KPMG has moved to their own .BRAND TLD (Top Level Domain), the first of the big accounting firms to make the move. Previously they were using the domain name KPMG.com as their home page, and now if you go to KMPG.com in your web browser it will redirect you to their new domain, home.kpmg, which then redirects you to https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home.html. This move is yet another sign that the big worldwide brands are beginning to move on over to their own .BRAND TLD, ditching their .COM domain name.
Technically speaking, the redirect from KPMG.com to https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home.html is not ideal, although most likely they’re figuring out the location of the user and redirecting them to a page in their language. In this case, they see that I’m from the USA, so they are showing me the English home page (thus /en/ in the URL). There are other, better ways to so this, as ideally they should be redirecting users to the https://home.kpmg home page, regardless of their location. After all, https://home.kpmg is their real home page, not another URL.
I’ve also see some comments from several people today that using home.KPMG isn’t necessarily the ideal domain to use–but since that’s their home page, using other domains such as the ones Domain Investing found, makes sense. Why use subdomains when you can go ahead and use your own domain, anyway?
Domain Investing reports that there are 7 domains being used now:
Nic.KPMG
Home.KPMG
Assets.KPMG
Author.KPMG
Social.KPMG
Developers.KPMG
AnnualReview.KPMG
The NIC domain is required for all TLDs, and it has to be set up according to ICANN rules. Some TLDs will actually use their nic.TLD as the home page for their site, as in the case with .ICU. I’ve been writing for .ICU and have even tested setting up an .ICU site.
Even now, after several years (the new gTLDS have been out since 2013), many people still aren’t aware of them, as I even got a few questions today after Tweeting about this change. If you’d like to learn more about .BRAND TLDs and how brands are using their TLD, take a look at Makeway.World, the world’s leading hub for .BRAND information. The site has a great post about dot brand, titled “What is a Dot Brand?”
This move the KPMG has made is, in my opinion, a bold one, yet it’s a welcome one. I’ve personally been waiting for more and more companies to actually start using their .BRAND domain. As we begin to see them move to their .BRAND domain and use it for their site(s), the new gTLDs will become more and more popular, driving up the prices and values of the new gTLDs.
One of the reasons that KPMG moved to Home.KPMG is that they wanted a shorter domain name. They previously were using home.kpmg.com and now they are using home.kpmg. This is an upgrade–which is a shorter domain name. More details from their official press release.