Considering .asia and .tel results, how many domains can a new TLD expect to register?
What makes a top level domain name successful?
If you compare any top level domain to .com, they are all failures. But if you look at it from the registry’s perspective, the number required to be profitable isn’t that much.
.Biz brings in about $12 million a year to registry Neustar even though .biz is only tiny sliver of the domain market at two million domains. That’s not bad.
I’ve been told that some business plans for new top level domains anticipate registration levels of only about 35,000. That’s not much, and I suspect many general domains can get that many registrations in defensive registrations alone. But if it’s marketed to a niche community, that can be profitable.
So let’s look at numbers for a couple recent top level domains, .asia and .tel (I’ve already written about .mobi).
In its latest public ICANN report, .tel registry Telnic reported a total of 221,616 domains registered in July. The number seems to be growing 5,000-15,000 names a month. Recent estimates I’ve heard are that there are about 250,000 .tel domains registered, which jives with the current growth rate. But keep in mind .tel will take a hit after initial registration periods lapse.
.Asia has already seen its first round of drops from its land rush, and is now hovering at about 215,000 domains registered.
Neither of these TLDs faced intense competition when they were launched, and they are also fairly generic in nature. When new TLDs are launched en masse, they’ll face stiff competition with other similar TLDs. That means they’ll be lucky to approach the numbers .asia and .tel have, unless they manage to score good shelf space at a registrar like GoDaddy (or are launched by a registrar for that matter).
I’ve never had a first hand look at a business plan for a new TLD, but I hope their backers are being cautious with their forecasts.
Available Domains Blog says
New domain extensions are a profitable avenue for promoters with a little luck.
chandan says
new tlds are good only for making money for corresponding registries 😀
M. Menius says
I think .travel provides some lessons as well regarding how readily & widely a new extension may (or may not) be adopted. .TRAVEL made much sense at the time and came out when the domain market was in full swing. The tld did have restrictions, but ones which were easily met by any existing travel agency.
The travel industry, which had its own custom domain available to it, did not really embrace the tld. Moreover, those that did were unable to generate significant momentum in a popular, wide open, lucrative market.
Looking at .eu, .asia, .tel, .travel as well as the slow adoption of info/biz/us suggests strongly that tons of marketing and a persistent financial push will be required to lift any new tld to real prominence.
The financial foundation for any new tld is immediately laid by domain speculators and developers … who will register the first 200,000 or so keyword domains. ICANN and the registrars know this and are depending on this since they can rake in as much as possible right up front and then abandon further financial efforts to promote the new tld’s.
Griff says
.tel I think is different, and domainer and domain-sellers don’t get it, but maybe that’s because it isn’t for them.
So far the Registry seems to be following a pretty standard domain reseller route, and 250,000 doesn’t look bad, but If .tel can carve out a distribution model more closely tied to Directory Providers or Telcos (both keen for a new ways to “engage” their customers), we could be looking at something very significant here.
Andrew Allemann says
Griff – I think .tel needed to get really big really fast given its model, which it hasn’t done. I agree that distribution through directory providers makes sense (and they’re doing it). But it’s also at odds with how the domain is actually developing: it’s very technical. Sure, it’s simple to set up a basic page, but every other solution, such as adding text ads, is very technical in nature.
John McCormac says
Comparing anything other than .com to .com is going to show .com as the winner, Andrew,
Some of the ccTLDs are doing very well and the .com and other gTLDs in those country level markets are a fraction of the local ccTLD’s domain count. The .com TLD is a global TLD but the ccTLDs are really beginning to impact the domain market. But they require different levels of analysis (country and global).
The .asia sTLD had 213763 domains in the zone on 01/November/2009. Far from having no competition, it has massive regional competition from .cn, .au, .kr, .jp, .in and other ccTLDs. There is no underlying political identity or framework as there is with .eu and the European Union and most of .asia’s landrush was driven by domaining. Unfortunately for the dotAsia registry, it managed to hit the market right at the end of the domain bubble. This meant that it had to rely more on the intellectual property and brand protection registrations that many new TLDs depend on for their basic worst case registration numbers.
The .tel TLD is a strange one. It is not a TLD in the sense that registrants control the DNS for their domain and it is not easily monetised. As a result, its appeal to domainers is low. However it is really an enhanced web directory. The domain count in the .tel zone on 01/November/2009 was 220637 domains. Only properly set up domains appear in the .tel zone. It is developing well and is a niche TLD rather than a mainstream TLD like .com or the gTLDs. The .tel TLD hit very the end of the domain bubble but it is growing each month. However it is also a pre-Junk Dump/landrush anniversary TLD.
Any new TLD will depend on brand protection registrations and domainer activity to boost its initial figures in the landrush phase. However if there is no significant development or use of the TLD within the first two years of operation, it will have a lot of problems. As Max pointed out above, it takes a lot of marketing to get a new TLD. The .eu has been a masterclass in stupidity in terms of marketing and usage/development.
What kills industry specific or niche gTLDs are ccTLDs. The ccTLD allows a business to self-identify with its target market. That’s why .pro and .travel gTLDs have not done so well. And of course, they haven’t been marketed well.
Godaddy has approximately a 21% market share of the TLD/gTLD market. I would agree that any new gTLD has to consider Godaddy in its marketing plans. One of the biggest mistakes in recent years was the US government not giving .us ccTLD to Godaddy to operate and market.
elliot noss says
the more appropriate model for the new round is .cat, which has quietly been a success as a nice small business.
35,000 registrations at a high price. very distinct community. low operating costs. very high usage rates and extremely relevant for its community.
all in, exactly what the expansion of the domain space can provide.
EuropeanDomainCentre says
.de and co.uk’ s popularity shows that local country code tlds should remove all restrictions after initially ensuring that Ip rights domains have been secured. It shouldn’t take more than 24h to activate a domain, but unfortunately also for domain registrations there are local public administrations which prefer a manual process (to keep a lot of people occupied?)
Christopher Hofman
European Domain Centre
Illusion Mage says
I’m pleased that i find this web-site.I wanted to thanks for your time with this excellent learn!! I without doubt enjoy with every single little bit of it and I’ve you saved as a favorite to view new material in your webpage Thank you!