We’re heading into one of the longest week’s of preparation for most churches as they prepare for Good Friday services and Easter this coming Sunday.
Most churches deem this their “Super Bowl” Sunday in terms of attendance, having an uptick in guests since most opt to attend church with their families this special day of worship.
As I was preparing for this Sunday by getting a haircut, an Easter sign caught my eye on the way back to the office traveling westbound on Grand Avenue in Pflugerville, Texas.
There was nothing spectacular about the sign in and of itself. However, it happened to lead my eyes to notice the domain being advertised via an A-Frame sign for a local church: GP.Church.
So, of course, I’m quite curious to know more about the church that’s using a .church new top-level domain — seeing I’ve written about a few churches using the .church extension to represent their digital presence.
I made a u-turn and followed the signage which lead me to a church and what looked to be a Christian academy tucked away about a quarter of a mile (at most) off Grand Avenue.
What’s more interesting was seeing a welcome sign with a geo .com domain advertised: gpaustin.com.
My guess is that Grace Place originally started out using GPAustin.com as their web address and then opted for GP.Church in the last few years. The good news is that GPAustin.com redirects to GP.Church.
Once I made it back to the office and in front of a web browser, I searched a number of domain variations using “grace place” and “grace place church”, and found the following (* denotes available at time of writing):
- GPAustin.Church*
- GPChurch.com – registered and resolves to website for GatheringPoint Church of the Nazarene in Bourbonnais, IL
- GracePlace.com – registered and resolves to website for multi-campus Grace Community Church in New Hampshire
- GracePlace.net – registered by BuyDomains and resolves to a sales lander without pricing
- GracePlace.Church – registered by another identically named church based in Berthoud, Colorado; redirects to GracePlace.org
- GracePlaceChurch.com – registered by HugeDomains.com and offered for sale at $2,195
- GracePlaceChurch.net – Registered but not resolving to a website.
- GracePlaceChurch.org – registered by another identically named church based in Oklahoma City
Personally, I like seeing and discovering forward-thinking churches make good use of the .church extension as their primary digital presence.
Although folks are likely to type .com until new top-level domains become the norm for general internet users, I believe churches and businesses willing to think long term are likely to position themselves well for next-gen internet usage.
As I travel throughout the greater Austin metro, I’m discovering more and more churches adopting a .church domain while redirecting their previous .com, .org, or .net domain(s) to their new .church domain.
Will more churches join the .church bandwagon? I don’t know, but time will tell. 😉
Last but not least and as mentioned earlier, it appears the church operates a Christian Academy named Concordia High School, using chsaustin.org as its primary web presence (as shown in image below).
That’s all for now, and I wish you and yours a Happy Easter should I not post before then. 🙂
As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.
