.movie in previews, but many official sites are on .com — Movies use
I was surprised by how many movies use a .movie domain in their previews, but most appear to use .com for their official websites.
I went to a movie theater this weekend for the first time in years. One thing that struck me during the previews — in addition to how long they were — is how many movies use the .movie top level domain.
I saw .movie promoted on the end screen of just regarding every movie preview.
An exception was for King of Kings, which pointed viewers to a page on its Angel.com domain. (It bought the domain for $2 million in 2021.)
When I got home, I decided to look up how many movies in theaters now are using .movie domains. I discovered a couple of things.
First, official movie sites rarely rank high in Google. Almost every result is for aggregators, distributors, and reviewers. I suppose this makes sense. Most people searching for a movie want to know where they can see it and if it’s any good, not what the movie studio put together to promote it.
The other surprise was that, despite seeing .movie on the end screen of most previews, few movies actually use .movie for their official site. I looked up a handful of films screening now, and four out of five use a .com:
Paddington in Peru – PaddingtonMovie.com
The Monkey – TheMonkeyFilm.com
Love Hurts – LoveHurtsMovie.com
Dog Man – DreamworksDogMan.com
The official website for One of Them Days is OneOfThemDays.movie.
And the upcoming Smurfs movie, which promoted smurfs.movie in its preview, does indeed use the .movie domain for its official site.
But it seems that some movies promote a .movie domain in previews, but their official sites are on .com.
To understand why movies typically use subpar domains, listen to this podcast episode with Bill Sweetman.
