ArtSites Updates
History of Top Level Domain Names (TLDs)
Available domain name extensions (like .com, .net, .info, .ca, .uk, etc -- known in the industry as top level domains or TLDs) have grown considerably over the last few years. In the early years of the Internet, we had .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .mil and the various two letter extensions like .ca, .us, .uk, .fr, etc. Then in 2001, .info and .biz, .museum were launched followed by a few others like .coop, .name and .pro in 2002.
Every few years after that, a few more extensions became available. In 2012, the domain name system was opened up for anyone with the technical competency and money ($185,000 to apply) to create just about any extension (TLD) that they wanted.
As of February 2017, there were over 1,500 domain name extensions and more are coming online every month.
We haven't really encouraged artists to adopt many of these new domain name extensions because most "average" people are only familiar with a handful of them.
What's the Best Domain Name to Have?
In the past, our recommendation has been to try to get your brand, generally your name, as a .com, e.g. YourName.com. When YourName.com is not available, we'll usually suggest using your country extension (.ca for Canada, .us for USA, etc) and if that's not available, you may consider YourName.info.
If your name is not available with any of the above domain name extensions, we'll recommend creating variations by adding words to your domain name, e.g. YourNameArt.com or YourNameStudio.com, etc.
The New .ART Domain Names
Just this week, a new domain name extension has become available: .ART! Obviously, this is a great new option for our artists. So, if YourName.com or your preferred domain name has been taken, YourName.Art might be a good alternative!
Fortunately, we can now register and setup .ART domain names for you and all our artists! :-)
Adding a Second Domain Name to Your Website
You might ask, "I already have a domain name for my website, should and how might I make use of a .art domain name?"
Many of our artists have multiple domain names associated with their website. They will have a "primary" domain name and one or more "secondary" domain names. The secondary domain name(s) automatically redirect to the primary one. For example, if you had YourName.com as your primary domain name and YourName.Art as your secondary, when someone types YourName.Art into a web browser address bar, they would actually end up on yourname.com (FYI - browsers always convert domain names and their extensions to lower case). As a result, you might put YourName.Art on your business cards or provide it in your email communications or as the official link to your website. And, in the end, your visitors still end up on YourName.com. (By the way, this also works with www. on the front of all domain names.)
Already Have YourNameArt.com/YourNameStudio.com?
If you already have YourNameArt.com, you may want to shorten it to just YourName.Art. We can register YourName.Art and make it the primary domain for your website. This means YourNameArt.com now becomes the secondary domain for your website.
Transitioning from Your Existing Domain Name to .ART Domain Names
To transition from your existing domain name to another is similar to the process above. Any links on the Internet to your existing website will still work but we will setup an "automatic redirection" to your new domain name, e.g. YourName.Art. Because this happens automatically, you don't have to tell everyone that you're changing your domain name, they will simply find out over time when they land on your website with your new domain name.
In general, when switching to a new domain name, we suggest keeping your old domain name active as a secondary domain name for at least a year. That will give most of your visitors time to get used to the new domain name. And, if you don't mind the extra cost of keeping a secondary domain name, we suggest keeping the old domain name for much longer.
Prices for an Additional .ART Domain Name
New .ART domain name extensions are slightly more expensive than the basic domain name extensions. So, we will be charging $20/year for these as secondary domains for our artists.
If you have had a hard time getting your preferred domain name for your website, you may want to consider adding or transitioning to a .ART domain name.
As always, we simply want to keep you updated on the latest web developments!
If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!