In the last five years since its launch, .art has become the most popular extension for creatives and has a stable place among the top-five fastest growing domain zones — all through organic growth and remarkably high renewal rates. Its 200,000-plus community includes creative organizations and personalities as well as industry giants including the Louvre, Marina Abramovic Institute, Harvard Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Arts of London, Amazon, Bank of America, Mercedes, Porsche, Pixar, Kickstarter, Vivienne Westwood and many others.
A website on .art can be anything: a point of entry for all social media accounts, an online portfolio, a marketplace that generates a revenue stream, or a cool name for your NFT. As a website owner, you are the only one deciding on its content, giving you full control over your online presence.
.art domains — A digital identity for creatives
Here’s why so many different personalities and organizations choose to be united under the .art umbrella.
Make an impact with a domain name
None of us had the ability to choose our given names, but it’s a whole other story with your digital identity. .Art offers a solution that not only gives you the ability to use your own name, but also instantly connects with the art world. The .art domain ending defines you as an artist or a creative person before anyone even visits your website, and this is a distinct advantage.
By choosing yourname.art for your website, you create a point of entry for all inquiries about your professional background, work, and projects. And you can finally stop worrying about aligning all your media platform profile names.
Enhance your online presence
The services provided by .art go beyond digital identification. This applies whether you use traditional artistic mediums or play around with digital, crypto and VR art, or NFTs. .Art domains have the possibility of Ethereum integration to be used as easy-to-remember crypto addresses, making them an inherently all-in-one product.
You can also simply link all your existing media accounts to one domain address, which is an excellent DIY marketing trick that also saves trees. Why print business cards if you can have a digital one?
Get found more readily
Using the .art domain ending can also enhance your search presence. According to a study, the relevance of the words in the domain name and extension helps web pages to rank better for specific keywords.
The study also found that having a domain name extension relevant to the website’s content (like .art) means that you need fewer inbound links to rank in top page search spots than you would use a more traditional .com domain.
Even if you already have a website using .com, you can still obtain a .art address and simply point that address to your existing site. This gives you more ownership of your name in the online space. You can also use it to point to a particular section of a website for better navigation — just like amazon.art points to the platform’s art supply section.
Moreover, there is the added benefit of a psychological shift. Using the word “art” in your website address automatically puts visitors on notice that your business is a creative one. This is a simple but effective marketing tool built right into your online presence.
Why use a .art domain name?
In light of .art’s fifth-anniversary celebrations, we spoke to some of its adopters and found out what kind of strategic thinking and value choices led them to choose a .art domain for their work.
David Spriggs — davidspriggs.art
David Spriggs is a Canadian-British installation artist known for his large-scale 3D ephemeral installations that layer transparent images. His work is in the permanent collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Quebec.
He shares: “I chose .art in order to bring context to my website name. I prefer that my artwork be seen for itself rather than as a commercial product for which other domain zones stand.”
Steve Miller — stevemiller.art
Steve Miller is a multimedia artist who makes paintings, screenprints, artist books, and sculptures. Through his art, he explores the influence of science and technology on modern culture.
“I wanted to create a new notion of what my artist website is going to be. Stevemiller.art creates a new kind of excitement and within that, you can now own the freedom to create something new,” Miller says.
From my perspective, there are two important domain extensions .com and .art.
“.Art is explicit in foregrounding the importance of the content. You come to .art for a deep dive into creativity and innovation. As the domain space heats up with a plethora of options, it’s important to have a clear identity.”
bitforms gallery — bitforms.art
bitforms gallery, based in San Francisco and New York, represents established, mid-career, and emerging artists critically engaged with new technologies. Spanning the rich history of media art through its current developments, the gallery’s program offers an incisive perspective on the fields of digital, internet, time-based, and new media art forms. The founder of Bitforms Gallery
Steven Sacks says, “I’ve been telling my artists to get .art because .com is related to commerce and business and .art immediately puts you in a place that people understand you in the art platform”
MacKenzie Art Gallery — mackenzie.art
John Hampton, interim executive director and CEO of the Canadian gallery says, “We chose .art because it instantly communicates our mission and identity. Rather than identifying ourselves as a commercial entity (.com) or situating us within the borders of our country (.ca), the .art signifier identifies us within a community of artists and institutions, each operating in their own context, but also as part of a global community.”
Kickstarter platform — kickstarter.art
To date, the public benefit corporation Kickstarter Arts has raised more than $290 million for over 76,000 artistic projects across the art, dance, photography, and theatre categories.
The team behind Kickstarter comments, “.art allows us to speak directly to the arts community in a more targeted and focused way.”
Listings platform — jobs.art
Jobs.art was created by Art Handler — the first publication to make the inner workings of the art world its focus. Jobs.art attracts employers from across the industry and globe and aims to connect skilled applicants to the best museums, galleries, curators, and other art handling positions.
Clynton Lowry, founder of jobs.art, says, “Essentially, .art has provided half the marketing for us. It’s like the readymade, but for online identities.”
Whitewall Magazine — whitewall.art
Whitewall is an independent art and luxury lifestyle magazine published quarterly. The magazine states that its aim is to go beyond the stark white walls of the art gallery to reveal the personalities that shape the art world and other creative industries.
Michael Klug, the magazine’s owner, shares, “When you’re on a .art domain you know that you will be looking at quality content. It’s giving a house and a roof to this entire community of art creators and influencers”
Brafa Art Fair — brafa.art
The Brafa Art Fair, created in 1956, is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious art fairs, famous for the high-quality fine art, antiques, modern and contemporary art and design it offers.
Bruno Nelis, PR and Communication director of the museum, clarifies the vision, “Before we had a brafa.be website on a Belgian domain and we felt that it was important to get access to a community that was global.”
Platform — salon.art
SALON/ acts as a platform for talents from the fields of fashion, design, art and culture. Using a physical route through a city, SALON/ showcases its passion for interdisciplinary collaborations aiming to stimulate the interaction between designer, public and location.
Gijs Stork, the founder, comments, “.art is a global community, switching to this domain zone is a no-brainer for the whole worldwide art scene.”
Art installation — skalar.art
SKALAR is a large-scale art installation that explores the complex impact of light and sound on human perception. Created by light artist Christopher Bauder and musician Kangding Ray, this monumental artwork is a reflection on the fundamental nature and essence of human emotions.
Christopher Bauder adds, “.art is descriptive and short. One can quickly identify the respective genre and its contents. It’s immediately clear that any website within this domain zone is related to art, so the viewer has a clear understanding of what works they’ll find within it. I think a .art domain is the perfect solution to display art-related content on the web.”
Due to the ongoing NFT art boom, the .art community is also being replenished with a large number of projects and artists exploring this sphere. Among them are NFT art marketplaces blockchain.art and async.art, a blockchain-based gallery snark.art, and NFT artists such as xcopy.art and Pak with his sensational token drop burn.art.
Express yourself with .art
Ready to showcase your creativity online? Register your .art domain today!