Tag Archives: new tlds

Mon 1st June 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN survey: .Com still king, though new TLDs have a possibility (especially outward U.S.) - ICANN survey shows that acceptance of domain name extension options is higher outside of the U.S. and Europe. ICANN has released results of the first phase of a multi-year consumer study on the domain name landscape. The survey of over 6,000 people who use the internet 5+ hours a week was conducted in February. Here are some of the notable findings around awareness and trust of top level domain names. Awareness Unsurprisingly, awareness in legacy domain names such as .com is much higher than new ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week: .Porn and .Adult - This was supposed to be a big week with .sucks going into general availability, but that launch has been delayed by 3 weeks. It’s still going to be a big for new top level domain names, though: the entry of .adult and .porn will surely generate mainstream press. Here’s a run down of new TLDs hitting the market this week: .Tirol, a domain name for the Austrian state of Tyrol, goes live today. On Wednesday, the heavily restricted .pharmacy domain name goes into general availability. Qualified ... read more ...
Tue 26th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sold! New domain name auctions with Sheel Mohnot – DNW Podcast #34 - How hundreds of new top level domain name conflicts were settled. Which company has facilitated the most (dollar wise) domain name auctions over the past couple years? It’s not the regular industry marketplaces. Instead, it’s Innovative Auctions, the company that has handled over 100 auctions in the past couple years to settle new top level domain name contention sets. On this episode, biz dev lead Sheel Mohnot talks about the success of these auctions and what’s next for his company now that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week's new TLDs: .Apartments - You can move into a .apartments domain name this week. Donuts releases one domain name in regularly-priced general availability this week and some good ones enter Early Access. .Apartments launches on Wednesday, with many registrars offering prices around $50. This should be a great domain name for geo domains. You might want to look for lesser-known location names and state abbreviations. For example, you can pick up TX.apartments (short for Texas) at a premium price of about $150 per year. (You ... read more ...
Thu 21st May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD leaderboard dominated by mud inexpensive domain names - Leaderboard dominated by domains that cost a couple bucks or less. New top level domain name operators that want to be recognized as one of the biggest, here’s a simple tip: offer your domains for free or close to it. Take a look at the top 10 domain names on nTLDStats, representing about 2.5 million domain names: .Club is the only domain name on the list that appears to be selling domain names for prices around .com. The others are selling many domain names for a dollar or two, primarily through ... read more ...
Tue 12th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week's new TLDs: .Design and 4 Early Access - .Design enters GA and Donuts releases four more domain names. Only one top level domain name enters true general availability this week: .Design went live this morning U.S. time. The domain name is being offered (fittingly) by Top Level Design. You can read more about the hotly contest auction for this top level domain, and listen to Top Level Design founder Ray King discuss why he thinks this domain offers so much opportunity. GoDaddy is offering .Design domains with a first year price of $29.99, ... read more ...
Mon 11th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Despite domestic domain name news, domestic new TLDs not holding off - Political new top level domain names are not getting much attention. With all of the news recently about presidential candidates not registering relevant domain names, you’d think political new top level domain names would see a boost. Yet, they continue to struggle. Consider Rightside’s .democrat and .republican. The former has about 1,300 registrations and the latter just 800. .Vote also has fewer than 1,000 names in the zone file (and .voto is about 250) despite the registry striking deals ... read more ...
Fri 8th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
3D.Software domain name sells for $100,000+ - Big sale illustrates value of premium strategy for new TLD operators. Rightside has sold the domain name 3D.software for a six figure sum, CEO Taryn Naidu revealed on the company’s quarterly financial results call yesterday. The domain name was purchased by Visual Dynamics, a company that creates 3D software used for design. 3D.software resolves to a site similar to Visual Dynamics’ original site, VisualDynamics.com. According to DomainTools’ historical whois records, the domain name was transferred ... read more ...
