Tag Archives: ARI Registry Services

Domain Name Registry, Domain Names, New gTLDs

GoDaddy Registry Acquires Over 30 New gTLDs Including 28 From MMX

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This week GoDaddy Registry announced it was expanding its registry services with the acquisition of more than 30 new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs), including 28 from Minds + Machines, .club and .design, plus the provision of registry services for .basketball and .rugby and Ally Financial’s branded .ally domain. The move will see the company add over 3 million domains under management to their portfolio, although GoDaddy Registry already provides registry services for .club’s 1.1 million domain names. Upon close of the acquisitions, it will see GoDaddy Registry own, manage or operate more than 240 top-level domains, with more than 14 million DUM.

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Domain Name Registry

American Private Equity Firm Acquires Neustar

Golden Gate Capital, an American private equity firm, has acquired Neustar in a transaction that values the firm at approximately $2.9 billion, including debt to be refinanced. Neustar shareholders will receive $33.50 per share in cash, a premium of 45%.”We are pleased to have reached this agreement, which will deliver certain and immediate value to our shareholders,” said James Cullen, Neustar’s Chairman of the Board of Directors in a statement. “We are confident that today’s announcement represents the best path forward for all of Neustar’s stakeholders.”Neustar’s businesses include the registry operations for .us, .co, .biz and in mid-2015 they acquired Bombora Technologies, whose subsidiaries include the .au registry operator AusRegistry and ARI Registry Services who operates .melbourne, .sydney, and over 100 new gTLDs. Altogether, Neustar provides registry services for over 300 new gTLDs. Neustar also provides marketing, risk, security and communications services.”We believe this transaction will enable us to continue to execute against our strategy and strengthen our market position as a leader in marketing, risk, security and communication solutions,” said Lisa Hook, Neustar’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Golden Gate Capital and GIC offered us a compelling opportunity to continue to invest and pursue long-term growth with operational flexibility, and we look forward to working with these two sophisticated investors. Importantly, customers, employees and partners will continue to benefit as we execute against our strategy.””We strongly believe in the Company’s strategic direction and have been very impressed with the team’s ability to transform the business into both a trusted, neutral provider to the telecom industry and a leading information services provider,” said Rishi Chandna, a Managing Director with Golden Gate Capital. “We look forward to partnering with the Neustar team to achieve its strategic objectives, make the Company’s competitive advantages even more compelling and drive value for all of Neustar’s stakeholders.”Golden Gate describes itself as “a privately held enterprise with over $15 billion in committed capital. Unlike conventional private equity firms, we operate as a private holding company and recapitalize, restructure, and ultimately build meaningful businesses in partnership with management over an indefinite time horizon.”The transaction is expected to close no later than the end of the third calendar quarter of 2017 and is subject to approval by Neustar’s shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Under the terms of the agreement, Neustar may solicit alternative proposals from third parties for 30 days.

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

Daily Wrap: Kinderis Wants Domain Industry to Cut Bullshit While IANA Transition Set For September

Adrian Kinderis imageAdrian Kinderis, who co-founded AusRegistry and ARI Registry Services and now a Vice President at Neustar has called on the domain name industry to “grow up” according to a report on Domain Incite.

Speaking in front of an audience that included registries, registrars and investors at this week’s NamesCon, Kinderis called for “the industry to kick out the handful of bad actors that ruin its reputation, and to quit the ‘bullshit bickering’ about which TLDs are best.”

“For far too long this industry has turned a blind eye to the less than scrupulous activities,” he said, “and these activities have plagued this industry. Bad actors have tarnished the perception of this industry.”

“This may have been acceptable when it was a few insiders first grasping at a fledgling product in the early nineties but… we are now front and center of the internet,” he said.

“These practices of a few bad actors have led to the frustration of consumers. We have not served the best interests of our consumers at all times,” he said. “This has to change.”

The IANA transition, from US government oversight to a multistakeholder oversight, is likely to take place on 30 September according to an AFP report.

