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You’ve seen web addresses that end with .org, .edu, .com and likely others. Th ese extensions, known as

top-level domains, are now supplemented by over 1,200 nuanced and private extensions like Amazon’s .aws. Now it’s public accounting’s turn with the 2020 rollout of .cpa. Th e launch of .cpa is being administered by CPA.com, the technology subsidiary of the American Institute of Certifi ed Public Accountants (AICPA). Th e AICPA won the rights to the .cpa domain from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that oversees domains, and they are encouraging CPA fi rms to make the switch. Let’s look at the pros and cons, and what it would take to make the change if that’s the direction you decide to go in.

The Case for Changing to the .cpa Domain

Nearly 360 million unique domain names were registered worldwide as of the third quarter of 2019, according to VeriSign, Inc., and more than half of those used .com and .net domains. Th ese generic domain names don’t tell you anything about the site owner’s expertise or industry. By contrast, using the .cpa domain signals “trust and distinction,”

according to CPA.com. At the very least, anyone who sees that your website name ends in .cpa will immediately know what it is that you do.

Th e AICPA is committed to maintaining a high brand reputation for the CPA designation. With cyber criminals rampant online and active in their email phishing attempts, the AICPA took measures with .cpa to improve cybersecurity. Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com, says that the diff erence between the .cpa domain and other domains (like .com) will be a higher level of security. Th e registry that will run the .cpa domain will monitor it for malware and malicious activity, he says, which doesn’t happen with general domains like .com.

Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, the president and CEO of the AICPA, said in a press release, “We want the public to have confi dence that someone using a .cpa domain address for email or a website is affi liated with the CPA pro-fession.” Th erefore, only approved CPA professionals will be allowed to register

Should Your CPA Firm Switch from .com to .cpa?By Alison Simons

Anyone who sees that your website name ends in .cpa will immediately know what it is that you do.

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.cpa domain names. Th e purpose of this is to increase confi dence in CPA fi rm websites and email communications. Phishing strategies include creating look-alike domain names to trick people with illegitimate sites or illegitimate emails. Let’s say there’s a fi rm named Miller, Landon, Quinn & Th omas, and its website is mlqtllc.com. If a cyber-criminal wanted to deceive the fi rm’s clients into providing personal fi nancial data, he could create a similar-looking site called m1qtllc.com. A client who receives an email with that link might not look closely enough to notice one letter had been changed and could be

tricked into providing personal data. But, if the fi rm’s site used the .cpa domain, any look-alike domain would be noticeably diff erent.

Potential Downsides to the .cpa Domain

While changing domains could help you from a branding and security perspective, it will hurt your SEO (how your site’s pages rank and appear in search results) strategy for a year or more. Switching domains can lower your site’s page rankings due to Google’s preference for sites that have longer his-

tory and performance (e.g., established click-through rates, consistently fresh content, inbound links, no security is-sues, etc.). Properly redirecting your site from .com to .cpa (see the next section for more on this) tells Google that you’d like to confer the .com site performance to the .cpa site, but it’s not 100%. In ad-dition, there’s nothing you can do about the history (age) of the site; that will start again at zero. Lastly, Google has confi rmed that new domain extensions will off er no ranking advantage over traditional .com or .org domains.

In addition, we’ll have to see how much marketing eff ort the AICPA

“We want the public to have

ing a .cpa domain address for

with the CPA profession.”

– Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMAPresident and CEO, AICPA

Visit mscpaonline.org/cpe for monthlyupdates on our course catalog featuring newcustomized trainings, live webinars and virtualseminars and conferences.

Please note: The MSCPA is paying close attention to the coronavirus(COVID-19) outbreak, and we will update you if there are any changesto our programs. Please visit mscpaonline.org/events for the latest information about our programs.

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M A Y 2 0 2 0 35

puts into promoting the .cpa domain to the general public. Without some unifi ed rollout, your clients may see the .cpa and actually shy away from it versus feeling more comforted, since any change can be met with hesitancy due to cybersecurity concerns.

Th e offl ine expense of a domain change will include updating and re-printing items that have your domain name on them, such as your business cards, stationary, folders, banner stands and other printed items. Be sure to take this expense into account when making the switch.

Domain Change Logistics

Changing your domain won’t require you to change your entire site or re-build it from scratch. Th e process is like forwarding your mail with the USPS and requires attention to detail and knowledge on how to redirect site traffi c correctly. It’s critical not to take any shortcuts here. Instead of redirect-

ing all pages from your .com domain to the homepage of the new .cpa domain, you’ll need to execute a thorough and in depth 301 redirect mapping plan so that each page is sent to its new equiva-lent page. For example, you would send mlqtllc.com/team to mlqtllc.cpa/team.

Making the transition should be fairly smooth, though there may be some hiccups. When your site domain chang-es from .com to .cpa, anyone who has bookmarked the old address should be automatically redirected to the new address if the redirects were imple-mented correctly. Because many of your contacts are likely wary of phishing scams and may be alarmed when they’re redirected to a new page, you may want to acknowledge the change by sending out an email or adding a notifi cation message on the site.

In addition to your website’s name, your fi rm email addresses should also be updated to match. For the fi ction-al fi rm of Miller, Landon, Quinn &

Th omas, their website would change from mlqtllc.com to mlqtllc.cpa. An employee’s email address might change from jsmith@mlqtllc.com tojsmith@mlqtllc.cpa.

Th e new .cpa domain isn’t available just yet. CPA.com is still working to meet ICANN requirements and is preparing the technical elements necessary for the launch. Th ere’s no word yet on exactly how much it will cost to adopt the new domain. CPA.com only says that prices will be “competitive with market rates,” which is about $15 a year per domain. Early registration will run through the fi rst half of 2020, and the domain should be generally available to the community by the end of the year. For now, interested CPAs can learn more at cpa.com/dotcpa.

MSCPA member Alison Simons is the founder of Simons Marketing. Contact her at alison@simonsmarketing.com.

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M S C P A O N L I N E . O R G / G A A 2 0R e g i s t e r o n l i n e :R e g i s t e r o n l i n e : Please note: The MSCPA is paying close attention

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