 I noticed there's .coms and then there's also .wtf, so wtf, what's the difference? You can think of a domain name like having an online piece of real estate. Why does it cost it? No. Why does this cost so much? We thought about buying a domain and then noticed some of them cost a dollar and some of them cost a lot more and he wondered why is that? Well, you're in luck. We're gonna talk about that today and more. And today I'm super excited to be joined with my co-host Justin Neely. What's up? How you doing? Good to see you again. It's a nominal god to be here. So I know you got a lot of questions for me and I'll let you just lay them on me. So first and foremost, I think about cost and why is it there's such a range? I noticed that recently, you know, something maybe a dollar to thousands. Like why is there this range when it comes to cost for a domain? There are a lot of potential reasons why. So if nobody owns the domain name yet, you can get a domain like a dot com from any firm anywhere from like a dollar to about $20 just depending. And then if somebody owns a domain name, which that's those thousand dollars that you see, they're essentially reselling. It's you can think of a domain name like having an online piece of real estate, right? So they're selling that off and they're selling off that name that's been around for a while. That's super unique and that can potentially get you business just by having that domain. Okay. And then another thing I noticed, I was so excited to talk with you. So I started just researching all this. I noticed there's dot coms and then there's also like dot coffee or dot WTF. So WTF, what's the difference? Why are there these differences? So when the internet first began, we had just a couple of different variations like the dot com, net info, things like that. Those are just TLDs or top level domains. And then we have what's called CC TLDs, which are country code top level domains. That's like a dot code.uk or dot AU for Australia to really have a localized presence. And then those new ones that just released not too long ago and there's a lot more releasing as we speak. Those are GTLDs, generic top level domains. That's the dot coffee dot wiki dot ninja dot guru dot WTF dot singles. There's a plethora of names. And it was really established because all the good comms are being taken, right? Which is where that online real estate comes in. Because if you have a great dot com domain name, you could sell it for thousands of dollars. So you want to be short and sweet though, right? Absolutely. It goes back to the radio test. If you got that 10 second ad spot on the radio and that's all you can really convey is that domain name. Is it catchy and would someone remember it? Is it easy to spell if you have crazy cool spellings with a K for the crazy? It may not work. And the same thing goes word of mouth. If you can't tell me what your domain name is really quick, I can't go back and find you super quick. It's not going to work out. But imagine that's hard at this point in the game. There's so many domain names. Right. Like how, I imagine it's pushing us to the longer domain names and lengths because there's so many out there. Yeah. In a way, I mean, some things to avoid with your domain name. You want to make sure that you don't have hyphens because that's just annoying. Like cool, go to my website. It's this dash awesome dash website dash calm dash all the dashes, right? Yeah. Or having numbers in it. Like if I tell you to go to go to one coffee shop.com, you might type in O and E or the number one versus the new one or W on potentially it's confusing. Right. And the tension spans, they're just getting shorter. Right. Millennials can attest. So, with your domain name, those ones that are super short and sweet, they're brandable, they're for the most part worth what the cost is. So, those couple thousand dollars, it's really an investment in your business. And especially if it's your business name, that dot-com is taken. It might be a good idea to spend a little bit of cash and make sure you get that. As we're talking about domain names, I started to think, where do I, where do I go to get this? Where do I go to purchase a domain name? Well, glad you asked. Now, so you can go to any domain registrar. Like GoDaddy is a domain registrar, which means you can go and purchase your domain name. So, but with domain names, you don't just purchase it once and done. You actually have to essentially lease the domain. It's still yours. You have to renew it every year. Now, most domains you can buy anywhere from one year to 10 years, but there are some domains with some restrictions. So, you really want to check out those options. Wait, why would that be? How come it's not just consistent across the board? So, to kind of go a little bit deeper, there are registrants, registrars, and registries. Us purchasing domain names, we're registrants. Okay. Then registrars are like GoDaddy, they basically are a vendor supplying domains. And we have registries, which control a dot-com. So, verisign-controls.com, and you have other registries that control different domains. There's that Donuts Registry that controls a lot of the new unique ones, and they set their own rules. So, we're pretty much at their mercy, if you will. Right. Okay. So, I have another question for you, and that is, how do you protect your domain name? I mean, do you need to go and put yourself on the dot-net, the dot-com, in order to protect it? Right. It's really protecting your brand. If you just blow up and become this big success, like I hope you will, you want to get the alternate endings the next best. That way, people aren't trying to just steal your traffic, or potentially your competitors getting that domain name. I've seen it happen, they'll get the dot-net, and steal your traffic, steal your attention, and potentially slander you. Cool. It's a dog eat dog world out there. It's pretty rough. No pun intended. And what you can do, most registrars like GoDaddy has an extra value-added service to protect your registration. So, it'll protect it from hijacking, protect it if you forget to renew your domain. That happens all the time, especially if you buy it for five years out. Are you going to remember in five years? Sometimes not. Credit cards expire. So, there's that added protection that you can get just to make sure that your domain is always yours. All right, that's a wrap. First, I want to give a huge shout out and a thank you, Justin. Thanks for having me. The king of domains. If you want more info like that and you have questions, definitely comment below and be sure to subscribe to our channel. Thanks. See you soon.