ICANN CEO and President Fadi Chehadé told AFP the transition plan being prepared since early 2014 will be delivered to the US government in February, and that it could take place on September 30 — a year later than originally planned.

If the US government approves the plan, “then the contract between ICANN and the US government which is set to naturally expire on September 30 will just expire,” Chehade said in an interview Wednesday in Washington.

Chehade said the private non-profit ICANN is effectively a “traffic cop” that ensures the Internet address system functions, and that the US government’s role has been merely to ensure that it follows correct procedures.

“In all the years we’ve done that (the US government) has never said we did not follow the process,” he said.

“People have aggrandized the role of the US government in what we do. But the change is actually minimal. It’s important symbolically because the US was really a steward for the Internet, but for day-to-day accountability, it is minimal.”

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, New gTLDs

Highly relevant domain names worth “thousands of keywords” in Google search: study

Sydney gTLD plain logoA comprehensive study of the top 30 Google search results across 10,000 keywords has found the importance of keywords in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is decreasing, while short and highly relevant domain names have the equivalent worth of “thousands of keywords in the rankings”.

The study by Searchmetrics – one of the world’s leading SEO companies – suggests highly relevant content, social media signals and good domain names are among the most important factors in attaining a high ranking in Google search results.

The researchers say domain names are an important factor in search results and the study suggests domains with high SEO visibility also obtain higher rankings.

“The correlation between the URLs and Searchmetrics SEO Visibility Score of the entire domain is high. This means that success in search and content is also a domain based factor. The majority of analyzed URLs are part of successful domains that generally gain high rankings with large numbers of landing pages.”

Searchmetrics also found the highest ranking domain names are shorter, with the first search result position reserved for the shortest domain names, often where homepages rank most often.

While Google has stated it does not use social signals (such as the number of tweets or Facebook likes) as a direct ranking factor, the results of the study indicate the highest ranked domain names have more social cues than those sites further down the ranks.

The researchers suggest that social signals definitely play a role in direct traffic, brand awareness, and the overall online performance of a domain name. They say that good content performs better on social networks – and search engines want to recognise and display good, relevant and up-to-date content.

These findings bode well for the introduction of new Top-Level Domains like .melbourne, .sydney and .nyc, where registrants have the opportunity to register shorter, more relevant domain names with greater availability of the most popular terms.

Although there was no direct mention of new Top-Level Domains in the study, Searchmetrics has previously examined the impact of new domains using real world data on .berlin domain names.

Searchmetrics found .berlin domains consistently performed better than the same domains under the German .de Top-Level Domain or the ubiquitous .com, when searching for local content in Berlin. In fact in 42 percent of search queries, .berlin domain names were found to achieve a higher ranking.

Importantly, Searchmetrics found that on average .berlin domain names achieved a local ranking advantage of 1.18 positions higher.

This result, combined with the advantages delivered by relevant content, strong social media signals and good domain names, means a new Top-Level Domain name under the likes of .melbourne, .sydney and .nyc could be a powerful tool for achieving a higher search ranking.

This article was sourced with permission from the iconic.sydney website from here: iconic.sydney/media-release/highly-relevant-domain-names-worth-thousands-of-keywords-in-google-search-study/

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

Challenges for .brands – from strategy to implementation planning by Corey Grant, ARI Registry Services

ARI Registry ServicesThis is the fifth in a series of blog posts discussing the strategic and operational challenges faced by .brand TLD owners and the processes involved in getting them ready for use. Previously I discussed how to turn your ideas into a .brand TLD strategy, which you can read here.

While your strategy and objectives speak more broadly to why you’re launching a .brand TLD, your implementation plan covers the all-important ‘how’.

Once you complete your strategy workshop session to agree upon objectives and approach, how do you actually launch a .brand TLD?

You need an implementation plan to guide you from strategy to launch, and beyond. At its core, the implementation plan is a checklist; just like a pilot landing a plane, you need to run through your checklist to ensure you don’t miss any crucial elements. It only takes overlooking one small step to lead to disaster.

