New gTLD registrations are still surging upwards with the six millionth registration occurring on 7 June according to nTLDstats.com. Currently there are over 6.033 million domains registered.The six million registrations are across 650 gTLDs, although 281 of these have less than 100 registrations with the bulk of these still in their Sunrise periods or are brand gTLDs. And 104 have more than 10,000 registrations.So there have been quite a few winners. And a few losers. Among the winners is .xyz, the market leader in the total registration count with well over 960,000 registrations. And even though it is estimated several hundred thousand of these were given away for free, it would still be far and away the largest gTLD when it comes to paid registrations.Second on the list of total gTLD registrations is .网址 (.website) however almost all of these registrations are to one registrar and it’s difficult to know how what they’re being used for. Third is .science that has gained close to 300,000 registrations in under four months with one registrar accounting for 85 percent of all registrations.Fourth is one of the big success stories – .club. The gTLD boasts that their 247,000 domains, along with all of the Donuts domains across their gTLDs, are fully paid for. Fifth is .party and it, like .science, has the same registrar making up 90 percent of its 187,000 registrations.The Chinese .wang is sixth with 173,600 registrations and appears to be doing well while .berlin is seventh but this includes a number of free domains. From a peak of over 157,000 registrations it is now down to 153,200 registrations three months into the first of the renewals. But next week over 60,000 domains that were either given away or sold cheaply come up for renewal and undoubtedly it will take a hit. But even if none of these are renewed, an unlikely worst case scenario, it would still be the eleventh largest of the new gTLDs.Rounding out the top ten are .top (129,300 registrations), .link (120,100) and .realtor (102,500). The latter’s numbers though are one of the more unlikely to be sustained. The registry operator has given away domains to real estate agents across North America, but with highly restrictive conditions, it’s unlikely that many will put up money when it comes time for a paid renewal.The .nyc gTLD is also performing well in eleventh place with 79,400 registrations, while .click (69,800) and one of the earliest gTLDs and a Donuts gTLD .guru (69,000) are also doing well.Indeed, while there are some that one could argue should have or could have done better, or even much better, the only other gTLD whose numbers one could question is .ovh among the top 103 with registrations above 10,000. The .ovh gTLD has close to 63,300 registrations but 90 are reserved and the rest through one registrar. And none appear to have been paid for.The most successful backend registry is Donuts with 1.365 million registrations across 186 gTLDs while CentralNic has 1.106 million registrations across 22 gTLDs followed by Neustar with 933,400 registrations across 48 gtLDs then ZDNS (588,100/14), Uniregistry (445,800/21), Rightside (281,500/36), Afilias (212,500/64), TLD-BOX (207,400/7) and Minds + Machines (199,645/24).Some of the losers would appear to be .whoswho, never likely to have big numbers of registrations, but seven months into General Availability has 61 registrations. And while there are others with lower numbers, .rich hasn’t proved very rich with 406 registrations so far and .HIV has struggled with the registry operator now offering the gTLD for sale hoping their unique model for raising funds for charity has some appeal to a larger registry that bring some economies of scale to the project. And in the battle of Democrat v Republicans, the Democrats are winning with 1,356 registrations to 805. But it couldn’t be said either has set the political establishment alight!
