KPMG Switches From Dot Com to a Brand TLD

In a press release, KPMG, a professional services company, wrote that that it has departed from the former “home.kpmg.com” to the new “home.kpmg”. Dot kpmg is a brand top level domain (TLD) exclusively owned by KPMG. Dot com is also a top level domain. However, to say you have gone from home.kpmg.com to home.hpmg is not comparing apples to apples.

The letters/words to the right of the dot is the TLD. The letters/words to the left of the dot is the SLD, or second level domain. If there are additional dots to the left of the TLD, such as in home.kpmg.com, those are third level domains (also referred to as sub-domains).

So what KPMG decided to do is go from home.kpmg.com (home being the third level domain) to making home the second level domain on their brand TLD: home.kpmg

In reality, the change was from kpmg.com to home.kpmg. If we are to compare apples to apples.

From the very start, I doubt anyone typed “home.kpmg.com” into the browser. People simply would type “kpmg.com” and the domain would redirect. And they will keep doing the same thing since “kpmg.com” now redirects to “home.kpmg”. And “kpmg.com” is easier to remember than “home.kpmg”.