While developing your implementation plan is far from the most exciting step in launching a .brand TLD, the project planning work done here will lay the necessary foundation for the creative promotion and engagement activities to come. It will also provide confidence to internal stakeholders that their needs have been considered.

What is an implementation plan?

An implementation plan considers the broad range of internal departments and external participants involved in the launch and operation of a .brand TLD.

One way to think about the implementation plan is to treat it as a risk prevention and mitigation tool. Because of this, several factors contribute to its complexity.

One is the very nature of the complex ICANN ecosystem and intricacies of the domain name industry. Another is the involvement of such wide-ranging areas of the organisation, making it easy to overlook items from areas outside the control of the project owner, if the items are not identified and listed in the implementation plan.

The internal project owner should take the implementation plan and develop it into a fully detailed project plan with timelines and assignments that fit in with all participating resources.

How do you create an implementation plan?

Building upon Neustar’s experience in launching major .brand TLDs around the world, we have built a proprietary implementation plan to help .brand TLD owners navigate the launch process. Outputs typically include a RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) and a Gantt chart.

The intention of the implementation plan is to ensure every deliverable of the strategy is accounted for. This means getting into the minutia of tasks required of internal and external stakeholders.

For example, here are four common topics the Neustar TLD consulting team has covered in the past with clients in our implementation plan:

1. Reserved names – Creating a list of reserved names which need specific sign-off to register. Reserving these names reduces the likelihood of the names being accidentally released to an ineligible internal applicant.

2. Call centre readiness – Ensure the public-facing call centre is trained on upcoming domain name launches. It is no use promoting the .brand TLD only to have a call centre operator direct a caller to a legacy TLD website.

3. Test third-party software – E.g. payment gateways. There may be certain systems which currently rely on connecting to a legacy domain. A plan with IT needs to be developed.

4. PR strategy for analysts – For publicly-listed companies, analysts are likely to pick up on any news surrounding the launch. Be sure there is an educational document so analysts can understand what the company is trying to achieve with the initial use of the .brand TLD.

The implementation plan is an excellent tool to support the broad cross-functional nature of launching a .brand TLD. Your implementation plan lowers your risk and keeps you on track.

What we’ve learnt is that after developing a strategic plan and looking towards the launch of your .brand TLD, the implementation plan brings structure and confidence to the project. For the project owner, it also helps disperse the not-insignificant load of delivering on the strategy.

If you combine a great strategy with a seamless implementation plan, the launch of your .brand TLD will provide your organisation with an asset which will become the foundation of your future digital brand.

Corey is part of the Registry Services team at Neustar, based in Australia. Corey previously worked for ARI Registry Services – part of the Bombora Technologies Group of companies, which was acquired by Neustar on 30 July 2015.

This article was sourced with permission from:
www.ariservices.com/blog/challenges-for-brands-from-strategy-to-implementation-planning/

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

A new boom to come? Re-evaluating the success of the new TLD programme by Ryan Baker, ARI Registry Services

ARI Registry ServicesI think it’s fair to say that quite a few people – both within the domain name industry and beyond – have an opinion on whether the new TLD program is succeeding or struggling.

But are things really all that bad? Are we forecasting doom before it has really had a chance to run?

Crunching the numbers

Let’s consider the (relatively short) history to this point and take a look at some statistics. In 2012, 1,930 applications were received by ICANN for new TLDs – however accounting for multiple contending string applications, withdrawals and so on, the eventual number of new TLDs to enter the digital ecosystem is likely to be closer to 1,300.

Opponents of the new TLD program are quick to point out the “slow” registration numbers seen across the program; however I’m not so sure this is true when we take a more ‘birds-eye’ view of the wider industry in two important areas – comparative registration volumes and target market awareness.

Registration Volumes

It’s been just 18 months since the introduction of the very first new TLDs to the root zone, over which time we have seen more than 700 TLDs delegated.

In that short time, businesses and individuals in all shapes and sizes across the world have registered over 6.5 million domains.

