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Less and less do I find myself typing in a URL, as opposed to clicking a link (via a DDG search or in an email etc). So I think it's fair to make a comparison t

Less and less do I find myself typing in a URL, as opposed to clicking a link (via a DDG search or in an email etc). So I think it's fair to make a comparison to phone numbers - I know mine, my wife's, and the one I had as a kid growing up. I couldn't tell you my new home phone number if my life depended on it. No doubt there will continue to be some confusion for a period (just ask the owners of www.utube.com). But as a URL becomes a link, as opposed to a discrete string of letters needing to be remembered, it will become less important. Interestingly, this will obviously reduce the value of the TLDs and specific URLs (though not entirely, because they will have some relevance to SEO).

rectangletangle 13y ago
I disagree, a domain name is part of a company's brand. Having it be short and memorable (so it can easily be recalled and searched for later), is an important part of brand recognition.
karangoeluw 13y ago
So domains don't matter anymore (or won't in foreseeable future)?
- JacobAldridge 13y ago
  They will matter less - just like businesses used to pay a premium for a "memorable" phone number. There will, for the foreseeable future, be benefits - some memorability, especially while ".com" remains the "only" TLD for most people, and also SEO benefits (I suspect example.com will rank higher than example.tips, all other things being equal). But over the next few years (and it may be 5-10), as people get used to a wide variety of TLDs, I expect businesses to start taking advantage of the new real estate. I doubt many average consumers could explain the difference between tips.example.com and example.tips, especially if it's a trusted link rather than a URL on a tv advert. So Example LLC, faced with a 5-figure price to secure their .com or a 2-3 figure price to secure a different TLD will surely begin taking the lower cost option. And I suspect this will become a virtuous cycle away from .com's ubiquity[1]. [1] The next question is why .biz etc didn't work. I would likely have made this prediction ten years ago, and been wrong, though shrinking availability of .coms makes it more likely now.
- downplay 13y ago
  They have application in URIs. And there is a matter of building trust relationships through them. The domain alone isn't enough to do that. I tend to lean on search engines to affirm the genuineness of a domain. Domain names provide an abstraction in that you can hide web services behind them with routing, ports and protocols. Personally I'd rather something like the Star Trek computer interface and not care about domain names and urls. Me: Computer, surmise the article by Foo Bar about Such and Such please. If ambiguities were presented the computer would interrogate me to help filter them. The computer being the interface abstracting away how and where the info came from. Unless I asked of course! This isn't a million miles away from a modern search engine, it's just I have to do further filtering/querying.

rectangletangle 13y ago

I disagree, a domain name is part of a company's brand. Having it be short and memorable (so it can easily be recalled and searched for later), is an important part of brand recognition.

karangoeluw 13y ago

So domains don't matter anymore (or won't in foreseeable future)?

JacobAldridge 13y ago
They will matter less - just like businesses used to pay a premium for a "memorable" phone number. There will, for the foreseeable future, be benefits - some memorability, especially while ".com" remains the "only" TLD for most people, and also SEO benefits (I suspect example.com will rank higher than example.tips, all other things being equal). But over the next few years (and it may be 5-10), as people get used to a wide variety of TLDs, I expect businesses to start taking advantage of the new real estate. I doubt many average consumers could explain the difference between tips.example.com and example.tips, especially if it's a trusted link rather than a URL on a tv advert. So Example LLC, faced with a 5-figure price to secure their .com or a 2-3 figure price to secure a different TLD will surely begin taking the lower cost option. And I suspect this will become a virtuous cycle away from .com's ubiquity[1]. [1] The next question is why .biz etc didn't work. I would likely have made this prediction ten years ago, and been wrong, though shrinking availability of .coms makes it more likely now.
downplay 13y ago
They have application in URIs. And there is a matter of building trust relationships through them. The domain alone isn't enough to do that. I tend to lean on search engines to affirm the genuineness of a domain. Domain names provide an abstraction in that you can hide web services behind them with routing, ports and protocols. Personally I'd rather something like the Star Trek computer interface and not care about domain names and urls. Me: Computer, surmise the article by Foo Bar about Such and Such please. If ambiguities were presented the computer would interrogate me to help filter them. The computer being the interface abstracting away how and where the info came from. Unless I asked of course! This isn't a million miles away from a modern search engine, it's just I have to do further filtering/querying.