Have domains arrived at their ‘twerking moment’?

The Internet namespace experienced a shift over the past year. Gone are the days of fighting over coveted .com addresses or settling for strangely spelled website names and difficult-to-remember URLs.

Now, site owners have access to meaningful phrases on both sides of the dot. The latest evolution in the world of domain names allows marketers and website admins to mix and match the left and the right side to create intuitive, memorable web addresses — without needing to invent a new language or outbid competitors.

Following the Google-paved road

As recent history shows, few companies ride the cutting edge better than Google. From its colorful, campy offices to its mind-blowing “moonshot” projects like self-driving cars and Google Glass, the tech behemoth has a penchant for emerging at the center of the next big idea.

Is it any surprise, then, that Google’s recent Alphabet restructure places the organization squarely in the middle of the latest domain name conversation?

Google’s input always make big waves, and the domain name they chose for the Alphabet announcement says a lot about how it sees the future of the domain landscape. Rather than attempt to purchase an existing domain name like Alphabet.com (currently owned by a division of automaker BMW), Google decided to do something radically different and claimed the domain abc.xyz for the new Alphabet webpage.

You won’t forget that — abc.xyz means Alphabet. Not only is it a clever play on the company name, it’s also short and easy to remember; everything a great web address should be. For example, how many of us would intuit that coffee.club is a coffee subscription service? (Of course it is.)

Alphabet’s unique URL wouldn’t be possible without a reimagining of what domains can be. Limiting every web address to end in .com, .net, or .org limits creativity and makes it difficult for users to differentiate one website from another.

Soon, thanks to the continued rise in availability of tailored domain extensions, Alphabet and other companies that follow Google’s lead won’t face these problems. Getting a memorable and meaningful web address should be accessible to more “netizens” than ever before.

Twerking moments teach

In a recent blog post, I asked if Google’s decision to create abc.xyz would be the domain industry’s “twerking moment.”

When I say that, I’m referring to the phenomenon that occurred after Miley Cyrus’ infamous display at the MTV Video Music Awards. Prior to her performance, many viewers had no idea what twerking was, and most people in the general population had never heard the term before.

The very next morning, regardless of what they thought about it, everyone knew of the now-famous dance. A single moment had become the tipping point between relative obscurity and nearly universal familiarity.

Although Google’s use of abc.xyz may have introduced the concept of unique domains to people who might not have considered the option before, we still have a long way to go before the new domain extensions become as mainstream as “.com.”

However, the opportunities for marketing and advertising make the shift to new extensions inevitable. When Google launched Alphabet, it paved the way for free thinkers to break convention and reach for something different.

Mastering future domains

As more and more businesses rush to claim the best extensions, it’s clear the age of more highly personalized and meaningful domains is upon us.

Here are a few ways Google may have given a healthy push forward to the domain-name revolution:

Precedent: A huge trendsetter already did it, so other businesses and their decision makers will be less afraid to go against the grain and get creative with brand expression.

Relevance: Now, website owners can see an example of how they can leverage both sides of the dot to create a domain name that’s relevant to the brand identity, and thus memorable and attention-getting.

Comfort: If just small businesses were following the nontraditional domain trend, many users might be wary of their trustworthiness. Because Google did it first, web surfers won’t be as leery of going somewhere new and accepting a nontraditional domain name.

Cohesion: Prior to Alphabet, many seemingly unrelated companies answered to Google.com. With Alphabet, Google also provides other businesses a successful benchmark for a model where multiple domains and brands can exist within a single enterprise.

Did Google just alter the future of the entire domain industry, or is that moment yet to come?

We can’t be sure yet, but we do know that those businesses and brands who follow the tech leader now may be more likely to use unique domain extensions in their own marketing and advertising.

And then we’ll know it’s twerking.