To put it another way, new TLDs have total registrations equalling nearly 5.5 percent of the incumbent powerhouse TLD, .com in just 18 months.

This alone is an impressive effort, but it may be even more positive if we dig just a little deeper:

• The average new TLD has been delegated for just 11 months.
• 50% of new TLDs have been delegated for 6 months or less.
• 25% of new TLDs have been delegated for 3 months or less.

To summarise, of the 1,300 or so expected new TLDs, only 25% have reached a point where they can realistically sell domain names to their intended target markets (taking into account mandatory name collisions). Yet just this fraction of the expected total of new TLDs have reached 5.5% of the registrations that .com has been able to achieve in more than 30 years.

Furthermore, these figures have occurred without some of the TLDs that are likely to be the most popular (for example .music and .shop), which are still to launch due to the sheer number of people vying for ownership.

Awareness

In addition to the industry-wide registration growth numbers, awareness in the target market continues to grow in a similarly impressive manner.

ARI Registry Services conducted a study in 2011 which highlighted that only 15% of respondents were aware of the increasing options for domain names. When that is compared to the recently conducted ICANN/Neilsen survey which showed 46% of people were aware of the same metric, it’s clear that awareness is growing significantly.

As momentum grows and more TLDs are delegated the awareness level should increase exponentially. This will also be helped in large part by .brand TLDs, many of whom are up and running, with the remainder expected to sign Registry Agreements by the ICANN imposed 29 July deadline.

Vital to end user awareness of new TLDs, we are seeing major global brands transition to usage scenarios with their .brand TLDs (Barclays Bank to www.home.barclays, BNP Paribas to www.mabanque.bnpparibas) and each high-profile launch helps people to become aware of the significant opportunity these TLDs present.

Practicality vs positivity: a balancing act

The highly-competitive, ever-changing environment of the technology sector and the domain name industry in particular mean that new products and developments such as new TLDs are under constant scrutiny.

This isn’t about putting our fingers in our ears and yelling to avoid hearing the criticism. No one is denying that new TLD operators face some challenges and that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

However it’s also important to recognise the achievements and successes that have been reached by the wider industry so far and the positive signs for continued growth that are already emerging.

The new TLD world is dynamic, diverse and full of innovators. Let’s not forget to acknowledge that – and maintain a justifiably optimistic outlook on the changes to come.

This article was sourced with permission from the ARI Registry Services website here:
www.ariservices.com/blog/a-new-boom-to-come-re-evaluating-the-success-of-the-new-tld-program/

Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

Operator Webinar transitions to the DNA University by Tony Kirsch, ARI Registry Services

ARI Registry ServicesReaders of my posts will have noticed that we’ve been working over the last two months to launch the TLD Operator Webinar which was held recently. Its purpose was to unite all new TLD applicants and collectively share our experiences in order to build momentum in the industry and support each other in our pursuits.

With more than 300 registrations and 40 percent of all new TLDs attending, we were humbled and overjoyed with the success – validating our ‘educated guess’ that there was a global appetite for information to assist new TLD applicants.

Following the TLD Operator Webinar, we surveyed attendees and received responses from more than 200 participants who all expressed a desire for more opportunities to learn from other operators. When asked about their views on the state of the industry, most respondents indicated that it “needs some work” and “still has a long way to go”. By far the biggest challenge identified by respondents was the “lack of public awareness of new TLDs”.

Interestingly, the survey data showed broad interest for topics across all TLD categories, while respondents preferred a monthly or bi-monthly frequency for webinars.

Last week, the Domain Name Association (DNA) announced the launch of the DNA University to provide a platform for the industry to exchange ideas and learn best practices. So, based on the success of the TLD Operator Webinar, and our passion for the Domain Name Association, we have agreed to merge these two concepts and continue the approach under the banner of the DNA University.

On a more personal note, I am honoured that the DNA has selected me as the inaugural “Dean” of the DNA University where I can continue the work that I’m so passionate about.

