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Ask HN: Why did The Guardian let go of the gu.com domain?
As many other Guardian readers (I believe), I have used gu.com for a long time to reach the front page. Since some time back this URL started to end up in a 404 error page (with a link to the proper front page). And since just a few days ago, the URL goes to a domain selling page: "Offers invited above $2.5m".
I guess Guardian must be the seller? Why are they doing this? I understand that a two letter com domain is a valuable asset, but $2.5m? By doing this they are breaking millions of links. Are they in such desperate need for cash?
- dazc 4y ago> I guess Guardian must be the seller? Not likely but oh the irony? Maybe it just expired and no one realised the value of a two-letter .com?
- FatalLogic 4y agoarchive.org and domain records appear that it didn't expire and that they deliberately stopped using it a few days ago they purchased it late 2000
- FatalLogic 4y ago>By doing this they are breaking millions of links But are they? I don't know how to search for pages that link to gu.com because the Google link: prefix doesn't work anymore, but up until a few days ago the gu.com domain appears to have been used to immediately redirect to the main theguardian.com site. Perhaps it was rare for users to post a gu.com link because they would copy whatever was in their browser address bar, which would not be a gu.com address after the instant redirect? With browsers all now doing 'smart' URL searches from the address bar, and autocompleting domain names, maybe this shows that a short domain is not as valuable as it used to be? Particularly for a company like The Guardian which is already well known at its normal longer domain name That could mean the domain is much more valuable to another company than it was to the Guardian, so it might be smart for them to sell it? Maybe they just couldn't find a way to monetize it that was worth more than $2.5 mil for them? As time goes by, maybe the domain was in fact getting less valuable? It would be interesting to know how much The Guardian originally paid for gu.com Very interesting anyway, thanks for posting this!
- vodou 4y agoI think it works: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:gu.com https://www.google.com/search?q=site:gu.com That gives me 1,150,000 hits. A search for "gu.com" on Hacker News gives just one page of results, though.
- FatalLogic 4y agoI don't know. Yes, Google indexed many gu.com site hits, so then I believe there must have been a link to those pages somewhere and sometime which the Google crawler found. But searching for those short gu.com URLs now shows no external page hits on Google. (try searching for "gu.com/p/3menc" or "gu.com/p/cqekc" for instance)
- ananiochita 4y agoGU would love to buy it, I suppose. https://www.gu-global.com/jp/ja/ https://www.gu-global.com/jp/ja/
- gsej 4y agoI confess, I read the guardian website regularly, click through the annoying links which tell me I should really donate. I also buy the newspaper, so I think I've already paid. Never heard of gu.com though. Guardian UK I guess?