$67 billion pharmacy chain going after relevant terms in new TLDs.
While I was going through .wiki registrations this morning I noticed that pharmacy chain Walgreens registered a number of generic terms under .wiki.
It makes sense: why not own Haircare.wiki, Scooters.wiki and Prescriptions.wiki so they can control the conversation, not the other way around.
When I started digging in I found that this wasn’t just a play on .wiki. Walgreens has been registering about a dozen terms in certain top level domain names:
- Liftchair(s)
- Prescription(s)
- HomeMedical
- Scooters
- Cosmetics
- Haircare
- ContactLenses
- Contacts
- Skincare
- Well (it has a brand around “well”, so this isn’t really generic to them)
It has registered these domains across .guru, .expert, .today, .zone, .cheap, .link…basically anywhere they make sense or are tied to a generic domain.
They haven’t gotten all of them, of course. Some people beat them to the registration queue or the domains were reserved. Interestingly, the company has skipped a couple that are available at regular prices such as LiftChairs.expert (it registered the singular version) and HomeMedical.expert.
It’s interesting to see a major company try to corner the second level of new TLDs for terms relevant to their business. It’s also worth noting that Walgreens didn’t apply for any new top level domain names.
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Soon (if not already) there may be job openings at large corporations for domain name experts whose only job is to find and reg new gTLDs for defensive purposes.
I would apply.
🙂
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This indicates a new trend where domain names are evaluated on the whole string of name + extension which must make sense.
Most important Walgreens have Pharmacy.com and Farmacia.com.
Conceivably, these domains may be used for marketing rather than just warehoused for brand protection.
Since Walgreens is a major brand, familiar to consumers, such use would be very significant and possibly quite influential.