Bot no longer required for registration.
If you surveyed new top level domain name proponents about which of the big applicants has been the biggest disappointment, I’d bet Amazon would top the list.
The company applied for 76 top level domains but has done very little with the strings it won.
And even when it launched domains, it made some of them difficult to register.
Consider .bot, which the company launched in 2017. It’s a good (if not limited use) extension that should have done well with advances in chatbots.
But Amazon threw hurdles in front of registering the domains. You had to have a bot to register the domains. Few registrars (and registrants) wanted to deal with this.
So .bot languished.
This week, Amazon belatedly removed the restrictions for .bot. Now, anyone can register one.
During the first day of restrictionless registration, domains in the zone grew from about 1,300 to over 2,000. This is despite limited distribution.
While .bot will never be a huge extension, this is progress.
If you’re interested, .bot domains will set you back about $70 at Namecheap, 101Domain, and Encirca. Encirca, which worked with Amazon during the initial launch, has about 1,000 .bot domains under management.
Mark Thorpe says
Better off owning .Com bot domains instead IMO.
Steve says
Yes, I don’t think it will come close to reaching the heights of .ai or .io, .bot def could a good extension for small websites or chatbot builds
I gave up on registering a .bot after over 100 one word wonders were “unavailable” ..I finally hit on one that was avail but with a 3120 reg fee ..pass but good luck to the early birds who may have gotten some good ones
Billbeaux says
Quite a misleading article. It’s like if they invented a drug that makes paralyzed people walk again, to say “A drug makes it easier for paralyzed people to move.” The main point is, .bot was previously a heavily restricted TLD with no room for any success, especially for general AI use. You couldn’t even register its domains through any normal domain registrar.
Only now that all restrictions have been lifted, it has become a prominent TLD. In fact, it’s like a completely different and new TLD now.
“While .bot will never be a huge extension” is another misleading statement. Actually, .bot has all the potential to become one of the top 3 new gTLDs, alongside .xyz and .app. With the recent explosion of popularity in AI chatbots, “bot” is becoming synonymous with AI. Amazon realized this. And indeed, .bot is now a great alternative to .ai. Namecheap has already integrated .bot and shows .bot domains as the top alternative when searching for .ai domains, which are usually taken and highly expensive.
.Bot is also a 3-letter TLD, which is ideal, and has the Amazon Registry backing it. It looks futuristic and sounds great with the dot. You can’t ask for more in a TLD.
However, the .bot general availability launch this October was very quiet, unlike TLD launches such as .app, which were well advertised and highly anticipated, as done by Amazon mainly with its original .bot partner, EnCirca. Therefore, it will take some time for .bot to gain popularity.
Namecheap has already added .bot, Spaceship is offering .bot at $51.93, and GoDaddy should follow soon. .Bot will be slowly but surely moving towards becoming one of the top new TLDs.