Domain Names Domain Tools Emoji

And the Most Popular Extension for Emoji Domains is…

July 12, 2017 by Alvin Brown No Comments
Written by: Alvin Brown

Not long ago, I wrote about where and how to go about registering the latest craze to hit the domain name industry: emoji domains.

If you’re new to the emoji domain conversation, then buckle up your seatbelt as you have a bit of catching up to do.

Yes, those little funny faces and quirky gestures used in text messages, blogs, social media, email and more have now found a home in web urls and domain names.

By the title of this post, you’re likely thinking I’m a bit off my rocker to question which extension is most popular to register emoji domains.

After all, the no-brainer answer when registering your next web presence is always .com, right?

Spoiler Alert: emoji domain registrations are not allowed in top level domain extensions, and haven’t been since IDNA 2008 policy.

That hasn’t always been the case as there are roughly 40-50 .com/.net emoji domains out in the wild that were registered prior to IDNA 2008.

But with .com, .net or any other gTLD restricted from register emoji domains, then what extensions are available for emoji domain registrations?

Well, there has been much jockeying and talk to be had around which extension is likely to be the holy grail of emoji domain registrations.

So much so, that Twitter has come to life with back and forth banter about which emoji domain extension is the best for corporate brands.

Personally, I believe it’s quite a bit early in the game to attempt to guess which extension is to become the king of emoji domains long term.

However, there are quite a few extensions, primarily country-code TLDS (ccTLDs), that allow emoji domain registrations as discussed in my video below:

Even though there are quite a few folks using non .ws extensions for their emoji domains, there is a growing trove of big brands registering and developing emoji domains using the .ws extension.

So, who’s right and who’s wrong? And most importantly, what other extension can tout such a list of big brands using emoji domains?

And this is where the Twitter emoji domain discussion has taken an interesting turn.

@domaineur (Max Guerin, the previous owner of ☁.com and ☮.com emoji domains) proclaims there is a certain extension that’s best suited for emoji domain registrations and usage that brands are likely to flock too.

Of course, this comment left quite a few of us baffled and in the dark to a certain extent. Max never states what extension he’s referencing, however he later states the following:

He then goes on to state:

And it wasn’t too long after this statement that he staged a cliffhanger response, leaving everyone desiring to know more about this elusive extension that is obviously God’s gift to emoji domains:

And as if to shut the door completely on there ever being a shot for .ws extension being the king of emoji domains, he closes with:

I don’t know Max personally, but maybe he knows something that the rest of us don’t know about brands, and their emoji domain views and preferences.

Then again, he may simply be full of hot air and himself. Only time will tell…

Speaking of time, per Max’s previous tweets, we’ll know exactly which domain extension he’s talking about, seeing World Emoji day is July 17th. For now, you might as well do what I’m doing:

Lastly, it was at this very point in tweeting that my 💡 went off with an idea. Why not poll the Twitter universe about which domain extension they’re likely to use when registering emoji domains?

Seeing only chose 4 extensions could be polled, I randomly chose .tk, .ws, .to and .ml as those were the extensions I remember seeing across various articles in the last few months.

So, which domain extension has your eye, and which one are you likely use for your next emoji domain name?

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Written by Alvin Brown
He's an experienced and passionate serial entrepreneur, founder and publisher of Kickstart Commerce. Alvin possesses a great love for startups dominating their market using profitable digital strategies for greater commerce.