Important software still not recognizing new domain names.
Registrants of second level domain names under new TLDs such as .photography and .tattoo are learning firsthand about the issue of Universal Acceptance.
The term refers to systems not recognizing new top level domain names for what they are, and thus not being compatible with domain names ending in new monikers such as .holdings.
And while the issue is toughest on non-Latin top level domains, it still affects all new domains.
Twitter recently started recognizing some new domain names and automatically converting such web addresses to links.
Yet hurdles remain. Apple’s Safari browser still doesn’t recognize sites like nic.sexy as web addresses when typed in the address bar, at least on many devices. It appears they are only recognized if you type in http:// first.
If you click a link to a new domain it will work (since links have http://) but otherwise it takes you to a search results page.
The same goes for my Android device. The browser doesn’t recognize these domains unless I type http:// before the domain name.
These issues will slowly be resolved, but it places users of these new domains at a disadvantage for now.
Steve Mugavero says
the confusion begins…
Twice Nice and Always Right says
There are suckers born every minute.
Keep regging new TLDs so you can dig your own grave and leave the gravy .coms to me.
Jordyn A. Buchanan says
FYI, when a browser doesn’t recognize a domain name, it’s usually faster and easier to type “example.TLD/” (trailing slash) rather than “http://example.TLD” (leading http://). Both of these should work, but one is obviously a lot shorter than the other.
[handy advice provided in my personal capacity]
Joseph Peterson says
Even as they diminish, compatibility issues will linger for years. Browsers and most of the big sites (such as Twitter), will respond most quickly. But there are countless websites out there with forms of various kinds that may choke on the nTLDs.
Ultimately this requires individual webmasters or programmers to resolve each and every tiny issue. In my own case, I incorporated the nTLDs into my domain extraction algorithm in advance of their being released. But I’ll need to revise that algorithm in small ways down the road in order to rule out particular nTLDs that fail to be released.
For most people, corrective actions like that won’t be a priority. Sites with large and variegated traffic will encounter user problems early and fix them. But most sites will see a lower volume of complaints and perhaps choose to ignore patching up those glitches. Cumulatively, all these little sites make up a large chunk of our online experience, though. So it will be some years before the nTLDs can be used everywhere without sporadic glitches.
That’s true of any newly released extension and not necessarily an argument against the new extensions. But having a matching .COM would alleviate such concerns.