If you rank high on Google, you could have people find your web site by typing your name instead of your domain. Or they could find find it via a link from another site, or via a conventional search. Once they’ve found it, users could bookmark it, or use their frequently-visited-sites list.
I think that I rarely type domain names. Often, I’ll just type one or two letters, and let autocomplete do the work. There are still cases where I type a domain name into a web browser (say, from advertising, or a business card), though automation (like QR codes) could solve a lot of that.
Domain names are still required for email addresses, though that’s as much about history as technology. You don’t, after all, require a domain name to communicate with somebody via chat apps or social media. You just need to locate the person, either by exchanging their ID on that site or by finding them through search.
Of course domain names aren’t going anywhere. They’re convenient behind the scenes for the people who have to talk about the computers themselves rather than the sites and apps that those computers run. And they’re well ensconced in the mind: it’ll be a long time before a company’s first thought isn’t “what domain name can we get?” Even if they wanted to rely on Google, they’ll still need a unique company name, and domain names are a convenient global way to establish uniqueness. (Well, semi-convenient, and semi-unique).
But if the Internet were reinvented from scratch, we might not even use domain names, at least not in their present form. We use lots of alternatives to their primary function, every day.
In the past few months different people have approached me to help them sell their “.com” domain names. Many, many people have made millions on domain names. I kick myself now (like many do) for not thinking in 1993 more about this, when you could register whatever names you want for free. I thought that in order to register a domain like “sex.com” you actually had to have a company called “Sex, Inc”. Nothing could be further than the truth.
Mart domains usually wins on price, they’re huge and as such they can make less money off of people who buy domains through them. Go Daddy also offers a huge amount of additional services from hosting to email and the list goes on. If you want service to do it all for you Mart domains is that service.
Because if I want to find out about “asbestos” for instance, I won’t go to “asbestos.com” anymore. I’ll just type “asbestos” into Google and see what all of my choices are. Asbestos.com might not even exist or get the highest traffic (I haven’t checked on this one, nor was this a domain I was asked to sell).
faruk replied
176 weeks ago