Anguilla and the AI domain extension

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There is a small island reality that could collect up to 30 million euros, about 10% of its gross domestic product, from an unexpected asset: the .ai domain extension.

The rise of artificial intelligence has triggered strong interest from startups and technology companies in the .ai extension. The peculiarity of the case is that it is not a generic extension, but rather a ccTLD ( country code top-level domain ) assigned to the island of Anguilla, a small British territory nestled in the Caribbean Sea.

Table of Contents:

The .AI Extension and SEO
Anguilla follows Tuvalu in its domain extension
Anguilla and the .AI domain extension
Of course, in 1995, when Anguilla was granted the .ai extension, it was hard to imagine that this domain would become the acronym for a disruptive technological innovation. And despite its small size and population (only 91 km² and just under 16,000 inhabitants), in recent years the Caribbean island has been brought into the IT sector by virtue of its ccTLD.

In 2022, the country saw $7.4 million in revenue from its ccTLD (country all mp mobile number list -specific domains) registrations, and things have accelerated rapidly since the emergence of ChatGPT. Vince Cate, a developer who manages the domain on behalf of the territory, told Bloomberg that the total number of .ai registrations has nearly doubled in the past year, to 287,432.

The race for the .ai extension has seen numerous startups and technology companies, such as Character.ai and OpenAI, join in, and not even Elon Musk has been exempt, having registered the .ai domain for an “X” project, still in its embryonic stages, on artificial intelligence.

Register the .AI domain
The .AI Extension and SEO
Since it is a ccTLD, what consequences could registering the .a domain have on SEO?

Gary Illyes, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, gives an answer: “ Starting in June 2023, Google treats the .ai extension as a gTLD. Therefore, it can be used by companies without distinction for their online business .”