Fadi Chehade talks about domain names at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Associated Press run an article about the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The world’s largest mobile phone trade show was held in Barcelona, Spain, on February 26 and 27, 2014. Fadi Chehade, head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN) was there.

“Finding what you need on the Web will take many paths,” said Fadi Chehade. “Even if you’re using search, domain names might make search engines smarter”

“For instance, a search engine might be able to classify something as a dating site because it carries the suffix “.dating.” Before, it would have to infer from text on the site, and search results might inadvertently include general discussions on dating.

Likewise, a search engine might favor restaurants ending in “.berlin” when you’re looking for food options there, rather than bloggers discussing what they ate during visits to Berlin.”

I am not sure if Google and Bing will go this route but it is possible.

“Fadi Chehade said domain names will also be useful for marketing and branding:

1. An Internet address is easier to include on a business card or advertisement.

2. Companies can give different services distinctive addresses, such as “sales.samsung” and “repairs.samsung,” so that customers don’t have to hunt for that on the main website.

3. Neighborhoods can form around suffixes such as “.berlin” and “.tokyo.” Restaurants, florists and transit systems would use city suffixes rather than a generic “.com.” There are so many sites already under “.com” that getting an easy-to-remember name is difficult. With some of the new ones, congestion isn’t a problem.”

Although  point 1 is correct, and maybe 3 as well, the .brands new gTLDs have always puzzled me. Very few brands will ever leave their .coms for their official website and almost none will attempt a change in their email address structure. So that only leaves the .brands new gTLDs to be used as redirection or novelty domain names.