Tag Archives: .GURU
Donuts Marks One Year of New gTLD Availability with Over 1.2 Million Registrations
[news release] Donuts Inc., the world’s largest registry for new gTLDs, marked the one-year anniversary of general availability of new Internet identities today, reporting that its 150 now live gTLDs are home to more than 1.2 million registrations, accounting for nearly one third of the four million total names registered across all new gTLDs.The company, which expects eventually to run approximately 200 gTLDs, said it currently operates eight of the top 25 and half of the top 50 new gTLDs by registration volume, including .GURU (80,584), .PHOTOGRAPHY (51,431), and .EMAIL (48,031). Registrants are widely dispersed geographically, with United States customers most active (48 percent), followed by Germany (12 percent) and the United Kingdom (11 percent). Usage of new gTLDs has climbed steadily, as well — according to CSC Digital Brand Services, there was a 52% increase over the past quarter in the number of new gTLD domain registrations ranked in the Alexa top one million most visited sites.”We’ve built a foundation to create vibrant online communities that drive commerce, participation, communication and the exchange of information,” said Donuts CEO and cofounder Paul Stahura. “As we promised early last year, there’s now a relevant, specific domain name for everyone, promising the ability to identify products, services, communities, companies and organizations.”Adopters are agreeing. According to Brad D. Riggan of Liquid Media®, an Oklahoma City-based multi-dimensional digital creative firm, the switch to a new gTLD was intuitive. “We changed to Liquid.MEDIA because we wanted a domain name that represented the meaning of our company,” he said. “This is a precise descriptor that tells our clients and potential clients what we do.”Donuts recently launched .WORLD into general availability, and tomorrow will make .ENERGY and .DELIVERY open to any registrant. .COACH, .MEMORIAL, .LEGAL, .MONEY and .TIRES are now available exclusively to trademark holders and will open to all registrants later in March.The new gTLD program, still in its infancy, is undergoing rapid growth as .COM and other legacy over-used gTLDs fade in utility. Last fall, Afnic, the registry operator for the .FR country code TLD (ccTLD), released a study documenting that new gTLDs are growing faster than both legacy gTLDs and ccTLDs. And as reported in October, analysts at investment bank B. Riley & Co. forecasted that new gTLD registrations could cross the 20 million mark by 2016.Further pent demand will be addressed throughout 2015, when “contention sets” — gTLDs for which more than one registry applie — will be resolved. Including names like .MUSIC, .SHOP, .ART and .APP, remaining contention sets account for what will likely be some of the most popular and well-used gTLDs. “We’re still very early in the life of new gTLDs, but the promise of these names has already been well proven,” Stahura said. “As less relevant legacy gTLDs continue to decline in popularity, consumers and businesses are embracing the semantic meaning and specificity of new gTLDs.”About Donuts Inc.
Donuts securely operates the largest number of the Internet’s top-level domain names and provides varied and relevant online identities, in multiple languages and character sets, to businesses, individuals, and organizations worldwide. Donuts is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, with offices in Southern California, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and London. For more information, please visit www.donuts.co.This Donuts news release was sourced from:
www.donuts.co/news/donuts-marks-one-year-of-new-gtld-availability-with-over-1-2-million-registrations/
Four Million Domains Registered In New gTLDs In Under 12 Months
If registration numbers are what you go by, four million domains registered in under 12 months for the 461 gTLDs across 318 registries and 224 registrars taking registrations is pretty good going. But it is still early days and not one domain name in any of the new gTLDs has come up for renewal yet.The four millionth registration occurred on 7 January according to statistics published by nTLDstats.com, boosted in recent days by the launch of the .Q@ (website) gTLD which rocketed into second place on the chart for most registrations and now has passed 354,400 domains under management (DUM). However 354,414 of these domains to date are registered through one registrar – Internet Domain Name System Beijing Engineering Research Center LLC (ZDNS) and the remaining four to the registry operator. So it’s not likely the public has been registering these domains.Domain Incite has explained the anomaly as the “registry, Knet, which acquired original applicant Hu Yi last year, operates a keyword-based navigation system in China that predates Chinese-script gTLDs.””The company has simply grandfathered its keyword customers into .Q@, I’m told.”The keyword system allows Latin-script domains too, which explains the large number of western brands that appear in the .Q@ zone.”The second reason for the huge bump is the fact that many of the domains are essentially duplicates.”Meanwhile the .xyz gTLD continues to blow all other gTLDs out of the water when it comes to total registrations with over three-quarters of a million (767,883), however the vast majority of these have been “given” to the unsuspecting registrants of the .com equivalent in a deal with Network Solutions.In third place is .club with 165,973 DUMs who, like Donuts with their 158 gTLDs up and running, claim that none of their domains have been given away. Which puts them in a great place for when domains come up for renewal as if someone has made the effort to pay for a domain, they’re much more likely to want to renew it.The top 11 includes three city gTLDs – .berlin in fourth with 155,466, .nyc (New York City) with 66,838 in eighth and .london in eleventh with 54,002 DUMs. While .berlin appear to have given away or sold cheaply around 90,000 domains, they like other city gTLDs should expect high renewal numbers. And their future seems safe.But it’s not all big registration numbers. Some gTLDs charge a higher premium than others and one such gTLD is .luxury. It may only have 1,294 DUMs, but they have much higher registration fees and are aimed at (naturally) luxury brands. So its future would seem safer than many of those with similar registration numbers.A couple of gTLDs one would have to question their future are .rich and .wed, the latter aimed at short term use for those getting married. Both gTLDs have been around for months and still only have 59* and 125 DUMs respectively. It seems luxury is a better deal than being rich when it comes to domains.Overall it seems that city and regional gTLDs are being very successful, as are those with a good idea and good marketing behind them such as .club and a number of Donuts gTLDs such as .guru, .photography and .email. But for many, it’s when domains come up for renewal, the first of which start happening in the next few months. Stay tuned. * [updated] although with registration prices of around $2,5000 per domain, they do have more of a chance of survival than quite a few others.