In this role, it’s my ambition that the DNA University will be able to service the large (and growing) demand for education in the domain name industry as it is clear that this is one of the most crucial times in the history of the Internet.

As an industry, we have a responsibility to work together to ensure our shared success for years to come and I am passionate about making the DNA University a unique, collaborative forum that drives this.

The first DNA University Webinar, Premium Domain Name Planning, will be held on 28 July at 15:00 UTC and is open to all Registry operators, domain name Registrars and new gTLD applicants who can register here. It is free of charge.

This topic was chosen for the inaugural session because carefully-planned premium name selection and marketing efforts are crucial for success as a domain name registry. In this webinar, attendees will gain a 360 degree view of premium names – including the key experiences of seasoned TLD operators, strategies in developing premium name lists and customer and sales insights from some of the world’s most prominent Registrars.

Future webinars are planned to address a wide range of industry topics – with insights being provided by some of the most successful folks within the industry and beyond.

We need the support of the industry to make the DNA University and webinar series a success. I encourage you all to get behind us, participate and support this brilliant initiative.

This article by Tony Kirsch of ARI Registry Services was sourced with permission from:
www.ariservices.com/blog/the-tld-operator-webinar-transitions-to-the-dna-university/

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

What does the July 29 deadline mean for .brand TLDs? by Corey Grant, ARI Registry Services

ARI Registry ServicesIf you are a .brand Top Level Domain (TLD) and have a Registry Agreement from ICANN which you have not yet signed, you need to sign it by July 29, 2015.

You’re not alone; there are many others in the same boat – all staring at their Registry Agreement trying to figure out what to do next.

The bad news? The biggest challenge will be getting everything signed off quickly. It will take a significant amount of time and energy in the lead up to July 29.
The good news? This is achievable, and there are people who can help.

How did we get here? When ICANN created a specific category for brands with Specification 13, they also provided a path for .brands to request a nine month extension to the deadline for signing the ICANN Registry Agreement. The majority of .brands elected to take this path, moving their deadline out to July 29, 2015.

Most .brands used that deadline extension to carefully consider their launch plans and take their time launching. We are starting to see some movement from big players now, such as Barclays Bank, BMW, Samsung, and more.

What needs to happen: legal

In short, your legal department needs to agree that the ICANN Registry Agreement can be signed.

There will be multiple people listed as eligible signatories from the original ICANN application (this list may or may not have been updated). Identifying the best two or three people on this list to sign the document, and ensuring that these people are available in the coming days will help meet the tight timeframe and avoid the unnecessary difficulty of chasing your CEO down the corridor.

For legal teams who have not yet reviewed the Registry Agreement, it is important they start as soon as possible. To help ease the process, ensure they understand the following:

1. Negotiation really isn’t a valid option. Unless there are laws in your jurisdiction which prevent you from signing, ICANN has demonstrated a consistently rigid approach to ensuring Registry Agreements are signed without major change. Given the time delays, if it hasn’t been signed yet brands are almost certainly going to need to sign it ‘as is’.

2. There tends to be a large amount of technical and domain industry jargon in Registry Agreements which won’t be familiar to many of the legal counsel within your organisation. Try to get ahead of this situation by lining up support from someone in the industry that can help explain the jargon.

What needs to happen: financial

Unless you’re lucky enough to have sign-off for the whole project, most executive committees or similar parties will require a summary of costs. It typically makes sense to structure the financials in relation to year one (higher due to launch costs), then years two onward (these won’t vary as much).

A quick breakdown of typical costs:

1. ICANN costs: USD 5,000 set-up for Trademark Clearinghouse, then USD 25,000 per year payable quarterly.

2. Registry costs: Set-up, then annual fees. Most contracts are fixed up to a specified number of domains, which should cover your needs. See your Registry Services Provider contract for details.

3. Compliance requirements: Once launched, ICANN compliance obligations and anti-abuse obligations must continue to be met. For .brands, this is often outsourced as it can be an unnecessary additional cost to hire or train suitable resources.

