Content Management System (CMS) and ecommerce solutions provider
Automattic has acquired the rights for the ‘.blog’ top-level domain (TLD). Automattic, which has headquarters in San Francisco, California, United States, was established in 2005. The company is famous for managing WordPress.com, the online version of the immensely popular Open Source (OS) CMS WordPress.
WordPress.com caters to “millions of users” and onboards around 50,000 new sites per day. The company predominately caters to individuals and smaller businesses, but organizations of the calibre of CNN and TIME utilize its services. Other Automattic offerings include Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Longreads. Automattic suggested “.blog” domains will be available later in 2016 in an announcement on the company’s blog.
The announcement does not suggest a pricing policy for the new domains, and the standard release format for new domains will be adopted. This will include a ‘Sunrise’ period, when trademark holders can purchase domains including their trademark, and a ‘Landrush’ period for availability to the general public. While Automattic runs WordPress.com the new domains will not exclusively be available to WordPress users – any website will be able to acquire a ‘.blog’ domain.
“As a blogger, you know what a difference the right story can make. Get the right domain and tell the story of your blog perfectly,” explains the WordPress.com blog. It went on, “starting later this year, anyone will be able to register .blog domains” and added “a ‘.blog’ domain is trustworthy and instantly recognized. A ‘.blog’ domain will work just like any other domain, such as ‘.com’ or ‘.xyz’. It can be added to any blog, and it will work from anywhere.”
Are you interested in a new ‘.blog’ domain? Let us know why. Add your comments below.
