Local companies forced to use Internet domain names that don’t quite capture the nature of their business and municipalities and trade organizations eager to claim a corner of the Internet could finally get the chance to snag their ideal web addresses thanks to a change in the domain naming rules.

But some area experts say a significant transformation in the online landscape of Eastern Iowa businesses and municipalities might not be in the immediate future as officials wait to see how the new naming system shakes out and weigh the benefits of acquiring more precise web addresses with the potential cost.

“My feeling is that it’s going to take a very very long time for it to get any traction,” said Jonathan Sabin, chief operating officer for the Iowa City-based web development firm Vortex Business Solutions.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, announced this week that it would open up its naming system so organizations could apply for Web addresses ending in things other than the usual .com or .org, like .coke, for example.

ICANN officials have said that allowing the group of 22 existing suffixes to swell to potentially thousands would let Internet users find what they’re looking for more easily and quickly. The change could enable cities or states to consolidate their websites to domains ending in .cedarrapids or .iowa or allow public interest groups to claim endings in things like .food or .auto.

But, at a hefty price of $185,000 per domain suffix, Sabin said, he’s wary that such a purchase would be worth it.

“The way things are right now, I don’t think any municipality would be able to gain the trust and confidence of any people if they go buy a domain name,” he said.

A city like New York could benefit from acquiring the web address suffix of .nyc, Sabin said.

“But generally it takes a long time for things like that,” he said. “And I’m skeptical.”

Mark Mathis, partner and “director of cool” for Cedar Rapids-based ME & V Advertising + Consulting, said he thinks that ICANN, considering the lofty price, intended for large municipalities or trade groups to buy the web address suffixes and then sell them for less to businesses in their industry or community.

In that case, an entity like New York City potentially could make money by purchasing the domain suffix .nyc and reselling it to businesses within that region. Or a trade group for restaurants could buy the suffix .food and resell it to eateries, he said.

“But it doesn’t sound like they want any local company buying these, when you put the prices that high,” he said.

Mathis said he does believe this change is going to alter the way web users navigate the Internet.

“It might not change things right now because we’re all familiar with .coms,” he said. “But as you get so many more companies with different endings, I think searches will become even more important.”

Where web browsers currently assume an address ends in .com, or maybe .net or .org, guessing might not be so easy in the future, Mathis said.

“Google seems to be able to pull up all the searches,” he said. “And this is going to make search more important because you are not going to just know that it ends in .com.”

Mathis said that, from a marketing perspective, the new suffixes might allow large companies or municipalities to get more from their web address. Coca-cola, for example, could go from coke.com to drink.coke, he said.

“How fantastic is that?” he said. “You’ve got a selling message in the URL address. That’s great potential for marketers.”

But, Mathis said, he does have concerns that the new suffixes could help a business gain somewhat of a monopoly on an industry. Like if a large national bank bought the suffix .bank, it could lead more browsers to their web address.

“To me, that is my fear as a marketer working with local companies, that we would be preventing them from ever competing with large banks,” he said. “I would rather see a national banking association purchase that and sell it to legitimate banks to use.”

Groups could use the suffixes as “preventative marketing” as well, Mathis said. Like Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Nebraska could all chip in to buy the .iowa suffix so this state couldn’t use it.

“There is some good competition and preventative marketing that could be done,” he said. “But ICANN has a 300-plus page guide book on this. So you know they are putting a lot of rules on this to keep people from squatting.”

And for smaller, local companies that weren’t able to create a web site using an address that is indicative of their business, this change might provide a new opportunity, said Jen Neumann, partner with Cedar Rapids-based de NoVo Alternative Marketing.

“A lot of the good domain names go snatched up years ago,” Neumann said. “This is the time to try and grab one of the new domains that is available.”