Few days ago, there a new TLD extension was released on the market. We are talking about the new .so extension, extension that stands for the Republic of Somalia. Even though this code top-level domain should have been released in 2009 when ICANN had approved the transition of the of the .SO extension to the Somalia Government, these domains have been released only on the 1st of April, and it was definitely not a joke.
What do we mean by released? Well, the .so extension was pretty much known for a while, although no one was able to register a .so domain as the registration was closed until the 1st of April.
Obviously, as .so stands for Somalia, most of the domains will be dedicated to the Somali people. However, as with any other TLD, the registration isn’t meant only for the Somali natives and everybody can register it, at least in order to protect the brand of their business.
It is important to know that when it comes to registering a .so domain this TLD is not on the purchase list of all the registrars. For example, Godaddy.com doesn’t have it; on the other hand, at name.com, a .so domain name can be bought for $23.99, a little bit expensive if we consider any other TLD price.
But what advantages may the .so domains offer? As we have said in the above lines, they can be bought in order to protect a business brand. Moreover, they will definitely offer more exposure to the Somali sites, and also, they are perfect for the charity organizations that are operating in Somalia.
As for the future of the .so domains, most of the public institutions will probably migrate to .so as well as all the important companies from Somalia. For rest of the people though, they might not offer even the smallest advantage but this differs from person to person.