If there's one thing that's sure to dominate the World Wide Web, it's the new, top-level domain extension .REALTOR.

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) secured .REALTOR to provide a trusted source for real estate information online and to bring order to this increasingly complicated online world.

But are you ready for the move to the new domain?

​To help you with your decision, REALTrends has put together a list of FAQs that explain how this new domain extension could affect your existing website and more importantly, your business.

FAQs

Will getting a .REALTOR domain help my Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?  There's no evidence that the .REALTOR domain will help your SEO.  You should certainly not change the domain for you existing site in the hope that this will produce better search engine ranking.  In fact, your URL has little impact on your SEO.

I hear I can get a free .REALTOR domain?  If it's free, why not get one?  It's free for the first year and for the first 500,000 REALTORS® who register.  After that, you'll have to pay an annual fee.  The annual fee isn't steep, so it's not a big risk.

Will a .REALTOR domain help my brand?  This depends on several factors.  Do you think the word REALTOR® ads value?  Do you think buyers and sellers hold the REALTOR® brand in high regard?  A REALTOR® is held to higher standards than someone who simply holds a license, but do consumers know that?

Isn't .REALTOR more specific than .com?  The real question is whether or not consumers will remember that your website is followed by .REALTOR rather than .com.  We're all used to typing .com.  That said, there are a lot of new top-level domains available now, so in time, consumers may become used to remembering an entire URL string.

For more information on the .REALTOR domain extension, visit about.realtor.