Commission salutes the Geek domain name

Holders of the .geek.nz domain name are mainly from New Zealand, retain their name for longer and 60% of them are registered by individuals, as opposed to organisations.

These facts were uncovered as part of research undertaken by the Domain Name Commission (DNC) – the organisation that administers the .nz domain – in celebration of Geek Pride Day on Friday.

“Geek Pride Day is an opportunity for all those who identify as a geek to celebrate who they are, and what they feel geeky about,” the DNC writes in a blog post.

“The .nz domain space celebrates geekdom in all its forms with our own .nz space for geeks – .geek.nz. This ‘second level domain’ allows people to register a domain name that ends in .geek.nz – a great way to celebrate and share their identity as a geek.”

In a display of thoroughness you would expect from a post celebrating geekdom, the DNC has profiled three holders of the .geek.nz domain – Nick Wallingford whose site qwerty.geek.nz documents his family history, Rick Shera whose site w.geek.nz enabled him to create the distinctive email address l@w.geek.nz and Maribel Aburto, whose site la.geek.nz hosts her work as a graphic and web designer, cross-stitch artist and blogger.

So why did they choose .geek.nz? For Wallingford and Shera it was, in part, to recognise the introduction of second level domains that were outside of the traditional, generic domains that had previously been the only options. “First, I identified as a geek, at least a closet one, in the sense that I was and remain interested in internet tech and law,” says Shera. “The second reason was because I was keen to see the relaxation of .nz second level domain space creation policy.”

Aburto says that having the word ‘geek’ in her domain name address helps with her search engine optimisation.

So what exactly is a geek, and do you have to be one to register your site under the .geek.nz address?

“There is this idea that [the] name geek is only related to computers and science people, but I learnt and accepted that geeks are pretty much people who have a real understanding of a certain topic (e.g. films, music, cars, computers, etc),” says Aburto.

The DNC notes that “the .geek.nz space might be smaller than the other second level domains, but it is a unique and valued part of the .nz space as a whole.”