This time last week I was in route to League City, Texas with much anticipation for a bit of shop talk, and engaging new relationships at the DNHouston Meetup.

And what a time we had aboard a HoustonPartyBoats.com barge sharing with one another as well as hearing some insight thoughts about search marketing and domain industries.

And so it goes, I’ve been on the fence about the new domain extensions since hearing about their arrival to the domain market mid to late 2012.

I’ve closely followed the opinions of Mike Berkens, Morgan Linton, Page Howe, Rick Schwartz, and a host of others on a weekly basis.

All in all, I’ve been on the fence about the new domain extensions and their positive or negative impact.

My original thoughts were that ICANN had lost its mind and was off its rocker to allow such a massive tsunami of new domain extensions to confuse hit the market in an already seemingly working system of domain extensions.

But then again, and in my humble opinion, releasing new domain extensions is a pure money grab for ICANN.

However, as of late, one thought I’ve toyed with is based on the uniqueness the new domain extensions bring to the domain market and their impact on SEO and Search.

Just hear me out for a minute before calling me crazy. Okay, so here’s my thought…

I recently read a Clickz.com article that I thought was quite interesting entitled “The Home Page Is Dead and Microsites Are the Future – What That Means for New gTLDs”.

It’s a very intriguing article based on the premise that website home pages are dying by the wayside due to more companies using microsites in the future to shorten the sales conversion process.

The author, Jennifer Wolfe, briefly discusses her experience of trying to book a hotel using Marriott.com.

In short, she was unable to to find the hotel that she walked past daily because the home page did not have an effective way to search for hotels and was organized in an ineffective manner.

So what did Wolfe do when met with an antiquated home page?

Looks like GoDaddy is pushing for the new domains, also known as new domain extensions or general top-level domains (gTLDs) using a fresh new look and pop of orange on their new homepage.

Too, the irony is that they also push a discount for .com domains at the very top of the page in a pop of orange (see below).

The updated home page is definitely better than the muscled-up Danica although you can keep scrolling to be scared out of your wits with a good size image of a beefed-up Danica.  But I digress.

From the looks of the new homepage, it appears they’ve aligned the new domain extensions per their liking or suggestive purchase pattern of .club, .email, .guru, .reviews, .today, and .directory.

Out of the listed domain extensions on GoDaddy’s homepage, .guru is on fire closing in on 50K+ new domain names being registered (see ntldstats.com).

(Credit: Jason Cipriani/CNET)

I recently read an article, Apple drops .com button in iOS7, written by Andrew Alleman over at Domain Name Wire. 

A short read, Andrew talks about how his daughter was using the iPad with iOS7 and went to press the .com button, and it was nowhere to be found.

Puzzling if you ask me as I

First, it was 1And1.com and their new domain name extensions commercials, and now GoDaddy has hopped into the mix promoting new domain name extensions.

I received an email notifying me that new domain name extensions are coming. It’ll be interesting to see how many small business owners and the general public understand Godaddy’s email in its most basic form.  

You will now have a chance to create a new domain name since the .com domain name you’ve always wanted is owned by someone asking an arm and leg for it or has it parked with funny colors and links on pages.  

So, for example, you will have the opportunity to own WomensClothing.shop, WomensClothing.online, WomensClothing.luxury, WomensClothing.blog, and WomensClothing.web since you can’t own WomensClothing.com.

As expressed in Godaddy’s email, the new domain name extensions will open a door of greater opportunity that never existed before. I think GoDaddy did a reasonably good job trying to simplify the tsunami of new gTLDs, or, as called by everyday people, new domain name extensions set to hit the domain market by the end of this year.

I’ve long heard that Domain Authority (DA) is more important than ever.

Apparently, as of late, SEO experts Brian Dean and Glen Allsopp have both cosigned this statement (if you will).

If you’re not familiar with either Brian or Glen, then take a moment to read up at Backlinko.com and Detailed.com respectively.

But I digress.

In a recent article posted by Glen, “How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results”, he reveals how the perceived and varying range in Google search results is controlled by a handful of large corporate conglomerates.

Glen poses a very good question for all to consider, especially should a brand survive from garnering traffic from the ol’ great Google:

“Are the Google rankings I aim to get for myself and my clients actually controlled by just three hands full of companies?”