Web users 'less reliant on generic domain names'

10/09/2008

Internet users do not rely on generic domain names as a way of getting around the web as much as they used to, an expert has said.

According to John Dunn, editor of Techworld, businesses embarking on a new website design project may do well to consider using brand names as a domain name rather than generic terms as a result of the rise of search engines.

He stated: "There was a time where [browsing] was driven by generic terms, but now people use search.

"For example, if people want to find a car, they will go online and put some brand names in. So car.com wouldn't [necessarily] get you any more hits."

In fact, businesses may do well to concentrate on keeping up with new domains that get added to the internet as they may need to invest money in retaining those with their own company and brand names to fend off cybersquatters, Mr Dunn said.

Companies will soon be able to create their own domain names using almost any name or term they desire after the approval of new plans to expand the number of top-level domains available by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.