4. Industry participation: Engaging with the industry and with ICANN will be a valuable ongoing investment. The Domain Name Association (DNA) and Brand Registry Group (BRG) are worth investigating, and both have fees associated.

5. External assistance (industry expertise): The new TLD world is new to everybody. Don’t be afraid to seek help for critical steps such as strategy, creating an implementation plan, and launch execution. Creating an ROI for a .brand is complex and requires an understanding of many different elements.

6. Internal costs: Internal resources to support the project and any required branding or technical transition (may include existing external digital agency).

7. Promotional costs: Although promotion of your .brand TLD should benefit from some existing campaign funds, there will likely need to be some specific promotional funds assigned.

Bringing it all together

Applications for new TLDs closed early 2012, so there is a possibility that some in your organisation have lost track of the project over the last three years. In addition to the financial and legal hurdles, a significant challenge might be convincing your executive committee in such a short timeframe. Here are some angles that might help:

– Joining an exclusive community: Remind everyone of the rarified company .brands keep, which includes Apple, Google, IBM, Amazon, Nike, GE, Toyota, American Express, UPS, and about 600 others. If your competitor doesn’t have their .brand TLD, it will likely be at least a few years before they can get one. When was the last time someone handed your organisation a competitive advantage like that – especially in the digital brand space?

– Calculating brand value: The ROI on a .brand TLD needs to be demonstrable, and relies on people understanding and embracing the valuation of brands, and how they contribute to the bottom line. Look for ways to incorporate your .brand into launches of new products, territories or strategic initiatives.

– Part of a wider strategy: Outline how the .brand TLD project fits into and supports the organisation’s goals for the coming years. Most organisations have at least one digital branding goal – work with those most closely tied to that goal and help them become evangelists.

Easy, right?

For .brand TLDs that have not yet signed the ICANN Registry Agreement, everything points to taking action right now.

Whether internal challenges are with legal, finance or executive buy-in, now is the time to ensure there is a plan in place to address them quickly. Look to superiors and other advocates for support.

If there is a chance that even one step in the path to getting your ICANN Registry Agreement signed is at risk, reach out now to a trusted industry advisor and ask for help. No brand wants to be the one that let their .brand TLD slip away.

This is the first post in a series from Corey Grant, Senior Industry Consultant at ARI Registry Services, on what .brand TLDs need to do to get started and make the most of their TLDs.

This article was sourced with permission from the ARI Registry Services website from:
www.ariservices.com/blog/what-does-the-july-29-deadline-mean-for-brand-tlds/

Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

One year in: lessons from .rocks by Tony Kirsch, ARI Registry Services

ARI Registry ServicesThis is the third in a series of interviews I conducted with notable TLD applicants approaching one year of operations. In this article, I spoke with Statton Hammock of Rightside about how the .rocks TLD is finding its place in the market. You can also read my interviews with .luxury and .photography.

What have been some of the highlights of the process so far?

Statton Hammock, V.P. Business and Legal Affairs, Rightside: Without a doubt, the highlight has been seeing consumers embrace and use our TLDs in fun innovative ways, such as the Rolling Stones running a tour campaign on justakissaway.rocks. Seeing all of the exciting and creative ways people identify and brand themselves online with our TLDs has been thoroughly rewarding for everyone at Rightside.  We had anticipated that consumers would register and use our domain offerings and it’s wonderful to watch this happen, week after week.

What was one of the key challenges you faced and how did you overcome this?

Statton: A key challenge for Rightside was trying to build its new Registry business while being subject to constant ICANN delays and policy changes.  Hiring personnel, managing accounts, and making technical changes to a platform is difficult enough under regular circumstances, but with repeated delays in the new gTLD program being thrown at us, it made the work that much more challenging. When there’s uncertainty around when you can launch your business, it’s extremely difficult to make hiring decisions and execute on your company’s strategic plans.

Was there a moment when things ‘clicked’ for you?

