Nearly three years ago, in October of 2014, New York City was among the very first cities in the world to launch its own branded city top-level domain (TLD) -- .nyc (pronounced dot-NYC). Since then, over thirty other cities have launched branded city TLDs,[1] including .london, .berlin, .paris, and .tokyo, to name just a few – and hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been taking advantage of the many benefits that a localized domain can offer.
To date, there are over 71,000 domain names registered in the .nyc TLD, making it the largest city domain the world. What makes this a particularly impressive feat is that .nyc domains are an “exclusive” benefit, available only to individuals, organizations and businesses with a verified address inside of one of NYC’s five boroughs. By contrast, most other city domains are not exclusive, meaning that anyone can register a domain name, irrespective of the city or country where they work or reside.
One of the key factors that has helped to make .nyc the world’s premier local city domain is that it enjoys the ongoing support and backing of New York City government. Mayor Bill de Blasio has been an ardent supporter of .nyc domains from the start, and has gone on the record to express his belief that “.nyc represents an exciting opportunity for all New Yorkers,” even calling .nyc domains “high-demand digital real estate.”
"The new .nyc domain presents a unique opportunity for New Yorkers, our small businesses, and organizations throughout the five boroughs to brand their identity, showcase their affiliation with the City—and to ‘own’ who they are online."-- NYC Mayor.Bill de Blasio
The Mayor’s predictions for .nyc were prophetic, and we’ve seen incredible growth in both the sheer number of .nyc domains in use – and the stature of the individuals and companies who are building their web presence on .nyc domain names. In almost every business field and industry you can imagine (from fashion to finance, tech to tourism, retail to real estate, startups to sports hubs, etc.), .nyc is increasingly becoming the domain extension of choice for New Yorkers.
Here are just some of the reasons why.
1.) .nyc Domain Names are Highly Brandable
A .nyc domain is the perfect way for New Yorkers to grab their piece of the city’s most valuable digital real estate, and to brand their business with a meaningful, domain name that will help get them noticed. As a rule of thumb, short, brandable domain names help to convert your prospects into customers – ensuring they can quickly and easily remember, revisit and refer your web address to their friends and family.
Here’s a great example. The New York City real estate developer Jack Resnick & Sons previously used resnicknyc.com as its web address. After the launch of the .nyc domain, they upgraded their web presence to the shorter, better branded resnick.nyc, where their online brand is prominently displayed across six million square feet of commercial, office and residential real estate throughout Manhattan.
Another great example is the mobile food company “Waffles & Dinges,” which has branded itself online as dinges.nyc, and relies on its catchy online brand to help hungry New Yorkers find their food trucks quickly and easily whenever and wherever the urgent need for a Belgian Waffle should strike! They must be doing something right, as dinges.nyc was recently rated by Time Out Magazine as one of the “Top 5 best quick serve restaurants in New York City.” [2]
2.) .nyc Domain Names are Memorable
Three decades ago when the internet was brand new, short, memorable .com domain names were quickly snapped up. This was especially true with respect to keyword domain names that represent entire product or service categories, like hotels.com, travel.com, pizza.com, and the like. If you tried to register one of these one word category focused .com domain names today, you’d be looking at an investment of potentially hundreds of thousands to several million dollars per domain name.
While most category-killer .com, .net and .org domain names have long since been registered, the digital real estate within .nyc domain is still wide open for investors and business developers to acquire and build upon. While thousands of these category specific .nyc domains have already been registered and are being very effectively leveraged, like Kravmaga.nyc , Digital.nyc, and Acupuncture.nyc -- there are tens of thousands more that have yet to be snatched up and are available right now for a smart, future-minded business owner, entrepreneur or developer. Find the perfect .nyc domain without the premium price tag that would otherwise go along with many of the legacy domain extensions.
As of the date of this writing (on August 3, 2017), thousands of short, memorable category leading names -- like burritos.nyc, crepes.nyc and briefcase.nyc -- are all available for sale and awaiting a suitable business to capitalize on them. These names are available for a low annual registration fee, generally ranging between $20-$30/per year, depending on your domain retailer of choice. You can search for available domains at www.OwnIt.nyc/register.
