Awareness is growing, one domain at a time.
When new top level domain names started rolling out over a year ago, basically no one outside of the insular domain name business had heard of them. They started with zero awareness. The good thing about that is there’s only one way to go: Up.
New TLD companies hoped that upward trajectory would happen much faster than it has. Sure, a couple brands have started using .brand. Some sites have switched to new TLDs; others have bought them and forwarded them to their existing sites. Mainstream press outlets have written about the new domains.
All told, however, it’s been a very slow trickle.
Yesterday, Google announced Alphabet, a new holding company of which Google is now a part. It chose the clever domain name abc.xyz for the holding company. (Get it? First three and last three letters of the alphabet?)
This has created massive awareness of .xyz.
Yes, it’s just a holding company. It doesn’t seem like there will be much content on abc.xyz. However, I think it will be mentioned a lot. Alphabet will host its investor information on the site eventually, so the domain will be mentioned in earnings releases.
That Alphabet has chosen this .xyz name is big. But I think the more interesting thing is how they thought of choosing a .xyz domain in the first place. It shows how exposure builds on exposure builds on exposure…
Back in May, HBO show Silicon Valley used a .xyz domain name. The fictional company Hooli, which is a lot like Google, used the domain name Hooli.xyz for its “moonshot” project division.
In Alphabet’s announcement yesterday, it paid homage to this. Click the period after “drone delivery effort”, and you’re forwarded to Hooli.xyz.
What role did the Silicon Valley exposure have on Alphabet’s choice of domain name? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps they just though it was a clever domain for Alphabet. But I doubt it. I suspect the Hooli.xyz exposure at least made someone high up at Google aware of the domain.
New TLDs can’t subsist on the abc.xyz exposure alone. They need another hundred similar lightning strikes in the next few years. This becomes more plausible everyday. You might not have heard about Hooli.xyz, but now you’ve heard about abc.xyz. So you might at least think about a new top level domain for your next name…
Jeff Sass says
Andrew, you make a great point and I would agree that exposure builds on exposure. Congrats to the .xyz team on this great exposure, and its connection to the earlier exposure on Silicon Valley. I doubt that Demi Lovato’s team would have launched Lovato.club if they hadn’t first seen 50 Cent launch 50Inda.club. As Dan Schindler of Donuts likes to say, “…usage begets usage.” This is why all registries for new domain extensions should celebrate usage – of our own domains and of other new extensions. Continued and expanded exposure of the logical use of great domain names is the best marketing for us all, and the best way to educate the public of the choices they now have for finding the perfect domain for their new holding company, or any other online presence.
-Jeff Sass, .CLUB
bbssysop says
hi Jeff, would you know if dot club will be fixing their idn-set ? thanks, best,
Jeff Sass says
@bbssysop Can you email me (jeff at get dot club) and I’ll get your question into the right hands. Thanks!
Sean Ottey says
Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.
Acro says
“This has created massive awareness of .xyz.”
Not as massive as that caused by the hundreds of thousands of robo-registrations of last year. Which, incidentally, have been dropping. Only 65% of XYZ registrations are in the zone file, ie. active domains.
I see ABC.XYZ as a domain “hack” reminiscent of an alphabet soup.
Christopher Hofman says
This is a big win for the new TLDs. Not only because it’s Google, but because this example shows that the boundaries of creativity have been expanded. Some brands can tell their story better in the new TLD space,
Howie says
I love it. I’m sure this Google “parent site” will be offering more than you think under Alphabet Inc. It’s going to be a massive corporate brand in new tech
This is what I like about XYZ and why I invested in the extension from the very outset. A brand endorsement from Google will definitely help with further exposure to XYZ and to new GTLDs.
John says
This is a big deal. Instantly .XYZ is known worldwide.
ndd says
Reminds me the del.icio.us case. Someone got high at GG HQs, end of story it 🙂
John O'Farrell says
I think this is “nice news” for .xyz and possibly nTLDs in general but not “great” and don’t think it will create “massive awareness” (not in the USA anyhow)
Did some quick unscientific research after reading the post using Google and searching for: Alphabet Google.
All of my results were relevant and had to do with the creation of the new parent company.
-Of the first ten results on the WEB RESULTS page, 60% actually mentioned abc.xyz on the page (three prominently and a buried after-thought in the other three). 40% made no mention at all.
-On the NEWS RESULTS page, of the first ten results, 10% mentioned abc.xyz in the post/article and 90% made no mention at all.
Looking at two of the major news agencies/wire services, Reuters and AP (USA) neither mentioned the domain abc.xyz in their lead stories on the new parent company.
None of the traditional media channels I heard the story on (radio and TV) mentioned abc.xyc. In fact I learned about abc.xyz here.
While providing some additional exposure for .xyz it clearly is not an important part of the Alphabet story. Additionally, since this is Google, if the average citizen is exposed to abc.xyz and makes note of it, there is just as much chance they may conclude that it’s something special that only Google can get as much as they may conclude it’s something for all.
This is “nice” but not even close to “great”.