.travel and .inc domain names

worth keeping or just let them expire?

[Slone]

Hello,
A while back .INC and .TRAVEL domain names went public. I was there on release and picked up some really good domain names. I have had them since and even now I can't use them and wonder if they will ever be supported.

In my opinion - new extensions put on the market should be supported worldwide before they can be sold to the public.

What is the future of these domain extensions? I can’t find any answers. I am not one to purchase domain names with odd extensions, but the .INC and .TRAVEL seemed to have a future... So I went shopping.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

thanks...

[jmccormac]

What is the future of these domain extensions? I can’t find any answers. I am not one to purchase domain names with odd extensions, but the .INC and .TRAVEL seemed to have a future... So I went shopping.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

There is a lot of alternative domain action but the com/net/org/info/biz/name are the main ones at the moment apart from the country code domains. It looks like you may have wasted your money. In order for a domain to be usable it has to be accessible and widely propagated and the .inc and .travel domains do not seem to exist.

There was this link though about the .travel tld:
[travelmole.com...]

Here is the ICANN application:
[icann.org...]

The .com gtld still rules though.
Regards...jmcc

[bill]

Those domain names are all part of the new.net network. They're not approved by ICANN. People can only access them if they have some sort of weird browser plug-in (or something along those lines), and I don't think they get indexed by any of the major SEs.

What made you think the .INC and .TRAVEL seemed to have a future? They might sound good, but couldn't the fact that they are being run as alternate domains in the way that they are inhibit their eventual adoption as official TLDs? I'd stay away from them.

[tedster]

Google has indexed a couple hundred of each - not very exciting, but they do have them.

[bill]

googlebot has the new.net plug-in? ;) They must have some other workaround in place. I remember that SE indexing was one of the big issues for these alternative domains a few years back.

[py9jmas]

It doesn't need a browser plug-in if you know how to set your DNS resolver up to check a different set of root DNS servers from [a-m].root-servers.net. The alternative root DNS servers all have the .com etc delegations as well as their own extensions so should be able to resolve the standard extensions without problem.

[Slone]

What made you think the .INC and .TRAVEL seemed to have a future? They might sound good, but couldn't the fact that they are being run as alternate domains in the way that they are inhibit their eventual adoption as official TLDs? I'd stay away from them.

Good question: First off domain shopping is not my game, so I will say this was an opportunity and experiment. What sold me into a paranoid/rush feeling when the frenzy of buying great keyword domains began. (chuckle) I know I know.

However, yes they sound good. I could see the potential in marketing these domain names and figured they had potential to be picked up by the mainstream. They had more potential than .cc, and some of the others in my opinion. But then who knows?

Money paid for the domain names I "scored" on is not really the issue - but rather - what to do with them. It is one of those conflicting things... Like having a really nice tool, and never getting the chance to use it.

Google has indexed a couple hundred of each - not very exciting, but they do have them.

Tedster - you know I looked around and could not find anything. Would you mind sending me a sticky with the sites you found and search terms you used? Perhaps if getting indexed is possible and there may be (some) traffic - I could do some testing.

It would actually be nice to know how many people have access to these extensions.

Browser support - Actually on my Mac I just add "NEW.NET" to my Network Preferences settings in the "Search Domains" field. I was able to view sites registered with the .inc and .travel domain names.

Thanks for the replies!

[tedster]

Looking at the Google results, I see that they've only picked up the EXISTENCE of these sites - from links on another domain. The pages are not really spidered and no content or page title is returned.

I used these searches -- site:.inc and site:.travel

[tedster]

The success of new.net domain names depends on whether they ever line up a significant number of ISP partners, rather than relying mostly on the PC user to install a plug-in or the Mac owner to configure things properly.

Currently they do have a few relatively high profile ISPs on board, such as Earthlink, Tiscali, and Prodigy -- but to date that's not nearly enough to turn the trick. Even so, they claim around 175 million enabled users.

One big coup might make the difference - AOL on board, for instance, or MSN Search indexing the domains. If your domain names are strong it might be worth holding on for another renewal cycle or two. There's not much downside to such speculating, after all.

[dauction]

Slone ,do yourself a favor and walk away from new.net domains..they are worthless..I was one of the first people in ..and one of the first people out.

The single largest problem with new.net domains is that they are are nothing more than subdomains of new.net .. as in .. "visithere.travel.new.net" and that is the ONLY way the search engines will list them.... I tried in vain to get New.net to tell the truth after I approached every major se and every single one REFUSED to list them with out the "new.net" If you could be listed as Visithere.Travel... then they would have "some" value because the extension would stand out like a sore thumb amongst all the .coms and .nets

Meaning people would click on them ..increasing your revenues.

BTW.. In fact I am the only person ever to get a New.Net domain listed in a major se (without the new.net extension)..and that was only because I was a DMOZ editor!

[Slone]

Think I will hold on to 1 or 2 for another 5 years, but dump the rest.

Thanks again for all the replies...