7 Bold Tips How To Choose A Domain Extension That Grabs Attention

Your website's domain name is pretty much like the first date - it's all about the impression. Here's how to be creative with your domain name and extensions, so people would know it’s a match.

1. .XYZ Is The New .COM

Extension .xyz was first introduced in 2014. More than 1.5 million domains appeared with this extension within the first year. There are guesses that it got this popular because Google used it for Alphabet Inc. address – abc.xyz. .xyz is one of the most popular alternative domains according to web hosting provider and domains registrar Hostinger.

Google used it as an alphabetical reference, but it works with math as well. A $150 million fund created by MIT has a domain engine.xyz. XYZ also stands for three dimensions, so this extension is great for 3D content. For example, Elsewhere makes 3D videos and screens, and their domain is elsewhere.xyz. 

2. Build A Community With .CLUB

If your website is for a community, you can state that in your domain name. Extension .club is an excellent way to do that. For those who already have word club in their name, it’s a piece of cake. For example, Overlake golf club website address is overlake.club. 

One of India's biggest fitness promoters Runbuddies has a motto: “Making India Run”. For them, the community is essential. Therefore their website is runbuddies.club. Another example of community is a fan club. It was an easy job for a rapper 50 Cent to decide on his domain. You can check his fan club at 50inda.club.

3. Call To Action With .TODAY

Extension .com derived from the word commercial and was meant for use by a for-profit business. Thus, non-profit organizations stuck with .org. Organizations nowadays have a chance to be more creative and use domain name as a call to action line.

Sofia Collin is the author of the “28th Amendment - Love Strengthens U.S.”. A woman talks about The Unalienable Right to love on a website love.today. Another example is a diabetes management platform. A person with diabetes has to track it daily, the brand and website remind to do so with a domain onedrop.today.

4. Make It Personal

If you have a website as a CV or portfolio, there will be cases when people will check that before even meeting you. Make it speak for you. Make it personal. A good example is actor Paul Copley. You can check his latest news at PaulCopley.actor. User interface engineer Sarah Federman made it one step further and created a website that states what she does - sarah.codes.

5. Get Straight To The Point

Your domain name isn’t a puzzle, you should get straight to the point. The fitting domain extension can help to understand your website before even opening it. When you see domain confetti.events, it’s quite obvious that Confetti organizes events, right? 

Another great example is Apple, you already know what they do. Another thing they offer is full access to hundreds of magazines and leading newspapers on platforms News and News+. So they got straight to the point and chose domain apple.news.

6. Make It Short

It is important to get straight to the point. And sometimes you can do it with a single word. Countries have unique two-letter country-code domain extensions for their local market. You can be creative and turn it in the part of the word.

Do you know the Pitcairn Islands? It’s a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. Their domain extension is .PN and it fits perfectly for television sports channel ESPN. You can reach them on es.pn. Fun fact: for the island nation of Tuvalu, their unique .TV extension become the largest source of income.

7. Put It In A Sentence

As opposed to making it short, you can put the extension in a sentence. An app called Map Your City has a mission to enable people to tell authentic stories at the places that matter to them. They used the app name as a domain and it looks like a sentence - mapyour.city.

Those who are considering a tech job, but don’t know how to code, Jeremy Schifeling offers a way to break into tech. His personal website states that in a domain name: breakinto.tech. That’s a sentence in an address bar. 

According to hosting provider and domains registrar Hostinger, there are more than 152 million websites with .com extension. That’s a tough competition. If you consider alternative extensions, you can come up with a unique and memorable domain name. Unique and memorable - those are the qualities that will create an “it’s a match” moment for your website.