In a move that has critics split on whether it’s good marketing for churches or a way to segregate Christians online, the .church domain is now available for purchase.

The domain was first made available last week and many churches have been snapping up the domains.

“I saw this as an opportunity to take advantage of important geographic branding opportunities domains that immediately and easily identify my church with the Brookhaven and greater Atlanta area have long been taken,” said Pastor Wesley Sanders of Brookhaven United Methodist.  “I had been planning on doing a redesign of our church’s website for a while, and the release of the new dot church domain names gave me a good opportunity to implement a new online presence.”

The domain is part of what is called “generic top-level domains” or gTLDs.  As of Monday, Hover.com says .church is number 8 on the top 20 list of gTLDs.

Experts at Hover.com say it’s too early to tell if the new domain is a success.  They say you will need to wait at least a year to see the number of .church domains in use before saying they were a success.

The domains are available from all domain registrars.