New TLDs 'offer opportunities for global businesses'

The forthcoming introduction of new generic top-level domains (TLDs) ending in any term could be a boon to UK businesses hoping to expand into global markets.

This is the suggestion of Econsultancy public training manager Naveed Akram, who said that plans by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to launch TLDs that can end in any word and be in both Latin and non-Latin scripts will offer both opportunities and challenges for businesses.

He said the domain names will benefit those targeting international consumers whose native language is based on non-Latin script, as search engines tend to favour sites with relevant keywords in their web address.

Greig Holbrook, managing director of Oban Multilingual, added that this will offer businesses "huge power to place themselves at the forefront of these particular searchers whose languages have not been represented in TLDs up till now".

Paul Twomey, president and chief executive of ICANN, noted last year that the new domain names are likely to be advantageous for both web users and businesses as there are some 1.5 billion web users but only 21 generic TLDs, which are all in Latin script.