1.9: What Domain Investors Must Know About TLDs. Which you should buy (and should avoid)

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Segment 1: The different types of Top Level Domains

In this article I reviewed how the DNS system works, but I also reviewed all 5 types of TLDs:

• Generic TLD (gTLD) - .com, .org, .net, .gov, .mil, .edu AND all the new gTLDs like .web, .online
• Country Code TLD (ccTLD) - .io, .co
• Internationalized (IDN) ccTLD – .co.uk, .com.au
• Infrastructure TLD - .arpa, all reserved
• Historical TLDs – no longer exists, such as .yu for former soviet block country Yugoslavia.

Segment 2: Which of the “new” TLDs should domain investors buy?

• Country codes – outside of the U.S., the ccTLD is often the primary TLD. Great examples are .de, .ca (which doesn’t charge sales tax to purchases from the US)
• Startups: .co (Columbia), .io (Indian Ocean), .ai (Anguilla) – Artificial Intelligence

HOT TLDs for the future

• So brand new you haven’t heard of them: Alvin Brown interviewed Morgan Linton who educated me about .gg TLDs. You can listen to his podcast and interview here.
  • Here's Alvin's interview with Peter Askew that I mentioned was really good!

Just My Opinion (take this with a grain of salt)

• I think the geo TLDs (.boston, .ny, .miami, .la) are going to be huge in the future for local businesses and government entities. Like .com, this is about real estate – there’s only one in each local.
• .club – many private uses for .club, and I think there is great leadership behind this TLD. HOAs, other public and private clubs.
• .tech – great for tech-only companies, who’s end user’s are primarily technical people in nature.
• .global – notice these catching on for international companies a bit (namescon.global)
• .org – with the recent shakeup of Public Interest Registry, I think this we need to monitor the TLD – it certainly could go down (but it’s already little brother to .com) – so I see a big upside for investors right now.

Any tld that operates primarily outside the US won’t be a money maker for a long time. I’m going to focus investing in TLDs that US users will adopt, since US users are the people who spend money online, plain and simple.

Final word on new TLDs: for most of the “new” gTLDs, only buy ones that are one-word dictionary words, these will be the highest value sooner. Also, there’s some luck in this – the next generation will dictate their usage, and much of that is unknown.

Segment 3: new TLDs to avoid

• Any TLDs that have plural/singular like .auto and .autos
• Any TLD with “special requirements” like “must live in (insert country here, unless you live there)” or .bank (where you must be a bank)
• .biz, .info, .tv – I know there’s been some buzz around .tv – but in a generation, people won’t even know what broadcast television is, and the use of “cable tv” is declining world wide. Industry is being redefined, seems to me like it’s on the way out.

I can see a future where security is a big concern, and TLDs are locked down to “verified companies” (more like .bank).