Thu 7th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week's new TLDs (retroactive edition) - Recapping this week’s domain name launches. It’s been a busy week and I missed doing my weekly new top level domain name preview. A number of interesting domain names launched this week, so I’ll recap what came out and how they did. Top Level Design’s .Design entered early access on May 5. You can pick up the domain names now at a premium, or wait for regular pricing general availability on May 12. Regular pricing seems to be about $50-$70, but some registrars are offering first year discounts. Public ... read more ...
Wed 6th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club domain names by a numbers - A view of how .Club domain names are being used one year after the TLD launched. .Club celebrates the first anniversary of its general availability tomorrow. The top level domain name has eclipsed 200,000 domain names, making it one of the most-registered new top level domain names. What are people doing with these domain names? I once again turned to dataprovider.com to take a look underneath the hood. In a recent crawl, dataprovider was able to reach about three-quarters of the registered .Club ... read more ...
Tue 5th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which new TLDs I'm renewing (and not) - I’ve renewed most of my new TLDs so far, but that might change. New top level domain names have been out for over a year now, and that means those of us who registered them are facing renewal decisions. We already know early renewal results, at least from the biggest registry: for Donuts, early renewal rates ranged from 55%-72% per top level domain. I haven’t gone big on new top level domain names. I have about 60 in my portfolio and I’ve mostly registered domains in generic extensions. Some ... read more ...
Mon 4th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs (.XYZ?) boost Web.com's bookings - “Very aggressive” new TLD promotions paying off for Web.com. Many in the domain name community blasted Web.com and .xyz for the hundreds of thousands of free domain names Web.com gave away last year through Network Solutions. Was it, perhaps, a brilliant business move? Web.com reported a bookings boost this past quarter, and the company says this is due to higher-than-expected renewal rates on new TLDs. Here’s Web.com CEO David Brown on last week’s conference call: Yes, I want to be very ... read more ...
Thu 30th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Porn and .Adult domain names mangle morning records - Provocative domains, low pricing, marketing and promotion with Trademark Clearinghouse boost early numbers for new adult domains. ICM Registry announced today that its .Porn and .Adult domain names each received about 4,000 registrations during the sunrise trademark period. That’s more than any other new top level domain names to date. The strong interest was certainly fueled by the nature of the domains and news about Taylor Swift buying her name, but it went beyond that. ICM Registry offered ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A demeanour during Neustar's domain name base - Company is counting on new TLDs for growth in domain name business, but it’s slow. Neustar reported earnings yesterday and released updated information on its base of domain names registered. .Co continues to perform well for the company, adding $5.2 million revenue in the first quarter. Additionally, the company has operating agreements with 122 new top level domains that have signed agreements with ICANN. 43 are already in market. This chart shows how many domain names Neustar is managing, both ... read more ...
Tue 28th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are Zombie TLDs entrance this year? - Some of these TLDs can’t string along much longer. Hundreds of new top level domain names are now available. Some are doing reasonably well while others are not (to put it mildly). Will 2015 see the first new TLD “failures”, in which a top level domain operator calls it quits? We might have seen it already. The companies I’m most concerned about are the ones that operate just one or two TLDs and have a big staff (i.e., lots of overhead). If they aren’t getting traction after about a year, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CentralNic doubled income in 2014 - Company posts big gains, likely due to acquisition of domain name registrar last year. Domain name services company CentralNic doubled its revenue in 2014 and increased its adjusted EBITDA by 65%. The company grew its topline from £3.891 million to £6.067 million. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes acquisition deal fees and non-cash charges, grew from £1.015 million in 2013 to £1.724 in 2014. Its actual profits before tax dipped for the year. CentralNic doesn’t break out results from each division, ... read more ...
Mon 27th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: .Video, .Fit and .Sale - Minds + Machines and Rightside introduce new domain names this week. A few domain names hit general availability or Early Access this Wednesday. Minds + Machines will launch .Fit with retail pricing of about $25 or so. .Fit is one of the company’s wholly owned domain names, and is the last domain name the group has scheduled to launch until Q3. Rightside starts the Early Access phase for two domain names on Wednesday: .Video and .Sale. If you can wait one week until general availability you’ll ... read more ...
