"--it's called innovation, disintermediation--Google just disintermediated the new gTLDs. Impact on .COM, and ccTLDs? Minimal. They already have dominant "branding" and market share in their respective markets and are the "presumed TLD"--e.g., in the U.S. and global online market, it is a well-known fact that consumers and other users of the Internet will just type the name of the business or website and add .COM when doing direct navigation in a browser or application.
But you believed those new gTLD hucksters when they told you that Google would "ensure" the success of the new gTLDs? That new gTLDs would produce superior SEO results? FALSE. That first year new gTLD registrations would total 33 million or more? FALSE!
Let's add all the above to the other ways that new gTLD domain names have now reportedly failed, including, failing all the most important factors in choosing a domain name extension (top-level domain or "TLD"):
1. New gTLD domain names FAIL to work across the internet and "break stuff" (a/k/a the universal acceptance problem which ICANN has known about since at least 2003);
2. New gTLDs compromise the stability and security of the Internet (a corollary to the above).
3. New gTLD domain names lack pricing predictability--why invest time and money building a website on a new gTLD domain name only to be subject to the possibility of extortionate future price increases for annual registration renewals? Thanks to ICANN, new gTLD registry operators have sole discretion and control for new gTLD domain name pricing, including future increases for registration and renewal fees. A trusted, reliable registry operator with a history, practice, policy and/or requirement of pricing predictability for their TLDs, is a necessary requirement before most prudent registrants will even begin to invest their own hard-earned money in building a website on that TLD! But ICANN, its GNSO, and their "well-paid expert" never thought about that! And these are some of the same people, who, despite the pathetic registration numbers of new gTLDs, are still expecting everyone to start building major websites on these defective, untrustworthy new gTLDS (new generic top-level domains).
[ Note to ICANN: All the above is an example of what happens when you do not have a Registrant Stakeholder Group in ICANN. ]
Add all the above together and there is no doubt that the King was right--ICANN's new gTLD domain names, as a class, are a #FAIL. No wonder new gTLD Registry operators are getting increasingly desperate--giving domain names away for free or selling for only 49 cents each!--which only "trashes" the TLD further, attracting cybersquatters, cyber criminals, and other bad actors.
And to top it all off, Google just delivered the coup de grâce!
Caveat Emptor!
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