dot TEL domain names

Are they any different in anyway.

I got a mailer from Namesco which seemed to suggest they were but which I did not really understand the angle/benefit/reason.

Should I be buying the ones I use now on com and co.uk

??
 
Thanks MKE useful read and has got me up to speed a bit.

Will people be using them for personal use and if so what happens when we quickly realise how few name variations there really are?

John.Smith.TEL

Might seem like a scoop but will he just be swamped by people wanting to contact all the John Smiths
 
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Page, follow the link to the video on a personal use one. It's hilarious, the blonde I mentioned in the information. But it does show one, very simple use. I'll come back and edit this post to put a link in for you.

Here she is: The Blonde at Telnic.

Consider, how much does it cost to register with, say, yell.com then think how restrictive that is. If I remember, tomorrow morning I'll add a telephone number on http://stopwatchweb.tel then take it off again around lunchtime. I can do that with any information I wish. In real time.

They are restricted in terms of who can sell them. I don't know why. Yes, £15 does seem to be the norm and that is plus VAT.

Special offer to UK Business Forums members: we'll do them for you at £13 + Vat throughout the rest of April.
 
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fisicx

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Telnic appear to the only registrars for the .tel TLD.

You can't change or amend the page, only the information it displays so all you get is a directory type listing without the logo. So in effect all you are doing is replicating what's already on your website.
 
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That's like saying NominetUK are the only registrars for *.uk domains. It doesn't mean they are the only people who sell them.

You type what goes on the page and where with some minor restrictions, you can even add a map, you can add a private section. Are you saying that because it's not your web page and you don't have total control that is a handicap?

On the contrary. The idea is to have a standardised format so anyone on the web can be found.

Add your .tel address to your stationery instead of contact details. Change your address and telephone number as often as you wish. That does look to me to have more than just a smidgin of flexibility.
 
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One thing I forgot to mention and this forum won't allow an edit after ten minutes unless you leave it for too long:

Yes indeed, Page. I foresee many UK subscribers leaving it until all those anything like the one they want have gone. I can see a great future for this tld, unlike the others that have been issued within the last few years. I kept my mouth firmly shut about them.

My point is that it will cost £15 for one or two years (£13 if you take up my offer above) to get yours or something very close while it is still available. Leave it for a while and it probably won't be. Leave it for too long and it almost certainly won't. Even if you don't use it much to start with, you have it when you need it.
 
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fisicx

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I agree with sugs. How is having a .tel domain going to help my business or my customers? Do I hand them a business card that has my domain.com or mydomain.tel?
 
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mydomain.tel. You can list all of your sites there as well as all of your contact information for divisions, departments, use the private section to let internal staff have a source of contact for each other, lots of other things.

Anyway, enough on that. I've told you all it's there and how to get more information. You don't have to. What I want to know now is who has watched that video? Did you enjoy it as much as I did?
 
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I can see its use. Especially over the years. Businesses move around. Time is spent keeping address books upto date etc. But then people have to know that is where they look.

Not so much for a smaller business. So I am still unsure.

If it is a very fast click click click then that makes a difference.

30p a week - not much but maybe pointless.

£15 a year - reduced admin one key caller - then ah maybe different

It remains in my pause box. I had a look at the video and could see some uses.

What does the log in information add?
 
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fisicx

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mydomain.tel. You can list all of your sites there as well as all of your contact information for divisions, departments, use the private section to let internal staff have a source of contact for each other, lots of other things.

Ugh... If someone handed me a business card with .tel on it I'd give it the same credibility as .mobi or .me.uk.

And because the landing page looks so manky I'd want to leave ASAP.

I thought the vidio failed after about 10 seconds. Couldn't be bothered to hang around waiting to see what it was advertising.
 
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BlueNose

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Thought I would break my duck on this forum after lurking around for a while :)

I dont beleive the .tel is meant to replace a website but more to be a landing page to direct you elsewhere - phone, fax, web site address etc. The beauty being it is quickly accessible on a computer, phone, blackberry.

I'm a bit of a duffer with this sort of thing but was advised to buy two versions of my job title by a friend.

If it takes off and I am able to give out my contact details as an all encompassing memorable 'job title'.tel then I think that will look good.

I notice in the last few days that someone has purchased the plural version of my .tel (I have the 'ing' and 'or' version... if that makes sense :rolleyes:) so it seems to be popular.

Whether it takes off, who knows, but I would have felt terrible missing the opportunity of picking something really relevent now for a modest investment.
 
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BlueNose

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Personally this excites me but I think it comes down to whether you believe the hype and are prepared to invest pretty much blind at this moment.

If it takes off I have two really relevent .tels directing customers to my contact details and website.

If not I have wasted £60, its as simple as that I suppose.
 
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SpiralHosting

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.Tel is different from LinkedIn and other networking sites because it's not a website. The records are stored as DNS entries and rendered through the Telnic proxy into the page you see in your browser. The best thing about this is that the API will allow people to view contact information without a browser - i.e. an open-source application on your mobile.

The most interesting part of .tel is that in the future applications could be developed for your phone - so you don’t store your friends phone numbers, you just store their .tel domains. The .tel address always has the most recent information - so essentially you would be putting your friends in control of their contact information stored on your phone.

