Trying to set up a website with a new suffix after the "."

August 11, 2008 11:43 AM

I hear that you can now use URLs with almost any suffix. I would like to purchase the domain name http://[firstname].[lastname] How would I go about doing that and linking it to a site on GooglePages?

How much would it cost on an annual basis? Recommendations for cheap outsourcing for web design are also appreciate

posted by JamesJD to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

You can't. Not yet, anyway.

You can get http://[firstname].[lastname].name
posted by meta_eli at 11:49 AM on August 11, 2008

ICANN accepted the proposal in July, but nothing has actually happened yet. Even when it does, this is something primarily for cities/businesses, not individuals. From this article:

The new naming process will begin in 2009. The first suffixes will probably be given to businesses and other major organizations. Countries are expected to keep their specific suffixes, but, as in the example above, cities could also get individualized URLs, such as .london or .chicago.

In an effort to deter cybersquatters, the organization is likely to charge a hefty price for the new names. Some experts have estimated that the new domain names could cost anywhere from $50,000 (£25,200) to $100,000 or more. ICANN plans to give companies with trademarked names priority for those names.
posted by Nelsormensch at 11:50 AM on August 11, 2008

Response by poster: Damn. I guess I really misunderstood the news.
posted by JamesJD at 11:57 AM on August 11, 2008

You can't until next summer, at the earliest. It appears that, at first, you'll only be able to do so through registering a trademarked brand name, and that registration expected to cost 'thousands of dollars' a pop.

Actual prices have not been set yet, but since this is intended as part to be a way for ICANN to 'recover costs' on the program, your own TLD is guaranteed to not be cheap.
posted by ardgedee at 11:57 AM on August 11, 2008

Trivia: the "suffix" is called the Top Level Domain, commonly just "TLD."
posted by fogster at 12:14 PM on August 11, 2008

You can get a .me TLD, so firstnamelastnameis.me should be no problem.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:07 PM on August 11, 2008

Or if your name is common enough, [lastname].com might already be 'renting out' whatever.[lastname].com for a small fee. Sometimes free.
posted by rokusan at 1:10 PM on August 11, 2008

Just change your last name to 'com' by deed poll.

Problem solved.
posted by SciencePunk at 3:40 PM on August 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

So this is a little weird, but most countries have a country code, and a lot of those allow foreigners to use their top level domains. So if you didn't mind throwing an extra period in your name, you might be able to come up with what you're looking for.

So for instance, http://benjamin.frankl.in would be an address out of India.
posted by nushustu at 11:04 AM on August 13, 2008