With over a thousand new domain name extensions on the way, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out which you want to prioritise and the names you want to register within those groups.

Here are some tips for narrowing the list down and making your choices more manageable.

1. Start with your existing assets
Make a spreadsheet of your current domains, projects and businesses and prioritise them in order of importance. You’ll want to cross-reference them with the list of new TLDs to see where you need to pick up new extensions. It will take time to go through everything, but it’s a task worth completing. The more organised you are, the greater the chance you’ll end up registering what you need.

2. Future projects
Many of the new TLDs lend themselves well to mini-sites and fun projects, so if there’s anything you have in the pipeline, it’s worth checking to see if it would be suited to a new TLD.

3. Ideal names
If there’s a particular name you’ve always been after and you’ve not been successful so far, see how it sounds with a brand new extension.

4. Brand protection
Even if you don’t run your own business, chances are you have your own name or at least one favoured domain name to protect. Make a list of all the extensions that logically suit your name or company name (especially ones people are likely to register for themselves or try to sell back to you), and add them to your spreadsheet.

1. Ratings
Once you have your list of potential new domain names, add a column for ratings. Score each on a scale of 1 (nice to have) to 10 (absolute must-buy), and then reorder your spreadsheet accordingly from highest to lowest.

2. Categories
Next, create a ‘Category’ column and group your extensions accordingly. Determine categories based on what makes sense for your situation. Examples of groups might be:

• Purpose (business, social, personal branding)
• Length (of name or extension)
• Owner (yourself, your company, your clients)
• Type (blog, app, portfolio)
• Topic (design, coding, SEO)
• Importance (priority, likely, maybe)

3. Notes
Finally, add a ‘Notes’ column. You may want to include:

• Reasons why you chose your rating.
• Questions to ask others or revisit later.
• Links between names (e.g. ones related to the same project).

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As more information about the new domain extensions is released, we’ll be keeping you up to date via the blog, so you can continue to refine your decisions based on price, restrictions, successful extension applications and so on. Keep checking back for the latest!