3.) .nyc Domain Names are Great for Local Search
While Google keeps to itself the details of how its search algorithm functions, SEO experts, such as Dmitry Dragilev, believe that having a localized domain name helps with search engine rankings. Dmitry is the founder of, JustReachOut, a SaaS launched in early 2016, which is now used by more than 4,000 small businesses and startups (as well as big ones such as Airbnb, HubSpot, Leadpages and Nickelodeon). He is widely known for his work helping scale a new startup business, Polar, from zero to 40 million pageviews using SEO and PR tactics within 2 years, before eventually being acquired by Google. When asked about the usage of localized or city domain extensions, Dmitry responded:
“Localized domains are a great way to rank for localized searches. If you own a website which you want to rank high for a specific geo area, buying a localized domain is hands down the first thing you should do.” – Dmitry Dragilev, SEO Expert and Founder of JustReachOut
He continues, “for example, if I Google the term "paint store nyc," I see some Yelp results which tell me that Google is looking for better results to display. I see no results for paintstore.nyc - if you would buy this domain and put up some great content you would organically outrank some of these search results on there right now. The .nyc domain is powerful because it has the "nyc" term already in it.”
When .nyc came out, Dmitry wanted to test how well it would do versus a similar .com for localized searches, such as "paint store nyc". What he found is that each and every time, .nyc consistently outperformed .com and other extensions for searches which included the term ".nyc".
4.) .nyc Domain Names are Increasingly Becoming the NYC Standard
In addition to startups and small businesses, .nyc domains are increasingly becoming the standard for New York City based projects launched by major tech companies and global brands. For example, Google’s Link.nyc wifi kiosks, a project that came to life in early 2016, has built over 1000 kiosks that each intermittently show ads and local information on their two 55” high-definition digital screens (planned to expand to 7,500 in 5 years). Here’s a picture of New York City’s very own Mayor De Blasio giving Link.nyc two thumbs up!
The value of the .nyc domain has also become apparent to major corporations like eBay, Dropbox, and Target, as all three have launched targeted campaigns built on .nyc domains to market locally to New Yorkers and protect their global brands. Interestingly, all three companies use .nyc in different ways to maximize their marketing and branding efforts.
Target uses Target.nyc as a simple and straightforward redirect to their main website (target.nyc), which serves mainly to protect their brand. On the flip side, Dropbox and eBay have decided to use a localized approach to targeting the huge New Yorker demographic by actively setting aside pages on their site dedicated to New York City (dropbox.nyc), or in eBay’s case building out their .nyc domain entirely (eBay.nyc). All three strategies; simple redirection, geographic redirection, and separate site development, are solutions that take full advantage of the simplicity and reach that .nyc affords to all businesses.
What does this all mean for YOU?
Imagine that you had the opportunity to purchase the ideal .com domain name for your business or brand at the dawn of the internet, thirty years back. Just imagine the competitive advantage that being an early .com adopter would have offered you for all these years. Now, take a moment to appreciate the fact that today you have a very similar opportunity with .nyc. Only this time, the domain space is inextricably tied to the single greatest and most beloved city in the entire world -- New York City.
New York City is at the epicenter of fashion, commerce, finance, tech and tourism. And so too is New York City’s digital real estate – the .nyc domain. Every day more and more individuals and businesses are becoming aware of the .nyc movement, and registering their perfect .nyc domains to launch their next great idea, community, product, service or venture online. While the .nyc name space is still a wide open territory, make no mistake, as enthusiasts continue to buy up the best .nyc domain names, this valuable digital real estate will soon become more difficult (and expensive) to secure.
Look around you, .nyc domain names are everywhere. If you pay close attention, you’ll increasingly notice .nyc domains being featured on store fronts (like Plush Fitness), subway car ads, billboards, busses, radio and video. Some of the hottest startups and coolest tech companies are using .nyc. For fashion brands, financial services companies, real estate professionals, marketing agencies, students and everyone else -- .nyc is becoming New York’s go-to domain. And, at least for now, you can still nab some of the shortest, most memorable and highly brandable .nyc domain names for about the same price as a dozen New York bagels .
When launching your next big idea online, consider the benefits of a .nyc domain: brandable, memorable, localized, and the new digital standard for New Yorkers. What will you build on your.nyc domain? Let us know!
Now is the time to Own It. Grab your .nyc domain here.
