You may or may not have heard, but later this summer a new domain name extension is being released globally - the "dot co". So, rather than www.estateagent.com or www.estateagent.co.uk, your website could also be just www.estateagent.co.
Now, this isn't particularly big news. Over the past couple of years, several new domain extensions have been released: .biz, .info, .eu, .me, .name, .tv, .mobi and so on. However, other than .biz (which I've never been a huge fan of), the other extensions are largely for personal use or quite content specific.
Originally just the Columbian equivalent of the .co.uk, .co domains are potentially a bit more appealing than that. The fact that they're short and clearly business focused means there's a good chance that they're going to be popular.
Here's the rub. Some domain registration companies have seriously hiked prices - up to £200 + VAT. If you're going to register yours, shop around. the cheapest are barely a tenth of that (though still 10 times the price of a typical .co.uk domain name).
Until Just 21st, registrations are only open to trademark holders - then the landrush begins. More details can be found here.
With stories like the one in EAT yesterday, where a rival estate agent redirected a competitor's name to a porn website, can you afford to risk not buying yours?
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