Guru.com, a freelance marketplace, is the big winner from the first New gTLDs roll out in the past couple of weeks that included the .guru New gTLD. Up until now .guru is by far the most popular New gTLD and this will have a more than positive effect on guru.com.
Guru.com took advantage of this added attention, that was bound to happen, since Donuts announced it’s application for the .guru New gTLD. The guru.com website was completely redesigned and was revealed on the 2nd of February 2014. That was just 4 days after .guru was made available to the public. Donuts New gTLD .guru entered the Early Access Program (EAP) general availability on the 29th of January and the proper general availability on the 5th of February.
This was certainly not a coincidence. A redesign of this caliber was planned months in advance.
Since .guru is aimed at consultants, experts, bloggers and freelancers it is more than certain that guru.com will get a lot more traffic since it targets the same demographic. New .guru registrants will discover what guru.com can offer to them and many visitors searching for a .guru website will end up at guru.com and find the freelancer they are looking for.
Guru.com made a small announcement on it’s Twitter feed on February 6th:
The new design is a big upgrade from the previous one:
Guru.com is a freelance marketplace. It allows companies to find freelance workers for commissioned work. It was founded in 1998 in Pittsburgh as eMoonlighter.com and still headquartered there. eMoonlighter.com bought the Guru.com domain name and logo from Unicru, and eMoonlighter was renamed Guru.com. Guru.com directly connects businesses and employees in 160 different fields.
It’s a great name, no doubt. How is it the ‘big winner’? There is no spectacular change in traffic, at least from what I see at Alexa.com. Would Bike.com get a redesign, by the way? They look very outdated.
Alexa.com is a couple of months back in traffic count.
So you’re saying that Alexa traffic doesn’t matter, but a site redesign does? 😀
If any domain benefits from traffic leaked by a particular keyword+gTLD, that’d be the keywordgTLD.com, not the gTLD.com
I am saying that a raise in traffic now will appear in Alexa in a couple of months from now.
“If any domain benefits from traffic leaked by a particular keyword+gTLD, that’d be the keywordgTLD.com, not the gTLD.com”
I am going to disagree on that. A lot of people will type keyword.gtld.com and of course they will end up at gltd.com.
Current US only unique Visitors as per compete. A comparison can be done say after couple of months to see if they pick up any traffic
Why do think it wasn’t a coincidence?
A redesign like this on a website with thousands of users takes months to plan, design and test.
I just don’t think it was a coincidence that the redesign was launched during the .guru general availability.
Did you contact them on that subject then? I am not saying there isn’t a motive here, but exactly how are they “winning” from this?
They are winning traffic and attention from both the .guru registrants and the .guru visitors that will increase as the .guru new gtld has more active websites.
And these are not random visitors to an unrelated new gtld. These are freelancers or people looking for freelancers arriving at a fully functional and developed freelancer website.
I don’t have to ask them to see the benefits here.
Guru.com is hands down a winner, the goodwill of having 50,000 .guru domains registered adds something to a 4 letter .com. This name has now crossed into a 7 figure worth.
>>If any domain benefits from traffic leaked by a particular keyword+gTLD, that’d be the keywordgTLD.com, not the gTLD.com<<
I am not aware of the evidence upon which you base your statement acro, but will look forward in a few months to seeing what the actual figures reveal.
It’s obvious that people don’t type in keyword.gTLD.com when presented with a verbal or written URL – definitely not when a direct link is provided. However, those that do register keyword.gTLD create a short version of the keywordgTLD.com. Want to flip gTLDs? That’s the easiest method: find the owners of the keywordgTLD.com 😀
No it’s not obvious Theo. Sure I have said it myself that keywordgTLD.com domains get to benefit but the gTLD.com benefits as well.
I have caught myself typing keyword.gTLD.com. It only takes a split second for the brain to default to .com.
they need to start, and should have been, forwarding subdomain requests to their homepage
You are right. Subdomains don’t work.
.guru .guru .gury!