By now you’ve heard a thing or two about some of the new domain extensions, or gTLDs, that have been coming out all year. Dozens of new extensions are hitting the market every month, and they range from the silly (.ninja, .wtf) to the specific (.republican, .photography, and my personal favorite, .beer). With hundreds of names set to be released over the next few years, there’s a whole lotta online naming possibilities coming your way.
And .wiki is one to watch.
Wikiwhatchacallit?
Put simply, a “wiki” is an online data storage website that anyone can log into and edit. The collaborative nature of a wiki is often its strongest benefit. Take the world’s biggest wiki, Wikipedia. Just about everyone has used Wikipedia to look something up at some point in their life, but here’s the cool part: that information that you looked up was put there by someone just like you. It wasn’t written by a team of eggheads with innumerable degrees in physics or history. Wikipedia represents the collective knowledge of every single person who has ever used it. THAT is the power of a wiki and the reason it is such a widely used format today. There are wikis for everything from Fantasy Football to World of Warcraft and even The Sopranos!
If you share information among members of a group, you could benefit from a .wiki domain name. Same goes for collaborating with others for a special project. A website with a domain name like projectxyz.wiki could offer an instantly recognizable, well-branded online space for collaborators to come together.
Short domain extension, big benefits
Like many of the new domain extensions, a .wiki extension will not be for everyone. But any website that incorporates or hosts a wiki will benefit from its branding. Nothing will tell a viewer what they are looking at better than the name. A baseball-related wiki on baseball.wiki, you don’t say?! And, if you already host a wiki on your website, why not protect your brand with a .wiki domain extension? Makes sense, right?
There’s more. Since .wiki is a brand new release, chances are those popular or otherwise hard-to-own domain names are still available. It’s never been easier to get a short, memorable, just-the-name-you-wanted domain. Beer.wiki? Hmm...
Curious about how a .wiki extension will play into Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? As of now, Google@ doesn’t care if you have alligatorwiki.com or alligator.wiki, because it’s your website’s content more than its name that drives your search engine results. However, having an appropriately branded domain name will set you apart from the rest of the rabble on Google’s results page. I think we can all agree that’s a good thing. A very good thing. People who search for a site like yours will immediately see that your .wiki domain is what you say it is.
Ready to start sharing know-how with a .wiki domain? Check out this helpful little resource for .wiki’s registration details.
