Domain Name Extensions You Never Knew Existed

October 9, 2023 / Web Hosting

Domain-Name

For most of the internet’s existence, domain name extensions (the letters after the dot) have been restricted in choice. There were those associated with different countries (co.uk, .fr, .de, etc.) and then there were those that were associated with types of organisations (.com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, etc.). More recently, the organisation that governs domains, ICANN, has started to introduce a wide range of new domain name extensions, some of which you might never have heard about. So, if you are looking for the perfect domain name for your website, here we take a look at what’s now on offer.  

Domains for different professions

If your business delivers a specific type of professional service, it can be hard to include what that service is in your domain name without making the domain too long. Today, however, that can be solved with a professional domain extension. So, if your business is called Smith and Jones and you are accountants, instead of having smithandjonesaccountants.co.uk, you can now have smithandjones.accountants as your domain name.  

There are professional domains for accountants, builders, caterers, cleaners, designers, lawyers, marketing agencies, photographers and many more.

Major city domains

While there have always been domains for specific countries, ICANN is now beginning to increase the number of domain names available for specific major cities. This is ideal if you want your location to be a key part of your website address. Although still limited, they now include .london, .amsterdam, .paris, .brussels, .berlin, .nyc and more.

Entertainment domains

If you run an entertainment venue, you now have the chance to include the type of venue you run in your domain name. This sector offers some of the widest choices of domains too, including .bar, .bingo, .beer, .cafe, .club, .dance, .gallery, .menu, .pizza, .pub and .restaurant.

There are also domains for people who work in the entertainment industry and are using their website addresses to attract work or make themselves easier to spot from websites with similar names. These include, .band, .actor, .studio, .hiphop and .equipment.

Domain Name

Retail

With so much online retail competition, it is important that searchers clearly know the type of retail business you are. Domains relating to retail form one of the largest groups now available for use. These include .auction, .bargains, .cheap, .best, .blackfriday, .boutique, .christmas, .clothing, .diamonds, .discount, .fashion, .flowers and many more.

Healthcare domains

Whether you’re an individual, organization, or business supplying healthcare services or products, you can now make this clearer to search engines and online searchers through your choice of domain name. To date, those that ICANN has authorised for use include .care, .clinic, .dental, .dentist, .healthcare, .physio, and .surgery.

Travel

For companies in the travel industry, it is important to let your prospective customers know what area of the industry you are in and if there is something in which you specialise. Today, you can do this in your actual website address thanks to the number of travel-related domains available. These include .world, .voyage, .villas, .vacations, .tours, .travel, .holiday, .guide, .flights, .cruises, .coach,  and .city. There are also domains for specific places besides major cities, including for Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and even islands like Corsica.

Sports domains

There are an awful lot of sports and many different types of organisations, businesses and individuals working within them. Making it clear to internet searchers which sport you are involved in or what service you offer can help ensure the right people get to your website. Thanks to the ICANN updates, there are a lot of sports domains to choose from. These include .bike, .cricket, .fishing, .fitness, .football, .golf, .hockey, .ninja, .racing, .run, .surf and .tennis.

Social and community domains

Enabling organisations that play important roles within society and local communities to be found easier on the internet seems a clear part of ICANN’s domain expansion, given the number of related domains now available. These include .support, .social, .report, .rehab, .rent, .ngo, .memorial, .lgbt, .help, .green, .family, .faith, .earth, .community, .church, .care and .careers.

Finance domains

Everyone needs to make use of financial services and millions of people search for them every day. However, with so much competition for customers, it is important that searchers see businesses as relevant to their needs. Including a finance term in your domain extension is now possible and these are some of the domains you can choose from: .accountant, .capital, .cash, .claims, .credit, .creditcard, .exchange, .finance, .fund, .insure, .investments, .loans and .money.

Conclusion

Having a more relevant domain name can help you attract more customers and make it easier for internet searchers to ensure they are clicking on the right links. It’s one of the reasons Go Compare changed its domain from gocompare.com to the much simpler go.compare. Today, you can choose a far more relevant domain for your website and at Webhosting UK, we have over 40 pages of new domains for you to search through, including those above and others from many more categories.

For more information and to search for a domain, visit our Domains Page.

Author

  • Niraj Chhajed

    I'm a SEO and SMM Specialist with a passion for sharing insights on website hosting, development, and technology to help businesses thrive online.

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