The 2014 Cyber Land Rush

Land Rush on New Domain Extensions – 2014

It’s a new age for a new land rush, as ICANN has authorized a long list of new global domain name extensions for public consumption.

Recently, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), has released a whole bunch of new gTLD (global Top Level Domain) extensions to the general public.  Most of these have been out for a little while, but I have been so busy that I didn’t have time to post.  There will be a whole bunch more to follow these, as well.  So we still are just around almost halfway through the release of this new variety of extensions.

Obviously some great names are gone.  Lots of domainers often automate the task of registering the names they want.  I personally think that some domainers (who are much better off than I) go a bit overboard because they can afford to.  You aren’t going to sell domains on a regular basis unless you have a large stock of generic names, though.

Still, I believe that the .com extension will win out as the best domain name extension to have in the US simply for a long time yet, because people here aren’t used to using anything else.  As United States citizens, we don’t even bother to register .US versions of our own beloved brands much of the time.  To me, that is a huge oversight.

But I did manage to grab a few myself, including…

• motorcyclist.club
• device.tools
• handheld.tools
  and to strengthen my brands:
• hostmaster.domains
  (to back-up our www sub domain and name)
• premiumbrand.domains
  and
• sitename.domains
  (because I can’t have “site.domains” even though my Trademark is Site Domains, and I have  sitedomains.com, sitedomains.us, sitedomainnames.com, sitedomainnames.us and sitedn.com protecting it, but certain ‘generic’ words are unavailable – which seems unfair when it is my TM and I have the .com as well as most of the other extensions).

There are some good ones out there, I’m planning on getting more, but I am actually scrambling to protect my current brands.  The new domains are a bit more expensive, so we have to be selective.  But this land rush seems to be

The new list of extensions supposedly allows everyone a chance of getting a good domain name.  It would be just too hard for all the domainers to snap every good name up, but be sure that most of the generics are gone.  That’s just a fact of life in this day and age.

Some of the generic names just aren’t even available.  As I mention above, site.domains isn’t available to anyone, even though I have personally created the Site Domains Trademark and built a great brand behind it.  What is crazy to me is that everyone in the domainer community shunned me for grabbing sitedomains.com, saying that it wasn’t very good, catchy or short enough.  But now I supposedly can’t register the .domains version and capitalize on my investment?

So, the rules are a little different with this new flood of gTLD (global Top Level Domain) extensions.  The real benefactor in the short run, is ICANN, who is cashing in on already established brands while we little guys try to protect our brands.  After all, it only takes a nut to grab an extension and deface the brand in order to build any notoriety and ill-will directed squarely at the brand.

The new list of available extensions is actually quite long and adding them all to the drop down extensions menu would make that search utility less effective.  So the best thing to do is, in the registration search field, enter the domain name, a dot (period) and then extension that you wanted to check.  It is probably a the easiest to do it, and more self explanatory, from the shop.domainhostmaster.com subdomain of Domain Hostmaster, though.

I’ll be adding info on the new extensions into the http://www.domainhostmaster.com section soon, under a new gTLD  directory (www.domainhostmaster.com/new-gtld/) as soon as possible (I have been working a great deal, lately).

Here is the current list of the new extensions ready for registration at Domain Hostmaster: 

New Extensions List

.camera
.media
.photos
.photography
.pictures
.exposed
.graphics
.gallery
.webcam
.productions
.lighting

.exchange
.trade
.bargains
.cheap

.computer
.support
.systems
.domains
.directory
.club
.bar
.pub
.social
.buzz
.email
.zone
.cool
.dating
.singles

.bike
.watch
.diamonds
.glass
.parts
.toys

.works
.agency
.company
.associates
.partners
.enterprises
.industries
.international
.foundation
.holdings
.ventures
.capital
.estate
.land
.lease
.house
.condos
.villas
.farm
.properties
.management
.careers
.marketing
.consulting
.guru
.expert
.engineering
.services
.solutions
.technology
.equipment
.supply
.supplies
.tools

.training
.education
.academy
.university
.institute
.community
.center
.town
.events
.tips
.reviews
.report
.today
.wiki

.holiday
.vacations
.voyage
.cruises
.flights

.glass
.coffee
.vision
.solar
.democrat
.catering
.cleaning
.florist
.ninja
.camp
.rest
.fish
.recipes
.rentals
.clothing
.kitchen
.plumbing
.contractors
.construction
.builders
.limo
.cab
.shoes
.dance
.cards
.bid
.ink
.uno
.gripe
.xyz
.futbol
.maison
.tienda
.viajes
.immobilien
.kaufen
.reisen
.moda

I’ll follow-up later, I am still very busy.  But there will be many more added soon, ICANN has a lot of new ones coming.

Remember that if you decide to do business with me at Domain Hostmaster, it will be highly appreciated!   😉   Plus, we quite honestly do offer the best prices around, the best management control panels, the best servers and network operations center available (on several continents), and the best support staff in the industry.