BlueNose > If you choose to renew them I'd shop around as £30 is expensive for a .tel domain. We sell them for €10 (about £8.80).

fisicx > The difference between .tel and .mobi is that .mobi is for HTML websites, .tel is not.
 
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Ashley there is not difference with any domain.
I’m a member of a company that sells a “dot WS” domain (.WS)
The advantage is that is recently new and has a lot of domains available.

Any question please sent me a PM or ask here.
 
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Edwin77, you are very misguided. You can host a web site on an ordinary domain. A .tel has specific fields and you do not have a set of DNS records to manipulate.

Outside industry specific membership lists I think the online contact detail directories will be gone within a year or two. That will save many of our small business customers loads of money because some give in to each of them that phone to sell their "this is the best directory" spiel. They charge horrendous amounts for pathetic results. The .tel standard price is £15 per year.

Colin, go in, set the details you want, outside the couple of fields where you don't have much choice use your imagination and emphasise your USPs or keywords. PM me if you need help, or look me up and I'll be glad to talk you through it.
 
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We have one, I've no idea why or what to do with it.

www.voipfone.tel

Well it looks good for your business.

And people used to say that about domains and email and even the telephone once.

Was Alexandra Graham Bell not told there was need for telephones since we had messenger boys.

It is question of calling the right ones at the right time and having the vision.

Still unsure though.

I could see the one contact that lasts for ever being useful. But the .tel below will be "hidden" so no hurry there. Hidden since one John Smith on your phone and that will point to one particular John Smith who may be rtggy654nbnn.tel
 
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stugster

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.mobi is a very valid domain name. It is for a mobile device version of your site. .me.uk also has its uses if it is a personal site and for someone who lives in the UK.

You shouldn't need a .mobi domain if you code your site correctly. All browsers announce who they are (in terms of software) and their version. So having multiple domain names is kinda like having multiple phone numbers.

Call 0131 516 8456 for hard drive repairs... unless you need memory upgrades, that's 0131 516 8457. If you need them both though, you want 0131 516 8458.

Nah. Too much hassle.
 
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Cromulent

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You shouldn't need a .mobi domain if you code your site correctly. All browsers announce who they are (in terms of software) and their version. So having multiple domain names is kinda like having multiple phone numbers.

Then you can use redirects based on that information, just as some websites automatically redirect you to the correct domain name based on your location (.com / .co.uk / .eu etc etc).

Personally I bought every popular domain name type for my companies website as an insurance policy.
 
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stugster

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I'd be extremely surprised to find a client visiting the .mobi, .tel, .tv variations of my domain name to be honest with you. I'm going to say that unless it's one of the extremely popular domain names (.com, .co.uk, .org, .net) then there's not much point having even more.

If you did go down the path of wanting all the domain names under the sun (and having to renew them all every year), then I'd have every domain set up with a 301 redirect to my chosen main domain name.

As a small business owner, I don't have the time to set up separate sites when new domain names become available, or to have to keep accounting for all my separate domains.

As I said previously, I really don't see the point in having more than one main domain name (with the rest just forwarding to that one), as anything else is just going to be confusing (or a nuisance) to your clients.
 
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Cromulent

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As I said previously, I really don't see the point in having more than one main domain name (with the rest just forwarding to that one), as anything else is just going to be confusing (or a nuisance) to your clients.

True, that is actually what I do now. I just think if I ever did have a mobile device version of my site I would have the .mobi domain name redirect to the mobile device version for convenience. You don't actually need an entirely new site though.

I do however think that the .mobi domain name will take off now that we actually have a phone which is worth browsing the web with (iPhone) rather than the extremely poor alternatives we have had in the past.
 
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fisicx

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I do however think that the .mobi domain name will take off now that we actually have a phone which is worth browsing the web with (iPhone) rather than the extremely poor alternatives we have had in the past.

It's even less likely. I use an iphone and haven't yet seen a .mobi. All you need to do is make sure you use a browser detecting script and deliver a site suitable for that device/browser combination. In any case, I haven't yet come across a site that doesn't resove well unless you use flash in which case it's a non-starter (iphone doesn't support flash)
 
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fisicx

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But how many people have clicked on the links and contacted you?
 
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fisicx

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Google likes new stuff so new webapges will always get indexed quickly. How long they stay in the SERPs however is a different matter.

What you don't want is for the .tel to rank higher than your main site.
 
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BlueNose

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Yes, good point.

I dont necessarily think you going to sell anthing with a dot tel because of there limitations but they may..... and its a big may... turn into a good source of 'click throughs' to your proper website.

For example if you were a dentist (I'm not) and you had dentist dot tel linking to joebloggsdentists dot com.

This is my plan, two top generic domains for my profession linking to my non eneric jobloggsltd domain website.

Thats how it was sold to me, but I have been known to buy pups in the past :(
 
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fisicx

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So here we are three months on and nothing seems to be happening. I quite like new ideas but am often very slow to adopt them (usually long after the sell by date) but I've yet to see a single business card or any other marketing material promoting .tel.

Has all the hype faded away? Who has brought one and is still wondering why they wasted their money? Who uses theirs every day to generate new leads?

Still sitting on the fence here. Although I'm leaning more to the conventional than the fad. nobody has yet convinced me that a .tel is going to improve anything.
 
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