Whether you’ve noticed it or not, websites have gotten a lot more customizable in the last year and a bit. Top Level Domains (TLD) are that little bit at the end of any website address. If we look at “www.kingstonbusinessesonline.ca” the TLD is “ca”.

As many Canadians know, “.ca” is the internet country code for Canada (it can never be said that Kingston Businesses Online isn’t patriotic). This TLD was introduced in 1987 and which is before the current “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers” (ICANN) was founded.

This whole domain name system and top level domain business is interesting to nerds like us, but for everyone else let’s get to the important bit of this article - new customization options for website addresses.

From “Dawn of a New Internet Era” - Akram Atallah, October 23, 2013:

“Today marks an historic moment... Today, the first new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) from ICANN's New gTLD Program were delegated… What does this mean? … It means you will soon see the Internet grow from the 22 gTLDs that we have now (e.g., .COM, .BIZ, .ORG) to more than 1400 new possibilities.”

1400 new possibilities, that’s crazy to me.

Currently all 1400 options are not available, but over 400 have been introduced.

So what are these new possibilities?

One example is related to this site. I could never hope to get “Kingston.com” or “Kingston.net” for example, and it wouldn’t make sense for me to own these. I own “KingstonBusinessesOnline.ca” and .com, I also own a couple newer TLDs like “KBO.mobi” for people on cellphones who don’t have time to type in a long address (.mobi is short for mobile).

I own “KBO.company” which I haven’t done much with at the time of this writing. My newest address is “Kingston.Website” - I’m having this printed on my business cards now, but with “http://” at the start of it so people know it’s a website address.

I did this for simplicity’s sake, now I can talk to a potential client and say “Visit me online, just type ‘Kingston.Website’ into your browser!” - want a website in Kingston? Easy, just type “Kingston.Website”; simple.

Currently this website address just links to the site you’re on now. I’m thinking of eventually using this URL for my portfolio.

These new addresses have a few advantages beyond the simplicity I already mentioned.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): if I have my website design portfolio at “www.Kingston.Website/Design” Google will pull out the juicy keywords “Kingston”, “Website”, and “Design” as well as the total phrase “Kingston Website Design” which is something people might search for.

• Clarity: if you have a generic name like “Pegasus” and want to show you are a bar or pub use “.bar” or “.pub”. There are a lot of business types available such as “.cab”, “.farm”, and “properties”. A complete list can be found on Wikipedia’s article titled “List of Internet Top Level Domains”.

• Availability: currently a lot of these new domains are available, that’s how I snagged “Kingston.Website”. You can be pretty sure you get the name you want.

Feel free to contact KBO to find out how to grab one of these new domains.