Statton: I think everything ‘clicked’ when we saw Guy Kawasaki tweet about “not.com” when he announced his new book on artof.social. Or perhaps when young rockers, V-Squared, gave a live red carpet interview in which they referred the interviewer to their website on vsquared.rocks, saying “Not.com”. The V-Squared boys’ adoption of .rocks was an illustration of how the younger generation, one without a .combias, would choose a more meaningful TLD like a .rocks to showcase their musical talent.

What is one thing you wish you had known going into the process?

Statton: I think everyone in the domain name industry wishes they had known how long the gTLD process was going to take – from filing the application, to final launch. It’s been a long and challenging path but we are nearing the end of it and the real fun is beginning. There is no more exciting time for the domain name industry than right now, and Rightside is committed to making every one of its TLDs a success.

What will be the main challenges and areas of focus for the next year of your TLD?

Statton: The main focus of Rightside for the remainder of this year will be to resolve our remaining contention sets and complete our portfolio of domain names (we are currently at 39).  But another challenge will be raising consumer awareness about new gTLDs and developing creative marketing efforts so that people will learn that they can now get a more memorable and descriptive domain name. The domain name industry as a whole also needs to do a better job at driving awareness and education.

An excerpt of this interview first appeared in the Domain Name Association’s (DNA) ‘State of the Domains’ Report, Edition 3 – June 2015. Access the full report on the DNA’s website.

This article by Tony Kirsch from ARI Registry Services was sourced with permission from:
www.ariservices.com/blog/one-year-in-lessons-from-rocks/

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

One year in: lessons from .photography by Tony Kirsch, ARI Registry Services

ARI Registry ServicesIn the second of our series of TLD applicant interviews, I spoke to Richard Tindal from Donuts about the .photography TLD and how to build a strategy for a single namespace among a portfolio of over 180 others. You can also read my previous interview with .luxury.

How is .photography tracking at this stage of the TLD’s lifespan?

Richard Tindal, Co-Founder and COO, Donuts Inc.: .photography has been on the market 15 months and we’re very happy.  It has 50,000 names under management, an average retail price of US$20, and a healthy, 72% renewal rate (on the first three months of renewals). As the TLD matures and grows we expect that rate to reach 80%.  Currently, 55% of our registrants are from outside the United States.

We certainly had some unanswered questions when we launched .photography. In a portfolio of 180 Donuts TLDs, it was an interesting test-case of two principles: firstly, can TLDs specific to an industry or activity (eg. .photography, .clothing, .pizza) do well, or will users prefer more generic TLDs that still offer choice (eg. .today, .tips, .solutions)? And secondly, are 11 characters too many for a TLD?

What has been your impression of the registrations and use of .photography?

Richard: The marketplace roll-out of .photography has been largely as we expected. Because it can be harder to get a business with an existing web presence to change its URL, our focus is more on businesses that are creating a new Internet presence for their company, product or campaign. One of the reasons .photography is doing well is that a lot of new entities join the photography industry each year, as well as the fact that it is a digital industry.

The use of these names – meaning that they contain good website content – has already reached half the levels seen in legacy TLDs such as .com, which is great news given .photography has been out such a short time. We measure website content on the domains every month, and every month proportionally more of them have good content, so it’s headed in the right direction. We should catch the legacy TLDs within 24 months.

What is your outlook for the coming year?

Richard: The challenge for .photography and all new TLDs now is to increase Internet user awareness about the product set. Awareness is currently low but we have reasons to be upbeat about changing that. Surveys show that people respond to TLD advertising quickly and positively, younger people are getting the message the quickest and new vendors and new technologies have made it easy and affordable to put up good content. Nothing reinforces our marketing message more powerfully than .photography registrants who use and advertise their sites. We think .photography will continue to be a success, as will 95% of all new TLDs.

An excerpt of this interview first appeared in the Domain Name Association’s (DNA) ‘State of the Domains’ Report, Edition 3 – June 2015. Access the full report on the DNA’s website.

This article was sourced with permission from the ARI Registry Services website here:
www.ariservices.com/blog/one-year-in-lessons-from-photography/