Robert_Charlton - 7:56 am on Apr 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'm seeing all sorts of assumptions that this would restructure DNS as we know it today. I agree that this is a terrible idea that would never work. Am not sure that this has anything to do, though, with what tedster is suggesting.

I'm seeing it as something that might require editorial review (very un-Google-like), or at least greater scrutiny, and would be simply for the renaming of an existing company. Often rebranding is accompanied by site rethinking and redesign, so Google would have to monitor to make sure there's no bait and switch.

I don't know how this could be made to work to thwart flavor of the month site evolution... but that's why Google gets the big bucks. If the rebranding gets into new market areas, or a significantly different image, as it sometimes does, that would be a fuzzy line which could be tricky.

My guess is that if editorial review or greater scrutiny of a domain were involved, not too many buyers of old sites for retreading would want to call attention to themselves.