Fri 24th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Digging into .xyz's domain name registrations - A look at how .xyz domain names are being used. .xyz is big — about 900,000 domains — but it’s also controversial since many of the domains were given away for free. Even stripping away the freebies, .xyz is still big. I called upon dataprovider.com to run some numbers. (Earlier this week I used dataprovider to compare usage in .London and .NYC.) Using data from last month, dataprovider was able to reach about 550,000 .xyz domain names (the rest were inaccessible in their spidering). Here are ... read more ...
Thu 23rd April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
More Amazon new TLD reg's and Google's peculiar domain names - I don’t understand what Amazon is doing with these new TLDs, and some curious Google domain registrations. Earlier this week I wrote about Amazon.com’s many generic/descriptive domains registered under new TLDs that it is forwarding to particular pages on its site. Many of these domains were registered when the TLDs launched but just recently had their whois record switched to reveal Amazon. I really don’t understand what Amazon.com is up to here. These domains just popped up in my DomainTools ... read more ...
Wed 22nd April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Breaking down Minds + Machines' domain name Portfolio - Registry releases detailed stats on domain name registrations. Top level domain name registry Minds + Machines released an update on its progress today, including a detailed breakdown of how its top level domain names have fared so far. The company has 165,364 registrations as of April 20. The majority of these registrations are for domain names in which Minds + Machines isn’t the outright owner. It either provides backend services or has a partnership. Its wholly-owned domain registration tally ... read more ...
Tue 21st April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.London, .NYC and new ways to calculate a success of a TLD - A deep dive into how .London and .NYC are being used. The .London and .NYC top level domain names were both launched last year and have risen to the top of new TLD leaderboards. .London currently has about 60,000 registrations and .NYC has topped 75,000 in the zone file. Does that mean .NYC is “beating” .London? It’s interesting to compare the two domains. Both are world cities and major financial centers. Yet there’s a big difference in eligibility for these domains. Anyone can register ... read more ...
Mon 20th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Domain this week: .Poker - Afilias launches .poker this week, and it is the only new TLD launch I could find. I can only find one new top level domain name on Calzone.org that’s launching this week, so it will get a little extra focus. Afilias launches .Poker on Tuesday with support from about 70 registrars. Retail pricing appears to be in the $40-$50 range. Heading into today, there are about 540 domain names in the .Poker zone file, so it’s off to a fairly good start through sunrise and landrush. Some of the good domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Amazon.com a biggest user of new domain names? - Amazon has registered a bunch of domains under new TLDs, and it’s forwarding them to pages on its website. It’s still unclear what Amazon.com’s strategy is for the many top level domain names it will soon control. But we might get a hint from examining its use of other registry’s top level domain names. Amazon.com has been a big buyer of second level domain names in new TLDs. For example, it picked up many city names under .delivery. I’ve also noticed recently that it registered a bunch ... read more ...
Thu 16th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts' new TLD renovation rates operation from 55% to 72% - Company releases updated figures for renewal rates. New top level domain name company Donuts has released updated renewal rates for the first 25 top level domain names it launched. Rates range from about 55% to 72%, well under the company’s predicted 80% renewal rate. (The company now says it expects rates to trend toward 80% later in the year.) The highest renewal rate belongs to .technology at 71.7%. The lowest is .directory at just 54.7%. .Guru, which received more first year registrations than ... read more ...
Wed 15th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which new TLDs are behaving best on a resale market - .Club is a top seller. NameBio, a domain sales data site, published details this morning about which new top level domain names are selling best on the aftermarket. Here are the top 5 based on publicly-reported sales, ranked by dollar volume: You can see the full chart here. NameBio’s Michael Sumner provides a number of caveats, and I think it’s worth reviewing them. A key one: NameBio’s database only includes public sales it gathers from Sedo, NameJet, Flippa and other marketplaces. I’d ... read more ...