Donuts Among Big Winners As Total New gTLD Registrations Pass 3 Million In 9 Months
There are now over three million domain names registered across the 254 new gTLDs that have entered General Availability and another 173 that have been delegated according to figures compiled by nTLDstats.com.The three million mark was passed on 24 October and the figure stood at 3,071,575 at the end of 30 October.The new gTLD with the most registrations continues to be .xyz with 684,256 registrations, or 22.51 percent of all the domains. But this figure is boosted by a controversial promotion run by Network Solutions where over half (376,901 or 55.08%) of all its domains are registered. One in five (142,905 – 20.88%) are registered through the Chinese registrar Xin Net Technology Corporation.Second on the list continues to be .berlin with 152,355 registrations, which despite a promotion that went awry that saw almost 90,000 domains either given away or registered cheaply in three days, continues to do well.For both gTLDs it will be interesting to see what their renewal rates are when domains come due for re-registration.Coming in third is the .club gTLD that boasts all its domains registered are paid for. Meaning if paid for domains were only included it could easily be the largest of all the new gTLDs.Coming in fourth and seventh are .realtor and .ovh with 79,571 and 53,674 registrations respectively and that appear to have given away all, or almost all, their domains.Rounding out the top ten are two more city gTLDs – .london and .nyc that come in at eighth and ninth respectively with 48,203 and 47,497 registrations respectively. And .guru and .photography, two Donuts gTLDs, come in at sixth and tenth with 74,941 and 47,296 registrations respectively.Donuts now have well over one million registrations across all 151 of their gTLDs that have been delegated, 140 in General Availability. The latest count is 1,029,049 according to nTLDstats.com. “All fully paid,” Dan Schindler, co-founder and Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, for Donuts told the Goldstein Report.Donuts are particularly happy with all their gTLDs to date, but they’re even more chuffed with the success of .guru and .photography.”.guru was an enormous surprise to us,” said Schindler. “We were really surprised and we’ve tried to analyse why.””It’s fun and everyone can claim to be a .guru,” Schindler thinks is the reason behind the success. “Photography has also been a very pleasant surprise. In a world of two and three letter TLDs, it is a surprise longer names do so well.” Another to surprise Donuts Schindler said was .technology, currently coming in at 26th place with 21,200 registrations. Others Schindler expects to do well for them are .company, .email and .today.It’s not just total registration numbers for gTLDs. Renewal rates will be something to look out for a year or two down the track. But Schindler thinks Donuts will have high renewal rates for four reasons:
- where names paid for, the early renewal rates are high for those early adopters
- people cherish something they paid for
- they got in early and got the pick of the bunch
- these names don’t have enormous type in traffic so not bought by speculators, bought for longer term investments.
