anyone have experience with .law or other new-fangled TLDs?
October 20, 2016 8:44 AM Subscribe
I know the whole topic of acquiring a TLD can be fraught with interest; my question has more to do with what happens once you have it. I have a client interested in a .law domain. Has anyone run into problems with this TLD, either in dealing with registrars, DNS difficulties, or getting Microsoft hosted exchange or Google Apps working with it?
I have a client interested in a .law domain. Has anyone run into problems with this TLD, either in dealing with registrars, DNS difficulties, or getting Microsoft hosted exchange or Google Apps working with it?
I have a client interested in a .law domain. Has anyone run into problems with this TLD, either in dealing with registrars, DNS difficulties, or getting Microsoft hosted exchange or Google Apps working with it?
I can't speak to product integrations, but in terms of registrar/DNS they're legit - they own a number of gtlds and are easier to work with than some of the smaller, hackier gtlds. Last I checked their DNS was hosted by Packet Clearing House, which will be solid reliability (note that in general it's more difficult to do authoritative DNS for a domain than root or TLD).
posted by revertTS at 9:15 AM on October 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by revertTS at 9:15 AM on October 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: We bought a .tech for our company, say, "FooBar Technologies" and we bought "foobar.tech". This is not typically the website address we give out (that's still foobartechnologies.com), but we do give it out as email addresses. (name@foobar.tech).
Note that the two are aliases for each other-- name@foobar.tech goes the exact same place as name@foobartechnologies.com.
After using it for about a year, here's what I can tell you:
1. Your client will, absolutely have to spell it out when talking to people on the phone. The less technically savvy the person on the other end, expect to have to spell it out at LEAST twice. I think the occurrence of this has gone down a bit over the 1st year, but it still happens. (and, as the other commenter posted, they will often think that it is foobartech.com instead of foobar.tech).
2. Absolutely ZERO ZERO ZERO problems setting it up. No issues with DNS, no issues with hosting, no issues with registrars, no issues with Micorsoft hosted exchange.
3. About 1% of the time, you will encounter an ancient web form that is doing client-side validation and it will balk at you trying your foobar.tech address. The solution there is to give your foobartechnologies.com address.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Not a problem, but make sure you have a backup aliased TRADITIONAL TLD domain that you can use instead. [even better if you can do jonsmithlaw.com AND jonsmith.com, but that's not always possible)
posted by gregvr at 11:35 AM on October 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Note that the two are aliases for each other-- name@foobar.tech goes the exact same place as name@foobartechnologies.com.
After using it for about a year, here's what I can tell you:
1. Your client will, absolutely have to spell it out when talking to people on the phone. The less technically savvy the person on the other end, expect to have to spell it out at LEAST twice. I think the occurrence of this has gone down a bit over the 1st year, but it still happens. (and, as the other commenter posted, they will often think that it is foobartech.com instead of foobar.tech).
2. Absolutely ZERO ZERO ZERO problems setting it up. No issues with DNS, no issues with hosting, no issues with registrars, no issues with Micorsoft hosted exchange.
3. About 1% of the time, you will encounter an ancient web form that is doing client-side validation and it will balk at you trying your foobar.tech address. The solution there is to give your foobartechnologies.com address.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Not a problem, but make sure you have a backup aliased TRADITIONAL TLD domain that you can use instead. [even better if you can do jonsmithlaw.com AND jonsmith.com, but that's not always possible)
posted by gregvr at 11:35 AM on October 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Not to threadsit, but to give some context back:
You have hit on the unavoidable problem I've already foreseen, and it's funny how it still happens despite all the .edu, .net, etc. domains out there for years - everyone puts .com either on the end of it all or just doesn't hear the real TLD and sticks .com on it instead. I hate to admit it, but I've spaced and done it on my own sites before.
so in your example, ideal scenario would be, as you say, to have foobartech.com in addition to foobar.tech, but I can somehow foresee people typing in foobar.tech.com, and then you're still screwed unless you own the tech.com domain. And no, nothing equivalent to (in this industry) foobarlaw.com can be had. If it existed, we'd probably have just gone that route.
Law firms:
- are plentiful.
- like to use partner names and better still initials for brevity (so Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe wants dch.com, or if not dchfirm, dchlaw, etc. etc.)
- do NOT like to put things like geography or area of speciality in their domain either because of tradition, their belief that they're national, or to avoid the appearance of "advertising." So dchbusinesslaw or dchnewyork or dchinjurylaw - none of that seems to check their boxes...
and to make matters worse, no, most of these people and their clients are not super-duper-techy. All I can do is warn them of the problem.
So it's definitely an area where the good ones are all taken, unless maybe if your partners' names start with Q, Z, or X.
posted by randomkeystrike at 12:50 PM on October 20, 2016
You have hit on the unavoidable problem I've already foreseen, and it's funny how it still happens despite all the .edu, .net, etc. domains out there for years - everyone puts .com either on the end of it all or just doesn't hear the real TLD and sticks .com on it instead. I hate to admit it, but I've spaced and done it on my own sites before.
so in your example, ideal scenario would be, as you say, to have foobartech.com in addition to foobar.tech, but I can somehow foresee people typing in foobar.tech.com, and then you're still screwed unless you own the tech.com domain. And no, nothing equivalent to (in this industry) foobarlaw.com can be had. If it existed, we'd probably have just gone that route.
Law firms:
- are plentiful.
- like to use partner names and better still initials for brevity (so Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe wants dch.com, or if not dchfirm, dchlaw, etc. etc.)
- do NOT like to put things like geography or area of speciality in their domain either because of tradition, their belief that they're national, or to avoid the appearance of "advertising." So dchbusinesslaw or dchnewyork or dchinjurylaw - none of that seems to check their boxes...
and to make matters worse, no, most of these people and their clients are not super-duper-techy. All I can do is warn them of the problem.
So it's definitely an area where the good ones are all taken, unless maybe if your partners' names start with Q, Z, or X.
posted by randomkeystrike at 12:50 PM on October 20, 2016
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My concern is that once you use that domain in the wild, some folks will try to go to "jonsmith.com" rather than "jonsmith.law".
posted by humboldt32 at 9:12 AM on October 20, 2016 [2 favorites]