As things presently stand, there are about 22 top-level domains (TLDs); such as .com, and .gov. Alongside these, there are the country codes, (CCTLDs), such as .uk , .fr and .cn.
Today though, (January 12 2012), the face of the internet will start to change in its most significant way. This is because today sees “dot brand” begin; the release of any web address suffix.
The largest companies of the world are already waiting to get their applications in, with .cocacola, .microsoft, .barclays and so forth all up for grabs.
We will not see these for some time though, with go live dates not due until 2013. Reports that Boris Johnson wants to buy.london2012 have not been confirmed.
There are fears of wide scale internet fraud in many parts, though ICANN is saying this should not be the case because of the extensive application form and brand name copyright protection terms.
Above everything else though, the $185,000 (near £120,000) purchase fee and $25,000 (£16,000) yearly fee will likely detract most fraudsters..
Time will tell over this of course but for those with jobs in SEO, what it will mean for them is also interesting to understand.
The most notable change will be the presently highly likely immediate ranking of such pages on SERPS, with keywords being part of the URL – although Google said in 2011 that domain importance is to be downgraded within its algorithms. For larger brands, there will not be a sizable change, as branded TLDs already rank highly.
If the new sites are going to be the main portal, there will be the usual problems with migration but, all in all, SEO is, as always, set to change again.
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