Thanks so much.   Have fun domaining!

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Autos and Automotive Article Sites

Autos and Automotive Trademark Logo

I’ve setup a few blog websites to protect one of my brands, Autos and Automotive, which is a Trademark that I’ve been planning on developing for some time. Getting the right products (or services) to base an full-blown e-commerce website on the name has proven difficult, though.  To that note, please get a hold of me if you have a great automotive product for me to promote.  I was looking to establish a full automotive shop presence originally, but have since adjusted my plans.

The domain names I have activated are:

• AutosAndAutomotive.com
• Autos-Automotive.com
• AutosAutomotive.com

I had eventually expected to setup an automotive classifieds website on these domain names that I have reserved to protect my Trademarked name, Autos and Automotive.  There I would allow anyone to post their car/truck/cycle for sale and promote some high performance and economic fuel efficient products.

Although I have enough of a small collection of cars and trucks for sale within my own family to start such an endeavour,  it always takes a considerable investment of time and resources to establish such a serious site, keep it secure, administrate and promote it.

Therefore, I had anticipated partnering up with some interested automotive advertisers in advance in order to support the considerable time investment I would have to make in designing, hosting, administering and promoting the website just to get started.

Unfortunately, as I have so many projects going on, it seems that I cannot take the time to develop the professional business presence that I am interested in, at the moment.  I’m afraid I would have to hire an employee or two and that just isn’t a possibility as I am still working out out of my home office.

So, in the interest of getting some automotive traffic which I could build on in the future, I have configured these domains to show auto and automotive related articles through SEOParking.com.  SEOParking uses WordPress to post publicly reprintable articles from its database.   I have used this service before with great results on several other of my domains.

SEO Parking is a little spammy, as they will post their own links on your domain.  However, they have promissed to allow parkers to subscribe to the service through a premium channel so that those interested in paying the hosting fee will not show the SEOParking links.  That is why I am, for the first time, actually recomending this service.  I look quite forward to getting some of those spammy links off of my website.

One word of caution about SEOParking is that if they should fail to provide the premium service I will definitely have to move all of my domain names away from them and do the same type of thing on my own.  But the staff at SEO Parking has been great with support so far and they have not broken any of their promises, either.  So I am actually quite confident that this service will work out well for me in the long run.

I was a little disappointed when the strange links started showing up on some of my domains at the beginning of the month, but obviously they have to make some money somehow.  However, I originally thought that they were looking to expand their distribution network for their articles database and I was simply fortunate enough to find them.

I just hope they don’t price themselves out of the market.  I can afterall, get full featured multiple domain web hosting (with my own free WordPress) through any one of my web hosting solutions such as Domain Hostmaster, HD Web Hosting, Apache Website Host, Site Host Pros or F1 Hosting Networks for way less than $9.00/month.  Not to mention that the competition won’t be much more than $10.00/month for nearly as good of a feature set.

I kind of wonder if anyone hasn’t developed an add-on module for WordPress so that we can do all this ourselves, already.   Shout at me if you have ever seen an automatic article poster that will post so many articles per day/week/month based on a set of keyword phrases.  I’d love to know about it, it would save me that monthly fee at SEOparking.com.  😉

But at least the Autos and Automotive Trademark is up, active and protected again.  I really do have some interesting plans for the brand once this economy turns around.

Yes, I am a domainer, but I have very special interest in this name (and the domains I am using to protect that name).  If all goes well, this will be one of those domains that I have the opportunity to develop myself, not simply sell for a small profit.  Because despite the troubles of our auto makers, this really is a time when the automotive industry is retooling for the new challenges ahead.   It was their lack of vision and their inability to embrace new technology that has grounded them in the past and hung them out to dry.  If they understand that, and learn something from that lesson, they may well make it.

Exactly who will make it in the auto industry is unclear.  I would bet on Tesla, if I could.

Unfortunately, I have been squashed by the corrupted powers that be as well, as no one is really actively developing or reinventing brands, (re)designing their websites, advertising, or marketing like they should.    That is a real big problem for a web designer, which is what I am.   And the real problem is that now is the time to advertise.  Now is the time to hire while you have a large pool of talent from which to choose the cream of the crop.  And the people who cannot will not recover as quickly when the economy does start turning around.  It is a shame.

Maybe once this depression is over, I will be able to develop Autos & Automotive.  I certainly hope so.

Autos & Automotive Trademark Logo

You might be able to tell from this second banner that I have decided to protect both versions of the name… Autos and Automotive as well as Autos & Automotive.  It’s kind of the same princible as grabbing a few versions of the domain name so that no one else can try to steal the brand away and declare its theirs.  Afterall, I don’t want to lose them and we do want to be ready for anything in the way of future trends, branding and marketing.