MIAMI — ICM Registry today announced its Domain Matching Program that allows most .xxx domain holders a priority opportunity to register directly matching names in .porn and .adult.
The registration fees for these names have been reduced by ICM, and some participating registrars are offering the names for as low as $12.99 per year.
ICM has created a 1-2-3 guide to help .xxx domain holders figure out how to get their names this month, before the names become generally available on June 4. The names sold during general availability will be priced at regular registration fees, which start at $65, depending on the registrar.
The registry said is offering free webinars to help the community learn more about its launch programs and promotional offers. With the release of more that 1,000 new TLDs under ICANN’s program, a lot of domain owners are confused and may not know when, where and how to register names of interest. ICM’s Domain Check Tool can help navigate some of that confusion.
ICM is also offering adult-industry keyword names in .xxx, .porn and .adult as a part of its ongoing Premium Program. ICM noted it is participating in the upcoming adult industry shows, including XBIZ Miami in Florida and Eurowebtainment in Majorca, Spain for those interested in acquiring Premium Names.
The .sex TLD will launch later this year and ICM plans to offer a similar Domain Matching Program.
ICM said that with porn, adult, sex and xxx searched more that 300 million times per month, acquiring .xxx, .adult and .porn names would help drive traffic to these domain extensions noting that premium keywords would be on both sides of the dot in a domain name.
Commenting on the announcement, ICM director Steve Winyard told XBIZ, “The word “porn" is one of the most searched for on the Internet; having it as a TLD allows for even more direct search matches. .xxx is powerful as both a brand and as a match to thousands of search queries; given the popularity of the word “porn” as a search term, the domains using our .porn TLD will be even more widely searched and discovered by end users seeking adult content.
"The .adult TLD offers an even wider scope of use that either .xxx or .porn. Obviously, it signifies the content as being adult in nature but this is not limited to adult or erotic content. It can address many markets such as tobacco, alcohol, travel, mainstream dating sites, etc. … in fact anything that can be used or marketed to Adults in general can benefit from this far reaching TLD.”
Winyard also noted that as the Internet is changing with so many new extensions consumers are becoming more aware of what “right of the dot” indicates; with .xxx, .porn, .adult and soon to launch .sex, any product or service that is related to adults in general will be best served.
“Targeting your consumer and standing out from a crowded world will be the key be to success with more than 1000 TLDS for people to chose from,” Winyard said.