Amazon has over 20000 domains in its portfolio, which is worth over $5 million. Majority of these domain names are some variation or combination of keywords like ‘Amazon’, ‘kindle’, etc. but the most interesting thing about amazon’s portfolio is that Amazon has been a big buyer of second level domain names in new TLDs in recent times.
Last month alone, I see 247 domains that were registered by Amazon. Location oriented TLDs like .africa, .asia, .boston were popular while .blackfriday, .vip, .gratis, etc. had more than a few names in the generic category.
Initially I was of the opinion that Amazon is doing this to grab these names before the competition. It still might be the case. It might be a highly defensive strategy, which is why it has gone after something like .spot. There’s not much us for it, but by owning it, it doesn’t have to defensively register hundreds domains under it.
…but maybe not. Something noticeable about the names that Amazon registered sometime back is that many of them are in use now.
Read.social redirects to goodreads.com. Gifts.holiday sends visitors to Amazon Gift Ideas page.
So maybe the strategy is advertising after all.
Who knows what’s cooking but it is intriguing for sure!
