Amazon has registered a bunch of domains under new TLDs, and it’s forwarding them to pages on its website.
It’s still unclear what Amazon.com’s strategy is for the many top level domain names it will soon control. But we might get a hint from examining its use of other registry’s top level domain names.
Amazon.com has been a big buyer of second level domain names in new TLDs. For example, it picked up many city names under .delivery.
I’ve also noticed recently that it registered a bunch of generic or descriptive terms under new TLDs last year that were originally registered under Mark Monitor’s DNStinations. The whois records are slowly shifting to Amazon.com, unveiling more and more domains.
This month alone, I count 38 non-brand domains registered by Amazon in new TLDs that have popped up in my DomainTools alerts. These domains range from Outlet.toys to Congratulations.gifts to Funny.reviews.
My initial assumption was that Amazon is registering these to keep them out of the hands of competitors. That still might be the case. It might also be an over-the-top defensive strategy, which is one of my hypotheses for why it has gone after top level domains like .spot. It doesn’t have much of a use .spot, but by owning it, it doesn’t have to defensively register hundreds or thousands of domain names under it.
…but maybe not. Here’s what’s interesting about the 38 domains I identified this month: they’re all in use.
Every single one of the domain names is being forwarded to a (mostly) relevant page on Amazon.com’s website.
Funny.reviews forwards to Amazon’s list of funniest reviews, including the famous banana slicer. Wearable.fitness sends visitors to its wearable technology page.
(You’ll notice some “misses” in the list, such as cloud.cleaning and cloudcomputing.camp forwarding to cleaning products and outdoor camping, respectively.)
Since Amazon.com won’t be able to get .amazon, would the company ever advertise “Find all of your hiking gear at Hiking.camp?”.
I’m not sure, but it’s intriguing. Here’s a list of the domains and where they send visitors:
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