New gTLDs Break 2 Million Registrations, But 4 In 5 Parked
Registrations of new gTLDs domains broke the two million mark over the weekend across the 367 gTLDs that have been delegated, 195 of which having entered General Availability. As of Sunday there were over 2,031,000 registrations according to nTLDstats.com.The gTLD with the most registrations, or Domains Under Management, continues to be .xyz with 455,926 registrations, or 22.7 percent of all registrations, down from around a quarter only a few weeks ago as more gTLDs launch.In second place remains .berlin with 138,000 registrations and then .club with over 98,600, .guru with over 69,000 and then .wang which is closing in on 56,400, being the only gTLDs with more than 50,000 registrations.But what of the registrations. There is certain to be a shakeout at the end of years one and two as it can be expected that many domains won’t be renewed. Especially .xyz that has seen almost 83 percent of its registrations through one registrar, Network Solutions, which has been giving its .com registrants the equivalent .xyz domain unless they opted out. Additionally, .berlin ran a heavily discounted promotion for a few weeks that saw registrations jump around 90,000 in a few days.Additionally, almost four in five (79.51%) of the new gTLD domains registered are currently parked meaning very few are being used for productive websites, nor likely any other use like email. Six percent (120,664) are currently being redirected to another website.The gTLD, according to nTLDstats.com, with the highest proportion of parked domains is unsurprisingly .xyz with 93.63 percent of all their registered domains currently being parked followed by .berlin with 83.25 percent.Interestingly the gTLDs among the top ten with the least domains parked proportionally are .photography (63.19%) and .email (65.23%) while .wien with 8,149 registrations and .webcam with 9,071 have the lowest proportion of parked domains with 53.94 and 47.27 percent respectively. Could this be an indicator of future success?Of the registries, the largest is Donuts with 145 of the 371 gTLDs released into the wild (delegated) that cover over 839,600 of the registrations, or 41.72 percent. There are also 182 registrars that are taking registrations for at least one of the new gTLDs.In broader registration statistics, there are also 18 gTLDs that have passed the 20,000 mark, 37 have passed 10,000, 76 passed 5,000 and 176 have passed 1,000.
New gTLD Registrations Pass One Million Mark In Dodgy Circumstances
The number of new gTLDs Domains Under Management passed the one million milestone on 6 June, but the boost it received from a .xyz “promotion” run by Network Solutions has led to accusations the registrar has artificially inflated the number of registrations.As of 9 June, there were 1,023,297 DUM across the 300 new gTLDs with at least one domain name shared out among 136 registrars and 39 registries.With the Network Solutions promotion, .xyz has leapt into the lead with 88,747 registrations, almost 20,000 ahead of .club with 68,781 and then .guru with 61,958. Following is .berlin with 49,195. These are the only new gTLDs with more than 40,000 registrations.There are another four new gTLDs with registrations over 30,000, three more with 20,000+ and six more with 10,000+. In total there are 55 new gTLDs with more than 1,000 registrations.But it the method Network Solutions has adopted to boost .xyz registrations has attracted controversy with accusations of “clear-cut cases of cybersquatting” by Domain Incite.Network Solutions has been giving away tens of thousands of .xyz domain names to the registrants of the matching .com domain.Domain Incite found many instances of domains being registered that included trademarks in the domains such as my-twitter.xyz, facebook-liker.xyz, googledia.xyz, arolexwatches.xyz, disneytime.xyz, iphonethank.xyz, sellstuffonamazon.xyz and pepsicontest.xyz.”They’re all registered via NetSol’s Whois privacy service, which lists the registrant’s ‘real’ name in the Whois record, but substitutes mailing address, email and phone number with NetSol-operated proxies.””The ‘registrants’ did not have to explicitly accept the offer,” Domain Incite reported. “Instead, NetSol gave them the option to ‘opt-out’ of having the name registered on their behalf and placed into their accounts.”For more detail on the .xyz controversy, see the Domain Incite report here.
New gTLD Registrations Leap Past 900,000 As .XYZ Debuts At 5 With A Bullet
New gTLD registrations have leapt passed the 900,000 mark and as of 3 June there were 936,597 across all new gTLDs according to nTLDstats.com. Registrations passed the 900,000 mark on 2 June.Registrations were boosted significantly with the launch of .xyz’s General Availability on 3 June. Before GA commenced there were 14,378 registrations, but by the end of day one there were 34,029, meaning 19,651 registrations for the day, and .xyz was fifth on the nTLDstats.com list of top gTLDs by registrations. It currently sits in fourth place. It wasn’t the gTLD with the most registrations on day one of GA though – that honour still goes to .club with 26,832 registrations.As of 3 June the top gTLDs were .club with 65,782 registrations followed by .guru (61,397), .berlin (49,007), .photography (37,620) and then .xyz.There are now 11 of the new gTLDs with more than 20,000 registrations, 24 with more than 10,000, 53 with more than 5,000 and 98 with more than 1,000.In total there are 289 gTLDs that have been delegated, 134 registrars taking registrations and 38 registries.