The Government is planning to run an advertisement campaign to promote .in domain name, India’s official website extension. The ministry of electronics and IT (MEIT) is planning a massive advertising campaign aimed at companies, individuals and startups, Economic Times reports.
Rajiv Bansal, joint secretary in MEIT, said the campaign should be ready for rollout in a month or so and will play on the people’s nationalist sentiments to nudge them to host their website on the.in domain name. “Even existing websites which are on .com or other domains can be hosted on.in which can then be routed back,” he told ET.
Bansal said the government’s Digital India, Make in India and Start-up India campaigns have been successful in building a momentum in the country. “There is a wave, and we want to capitalize on it,” he said.
According to a top government official, MEIT has set a target to increase the number of ‘.in’ domain names to 3 million by March next year, up from 2 million now.
Bansal said the ministry plans special tie-ups with the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) and the ministry of small and medium enterprises (MSME) to offer discounts to startups or new businesses registering with them for .in domain name.
Meanwhile, the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) is also mulling to get ‘.bharat’ domain for Hindi website extension complementary with the .in domain to popularize its use.
“As a promotional scheme, NIXI will be offering the ‘.bharat’ domain name in Hindi complementary to select businesses or categories from this month,” Bansal told ET.
Last year, NIXI had run an advertisement campaign with 22-24 seconds advertisements targeted at small and medium businessmen and entrepreneurs.