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Go.Compare now redirecting to the .com
Go.Compare seems to have backpedaled a little on its high-profile rebranding to a new gTLD domain name.
The domain go.compare is now bouncing visitors to the insurance comparison site’s original domain, gocompare.com.
When the company announced its rebranding from GoCompare to Go.Compare last September, there was no redirect in place.
The firm seems otherwise entirely committed to the new branding, even putting it on Welsh rugby shirts as part of a sponsorship deal recently.
The only change appears to be the new redirect — visitors will see the .com in the address bar rather than the .compare domain.
My article announcing the rebrand always seemed to get an unusually high amount of traffic on Saturday nights when Go.Compare was advertising its new name prominently on prime-time Saturday night TV, which makes me wonder whether the company was suffering from leakage related to the switch.
.compare is a GoDaddy gTLD and the go.compare domain was purchased by Go.Compare’s registrar, Lexsynergy.
GoCompare makes a big bet on a new gTLD
GoCompare, one of the most recognizable online brands in the UK, is rebranding to Go.Compare, with a corresponding switch to the new gTLD domain name go.compare.
The insurance price-comparison site announced the move, which is being backed up by a three-month prime-time TV advertising campaign, during the series premiere of talent show The Voice UK, which it now sponsors, on Saturday night.
The brand may be unfamiliar to readers outside of the UK, but here it’s pretty well-known due in no small part to its relentless TV ads, which feature a fictional Italian opera singer. There can’t be many Brits who don’t recognize the jingle, once described as the “most irritating” on TV.
And that jingle now has an extra syllable in it — the word “dot”. The company described the sponsorship like this:
As part of the sponsorship, Go.Compare’s operatic tenor Gio Compario and the actor who plays him, Wynne Evans, are both in the judging chairs, auditioning to find a new voice to help them sing the new brand jingle and play the ‘dot’ in the new website URL. The series will follow Gio and Wynne on their journey to find the best ‘dot.’
This is the first ad:
The company said the rebranding, in phrasing likely to irk many in the domain industry, “means that anyone now looking to use the comparison service will be able search on any device using ‘Go.Compare’, and they will be taken directly to the website.”
It’s inviting customers to direct-navigate, but calling it “search”.
Paul Rogers, director of brand and campaigns, said in a press release:
Behind this, the decision to bring the “dot” into the mix now means that our website is easier to find – regardless of browser or device, all you need to know now is Go.Compare and you’re there. It’s basically taking out the middleman and making it easier for people to find us directly
Go.Compare has been using gocompare.com since it launched in 2006, and that domain is still live, not redirecting, and showing up as the top search result for the company. The domain go.compare does not redirect to the .com, however.
The company’s social media handles now all use the new brand.
The .compare gTLD is a pretty obscure one, that truthfully even I had forgotten exists.
It started off owned by Australian insurance provider iSelect, originally intended as a dot-brand, but sold off alongside .select to Neustar, then its back-end provider, in 2019.
GoDaddy acquired Neustar’s registry business the following year and has since then sold just a few hundred .compare domains, very few of which actually appear to be in use.
I’m not suggesting .compare is suddenly going to explode, but the rebranding and accompanying high-profile marketing effort is surely useful to the new gTLD industry in general, raising awareness that not every web site has to end in .com or .uk.
Neustar takes control of two new gTLDs
Neustar has started taking over former dot-brand new gTLDs belonging to its former clients.
It recently took control of .compare and .select, which previously belonged to Australian insurance company iSelect.
Neustar had been the back-end registry provider for both TLDs.
As previously blogged, iSelect abandoned its primary dot-brand, .iselect, in June.
That was despite that fact that it was actually in use, with domains such as home.iselect, news.iselect and careers.iselect all resolving to web sites.
Now, the generic dot-brands .compare and .select have been assigned to the blandly named Registry Services LLC, a new Neustar subsidiary.
They’re not the first examples of dictionary words functioning as dot-brands being repurposed as generics.
Notably, XYZ.com took over .monster from Monster.com and ShortDot bought .bond from Bond University.
Neustar has not yet announced its plans for its two new acquisitions.
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