BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Because all the popular dotcom domain names have been bagged already, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) devised the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) programme to open up new top-level domains. A London business could get www.shop.london or a Welsh business could bag both www.shop.wales and www.shop.cymru. And many bicycle businesses will no doubt want to to bag their dotbike names.
www.dutch.bike has gone; so has www.onyour.bike.
The new gTLDs don’t go live until 2014, and you can’t buy the new domains yet, but you can pre-register your interest and, in effect, this puts you at the head of the queue when registration opens. There’s no indication yet of how much registration will cost.
Pre-registration for the .bike domain name can be done via United Domains. 7752 pre-registrations have already been logged, including for the obvious ones such as www.road.bike and www.mountain.bike. There’s even been a registration for www.sextoy.bike.
The United Domains website says:
"The .BIKE new generic top-level domain name extension will bring cycle sports communities and the Internet closer together. People everywhere love to cycle."
Dotbike is one of the 307 TLDs registered with ICANN by Donut of Seattle. The .bike domain was granted at the end of August.
