When Non Dot Coms are aligned with your market position, the messaging is as clickable as it gets.
You see. You click. No one hesitates to click on Wine.Club when that’s exactly what they're looking for! Indeed, Non Dot Com messaging is so clear and concise that, if we were to redesign the Internet domain system today, we would choose gTlds over what’s essentially an unnecessary appendage, the dangling Dot Com. Yet, we have to deal with 30+ years of consumer momentum.
It’s not hyperlink aspect of Non Dot Coms that presents a challenge, but human typing— especially email. While these new gTlds make fabulous click bait, at some point prospects may hand-type your email address and, out of habit, are likely to type a Dot Com at the end, leading to lost or delayed email delivery. Thankfully, this is easy to work around.
To minimize typing errors, you can offer a webform for site visitors to initiate communication. That allows a communication chain to begin without anyone typing in an unfamiliar domain format. Yet, that doesn’t work for business networking, where prospects personally initiate communication from a business card.
Knowing that email is the weak link in Non Dot Com deployment, marketers can simply adopt a traditional address for email, at least for the near future. For my ticketing business, I use Non Dot Coms like Broadway.Events as click bait, yet, all communication is done @WillCall.Com.
“Non Dot Com messaging is so clear and concise that, if we were to redesign the Internet domain system today, we would choose gTlds over what’s essentially an unnecessary appendage, the dangling Dot Com.”
While you want your hyperlinked messaging to be concise and create understanding, there are dozens of emails domains that can be adopted along side your Non Dot Com site domain to cover this email vulnerability.
DXC.Technology, for example, could have easily adopted DXCTechnoloy.com, DXCTechnologies.com, DXCTech.com, DXCMail.com— or similar Dot Nets, which are fine for email— if they didn’t already own, the ideal, but rather unhip, DXC.Com.
Take note. It was by choice that DXC presents themselves as cutting edge, rather then risk being perceived as just another technology company with a Dot Com address. You too can be hip and cool. Just like Dot Coms in the late nineties, prospects are jolted into attention when presented an unexpected address. Today, having a Non Dot Com address is a sure way to be perceived as cutting edge and in the know. There's no other way. Anyone clinging to Dot Com in their company name is projecting all the "old school" baggage as well.
Finally, rest assured that your Non Dot Com site will be fully recognized by Google and the other search engines, that give zero preference to traditional domains. They have to!
Google now sells domains at their new, hip Non Dot Com address: Domains.Google, where they forward visitors who happen to type-in Domains.Google.Com, you know, the one with the "dangling Dot Com."
For a live search example, type "Hooli" in Google, from HBO show Silicon Valley, and up pops Hooli.xyz. There will be many others that rise to the top of organic search.