Why .BID?

Auctions have a long history, having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. and trading, bartering and swapping goods and services are way older than that. However, it is only in the last 3 centuries that auctions have become a well-established mechanism for selling and acquiring goods and services. Traditionally used for selling property, and more recently popularised for the sale of art, antiques, collectables and electronics, millions of global auctions are now held daily allowing all of us to bid for or sell almost anything, across every market and geography imaginable.

The Internet is the medium that has allowed auctions, bartering and swapping to come to almost every home owning a telephone line and a computer. The rise in popularity of global market place sites such as ebay, Alibaba, and Mercado Libre has meant that bidding for goods and services around the world is nearly as natural as buying a newspaper. But Internet users don’t have to rely on globally recognised websites to buy, sell and swap goods; there is a massive growth in local bartering, auction and garage sale websites sites servicing neighbourhoods, schools, hobbyists and other small communities.

The new .BID generic Top Level Domain (TLD) provides an identity for buyers and sellers to trade goods and services online. Buyers know that, when they click on a .BID link they will be visiting a website that is designed to facilitate buying and selling. The one thing that a .BID website owner can be sure of is that visitors to it are ready to exchange goods and services.

Online auctions are now a part of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people and it’s not surprising: they are far more convenient than attending a frenzied auction house bidding process (there’s no need to feel self-conscious about your bidding etiquette, or lack of; the timing of the online auction is precise; you don’t have to sit through several auctions for items you’re not interested in while you wait for the one you are; and so on), and nowadays online markets exist for trading just about anything.

The new .BID Top Level Domain name creates an online environment where buyers and sellers can rapidly locate the auction in which they wish to participate. Those wishing to sell their products are no longer tied to the large auction websites to tap into a ready customer base but can create their own, safe in the knowledge that their auctions are easy to find through the familiar .BID domain extension. A .BID domain name provides a convenient, trusted name anchor that stands out on the web, and prospective bidders will be drawn to it by its clear message and the fact that they can trade with confidence in a dedicated namespace.

The use of .BID domain name improves online searches dramatically as global buyers and sellers are more easily able to identify the content of relevance to them, which in turn drives website traffic increasing trade and enhancing the auction process.