For years (pre-2013) thinking of the best domain name to represent our blog, company, brand, or any site was our only concern. As more of the world moves to the Web and things start to feel a little crowded, we now have more options to consider when deciding which domain extension is the best for our site as well.
As the world moves further away from the oversaturated ‘.com’ extension, we see more companies move towards industry-specific domain extensions — especially in the tech world. This is due to the scarcity of short, unique domains for decent prices.
Therefore, when starting a tech site, it’s important to know the right extension to pick. Here we’ll discuss the top tech domain extensions and their uses.
First, when choosing a domain extension, there’s a couple of criteria to consider:
- Availability – the odds of domain.com being available are pretty low, but you’re much more likely to score with domain.ly
- Affordability – even if domain.com was available, it would cost you your first five years of revenue to pay for it, unlike something like domain.ai.
- Meaningfulness – you need something your users can remember any time, like my.tech.
- Searchability – let’s be honest, this one is huge because it affects search rankings, which then affect profit.
- Brandability – in a saturated market, a brand message is important. You need a domain to match that, there’s no way around that.
.AI
The .ai domain extension began as a ccTLD for the country of Anguilla but was quickly adopted by the tech community due to it being the acronym for artificial intelligence. This extension has become especially popular in the last few years. For a while, the term “cloud” was the “it” word in tech, now everywhere you go, it’s all about artificial intelligence.
The .ai extension is currently the 11th most likable ccTLD used in North America today. Unlike some other ccTLDs, both individuals and organizations are allowed to register for .ai domain without any additional requirements. Due to the recent explosion of this domain extension, domainers are buying up a lot of the popular keywords for it. Thankfully, you can still get a decently priced ‘.ai’ domain from registrars like 101domain.
.IO
The .io domain extension began as a country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) in 1997 for the British Indian Ocean Territory. It made its long jump from the Indian Ocean to the West because of tech gurus who said it could stand for “Input/Output.” Soon after, ‘.io’ started to gain traction as a recognizable domain extension in the tech world for startups and app developers.
Today, .io is the most accepted extension used by both startups and businesses. It’s especially popular for apps, software, and tech blogs.
.LY
The .ly domain extension has been popular for a while. It began as the ccTLD for the country of Lybia and was adopted by the tech world years ago. It was made popular by sites like bit.ly, and embed.ly.
Following its popularity, the ‘.ly domain has gone up and down and there are mixed feelings about the extension. Since the country of Lybia owns it, it’s not required to offer anonymous registration, on top of the fact that it is more pricey than some other extensions.
.TECH
Lastly, .tech has really boomed over the past few years in the tech industry. While it hasn’t been around as long, .tech is the new kid on the block increasing in popularity. It began as a gTLD and developed specifically for the tech industry.
One of the primary reasons for its growth is because of its clear association with the tech industry. Using a .tech domain builds credibility and are often considered forerunners in the tech industry.
Currently, .tech is increasing in its popularity with close to five million domains registered to date.
Now over to you
What’s your favorite domain extension for a tech company? Why? Please share your insights with us!