By Google: Channel-Domains for Youtube Channels

Sunrise Period

The sunrise period of the Channel-Domains starts on May 3rd and lasts until June 7th. Trademark owners must register their trademarks with the Trademark Clearinghouse in order to register the same name at the Channel-Domain. The domains in the Sunrise Period are usually more expensive than the general availability domains. For the Channel-Domains, the prices are the same in the sunrise period and general availability. But it gets even better: Brand owners also receive a 15% discount for Channel-Domains registered in the Sunrise Period.

Limited Registration Period (LRP)

The LRP for Channel-Domains runs from June 7th to mid-2023. During the LRP, registrants will be able to apply for Channel-Domains through a content creation platform previously included in the program.

General Availability

The channel domain is expected to enter General Availability or General Availability (GA) in mid-2023.

Channel-Domains are the ultimate domains for publishers and content creators who want to create and showcase digital sales channels or marketing channels.

There is a usage requirement for .Channel-Domains:

“Channel domain names are intended solely for use by creators and publishers to host or redirect to storefronts featuring digital and physical products, and audience-building mechanisms for the purpose of monetization.”

Typical for social networks is that the user gets a subpage in the form "portal.com/user". Aiming for a high search engine ranking for such a page is a wasted effort. As a rule, search engines will not list such pages at all.

It is advisable to register a separate domain for the subpage on Youtube and then forward it to the subpage.

This increases the chances of the entire content on Youtube also appearing in search engines. It is advisable to use for channels on Youtube the new domain .channel for channels on Youtube.

Google Registry has originally provided that redirection to a Youtube channel is the condition for granting a Channel-Domain. In the meantime, this condition no longer applies and the requirements for a Channel-Domain are no longer so tight. Nevertheless, the forwarding of the Channel-Domain to a Youtube channel would be a good and suitable option for the domain.

The name of a website like my-marketing.channel is shorter than for example youtube.com/user. The shorter a domain is, the more memorable it is. The memorability of a domain is an important key when marketing the website of a domain.

Hans-Peter Oswald

https://www.domainregistry.de/…

https://www.domainregistry.de/… (deutsch)