KPMG and gTLDs
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
KPMG: MIGRATING FROM .COM
Professional services fi rm KPMG has some ambitious plans for its .kpmg generic top-level domain. David Green, head of global digital marketing, told TB&I about the fi rm’s vision.
In a world where .com is considered king, KPMG is looking to break free. T e professional services fi rm, a global network of independent member fi rms, is looking to replace its
kpmg.com website with a fresher and slicker .kpmg generic top-level domain (gTLD).
“As the primary signal for our brand’s Internet addressing, .kpmg will replace
kpmg.com,” explains David Green, head of global digital marketing at the fi rm, which operates in more than 155 countries and employs close to 155,000 people.
“T e time it takes to get to that stage will depend on general public awareness of the gTLD programme,” Green notes. “We won’t immediately drop .com; there will be a phased migration.”
KPMG’s decision to apply for a new-look domain followed an internal “feasibility study” on whether to apply for a gTLD and, if yes, what to apply for, says Green, noting that 17 senior KPMG executives were interviewed.
“We had a very clear understanding from the outset that we were not applying for a domain
20
name—we were applying to operate a secure registry system at the world root of the Internet. T ere were several advantages to applying, but the primary motivation was to operate a registry system, because it can provide a number of operational and technical advantages,” Green says.
T ese advantages, he explains, include having “superfast servers at the root of the Internet” and the ability to resolve lots of queries: a fantastic processing power such as the .com registry can handle “millions of queries per second”.
“It’s a massively scalable database; these registry systems have a proven ability to host millions of unique entries,” he says. “And you have more secure point-to-point Internet communications as well as unique addressing, which is where most of the conversation during the application stage was focused.”
Indeed, KPMG’s application states that the .kpmg domain will act as a “clear signpost” for Internet users to genuine KPMG domains and associated content.
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 2, Issue 4
“It will therefore increase consumer and client trust and reduce the possibility of malicious conduct. It may also allow us to engage with Internet users in their native language, creating a more positive user experience,” the application states.
Search engine optimisation (SEO), Green adds, was another big advantage of having a .kpmg domain, despite Google’s refusing to disclose how favourably its search engine will treat gTLDs compared with other domains.
“Google uses many diff erent criteria in its relevance and ranking algorithm. One of those is the domain name: if a domain is a key term, it will have a greater relevance for people searching for that key term. So any website under a .kpmg domain is clearly owned and managed by KPMG, and the domain should have a higher ranking in that regard, although this will not mitigate the need to address other SEO considerations,” he says.
Brands to lead innovation
In line with one of ICANN’s goals for the new gTLD programme, innovation, Green says, and
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