In 2016, it’s estimated that almost half of the world’s population will be online, yet nearly 50 percent of the websites we visit are found in the .com top-level domain (TLD), which was among the first TLDs created in 1984. TLDs has only increased by 14 in the last 28 years.
This is an outcome of the program announced by ICANN in 2008 where they wanted to expand the number of generic TLD. Given this expansion process, Google submit applications for new TLDs, which generally fall into four categories:
- Domains related to google’s core business, like .docs
- Domains that will improve user experience, such as .youtube, which can increase the ease with which YouTube channels and genres can be identified
- Domains that are interesting and creative potential, such as .lol