Dive Brief:
- A check of applications to the International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) indicates that all but company—Amazon—has withdrawn from bidding for the “.free” domain name.
- New Top-Level Domain (TLD) names from ICANN have been slow to get off the ground, but may offer better recall and SEO for domains using them.
- Google and Donuts, Inc., an Internet domain name registry, were also involved in the auction; Google now owns the “.app” domain name.
Dive Insight:
Amazon will apparently assume the rights to use “.free” Top-Level Domain (TLD), just weeks after Google spent almost $25 million to buy “.app.” TLDs are words or terms that appear at the end of the web URL, and while those other than .com are still rare, they could offer domains using the new suffixes improved SEO and recall.
Amazon’s bid promises to limit the number of .free domains registered at the outset, but little additional information is known about its plans. Amazon holds the No. 1 spot in Internet Retailer’s 2014 Top 500 Guide.
