.XXX Could Change Browsing Habits

It is my understanding that the adult industry has been at the forefront of various industry changes. I have heard that the adult video business spurred the quicker adoption of in-home VCRs, and I also understand that online adult businesses helped to bring credit card processing online more quickly.

I am wondering if .XXX domain names could change browsing habits in the future and pave the way for the public adoption of gTLD domain names. Hear me out for a minute.

At the moment, adult websites can be found on a wide variety of extensions… com, net, org, info…etc. There really are no rules in place for where people can find adult websites. As far as I am aware, that will not change with .XXX domain names. People will still be able to visit adult sites on the same extensions as they can now.

As some websites migrate to .XXX domain names, and other new adult websites are developed on .XXX domain names, it’s likely more people will directly navigate to .XXX domain names for their adult pleasure. Frank Schilling has said that people already directly navigate to .XXX, so this isn’t a surprise. With increasing traffic patterns, I would not be surprised to see additional adult sites using .XXX domain names, despite the initial objection of some in the adult business.

Theoretically, I would think that when people become accustomed to visiting .XXX domain names, a “vanity” extension if you will (coined by David Castello), they will be more amenable to visiting other vanity gTLD in the future. If they want a restaurant, they might visit OliveGarden.Restaurant, if they want to make a hotel reservation, they may visit Marriott.Hotel or Philadelphia.Hotel.

I certainly don’t think this change will happen over night, and I am not sure how long it will take. However, I would not be surprised in the least if .XXX helps to usher in the public adoption and awareness of new gTLDs.

What do you think?

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

11 COMMENTS

  1. *

    I agree with you.

    In the case of .xxx, those who do not wish to go to .xxx can simply block it.

    If someone is a recovering gambler, one could also block .casino (or whatever the gambling adopts).

    In the case of brands, a company can set up a registry of trust for its brands–thus, a restricted gTLD for its brand.

    The new gTLDs are comings and we need to be prepared.

    *

  2. I think the .com generation will always tend to .com , but as our searches change from vegashotel to zimmerframe and the kids take over they will not have much extension affinity. Except perhaps their local cctld or .com in USA.
    Not sure how super long ones like .restaurants will pan out, but things like .hotel, .xxx, .tv will do what they say on the tin.

  3. Awareness, ya sure. But I agree with Schilling that “.XXX” is in it’s own league because it is intuitive and XXX has been associated with porn for decades. Plus he says he looked at search data. But I don’t see it translating to other gTLD’s. There will be THOUSANDS of them supposedly, and it is just 100% easier to search in Google which has already indexed, analyzed, graded, and ranked hundreds of millions if not billions of .com/.net/.org/ccTLD websites over the past decade.

    There’s just no reason for them do well, no competitive advantage and an uphill (x 1000 for every proposed gTLD) battle for recognition and to actually be remembered. Each gTLD will be competing with the other. And if one person visits XXXX.YYYYY and there is no website there, or a crappy, malware, or useless site, that takes credibility away from the whole gTLD system, since users won’t be able to rely on just typing in random words.

    My 2 cents.

  4. I am not sure why the adult industry would embrace .XXX really.

    Moving to .XXX would be a self imposed segregation, and make adult websites much easier to block without any content filter.

    Brad

  5. i think it is not a matter of behaviour…
    It’s just waiting game till all goverments force porn to .xxx
    Might take another 5 years but it will happen…
    And i bet Google will favor the .XXX if you are looking for porn..
    that makes it even easier for everyone and google….

  6. “If they want a restaurant, they might visit OliveGarden.Restaurant, if they want to make a hotel reservation, they may visit Marriott.Hotel or Philadelphia.Hotel.”

    it will be interesting to see if the user will continue to use marriott.com, reservations.Marriott or marriott.hotel. alot of future confusion which is way to early know as corporate spending, social media (facebook) and major search engines (google) will be strong factors in how this plays out.

  7. @LarryFischer

    “…it will be interesting to see if the user will continue to use marriott.com, reservations.Marriott or marriott.hotel…”

    It will be more confusing if Marriott needs to put into other states or countries extensions ie:

    Marriott.nyc
    Marriott.denver
    Marriott.chicago
    Marriott.texas

    Marriott.dubai
    Marriott.singapore
    Marriott.london
    Marriott.sydney

    Marriott.accommodation
    Marriott.resort
    Marriott.booking
    Marriott.travel

    It is very expensive and confusing for all registrations in different extensions…

  8. Way too soon to jump to this post’s conclusion.

    People will always use the .com unless you offer something that is unique that is not already offered on there.

    .XXX might be used like .TV, ie, maybe have pics and vids on the .com of the site and a members only forum or live feeds or paid service etc on the .xxx version of it. Think MLB.com and MLB.TV.

    To think that .XXX will make Joe Public more comfortable with more gTLDs is stretching it a bit.

  9. Dot xxx is the “most likely to be legislated” domain extension, and that will almost undoubtedly result in a “clean up the internet” type movement that will try and force adult names to reposition to that extension.

    Whether this ultimately succeeds remains to be seen, but investment in this sector is likely a gamble with a potentially high risk to reward ratio.

    Ultimately this could leave some .com owners holding the bag, will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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