Domain name registrars aren’t ready to suggest new TLDs to customers.
As of 11 am EST today, the first set of Latin script new top level domain names came to market.
None of this “Early Access Program” stuff. Just show up, find the domain you want, and register it for regular prices just like other domains.
Unfortunately for Donuts, which owns the seven top level domain names now available, none of the registrars are ready for the big shift in domain name search.
GoDaddy
I started my searching at GoDaddy by entering a couple search strings that end in plumbing and guru, e.g. findjoesplumbing and austintexasguru.
In both cases the .com domain was available and offered. As usual, other domain extensions, combinations of search words, and premium domain names were offered as alternatives or in addition to my exact match.
In the case of findjoesplumbing, guess where findjoes.plumbing was on the list of over 100 results? For the 100+ results on austintexasguru, guess where austintexas.guru was?
If you guessed “nowhere,” you’re right.
The matching .plumbing and .guru domains also weren’t offered in the checkout process.
This is no small deal, as many new TLD applicants based their string selection on how often the keyword shows up in existing domain names.
It appears GoDaddy simply hasn’t added these domains to its search yet. To be fair, I’m writing this 30 minutes after the formal launch. But we’ll see how these domains show up in search results in the future.
eNom
I then ventured over to eNom, which is a new TLD applicant itself.
eNom did a bit better than GoDaddy handling the search. In fact, it did the best of all the registrars I checked this morning. Here’s what I got for the plumbing term:
You’ll see that the .com was available and that 7 alternatives were highlighted. Three of those alternatives were new Donuts domains, but why is .plumbing not one of them? Probably because the options are “hard coded” without regard to the search term.
Then if you look at the lower left, you’ll see that .plumbing domains are suggested, although oddly not the exact match findjoes.plumbing. Instead, it shows getjoes.plumbing.
I then ran a search for AustinPlumbing.com. The .com is taken, and so is Austin.Plumbing, but the search suggestions box in the lower left was filled with .plumbing domains.
A step in the right direction.
1&1
Next up was 1&1. This is the registrar that has spent $50 million advertising new TLD pre-registrations.
I started easy, just typing findjoes.plumbing in the search box. Guess what happened?
I guess the company is going to make all of its money off of pre-registrations and not regular registrations.
As you can imagine after seeing the above graphic, .plumbing domains were nowhere to be found in the suggestions.
(Network Solutions also does not appear to be supporting hand registrations of new TLDs yet.)
Hover
I decided to finish with Hover since it has always had quality domain search. Like many of the others, I couldn’t find the new TLDs as suggested alternatives. I could only find the domains if I typed .plumbing into the search field.
Here’s the takeaway
Yes, it’s early. This is a marathon and not a sprint. We knew that the first domains to come out would be handicapped; it’s part of new TLDs coming out with a whimper. But I also believe that domain name registrars are behind on developing domain search that can parse and handle niche domain names.
This is important for new TLD applicants. It’s going to be difficult getting any sort of good shelf space when competing with hundreds of other new extensions, resale domains, existing gTLDs, and hundreds of ccTLDs. New TLD registries need to at least count on coming up high in search results when someone is searching for a domain that has the TLD as one of the search terms.
Godaddy doeesn’t even have .bike in the search criteria in their domains manager yet.
Good call on the marathon, I think this being round 1 people are bit flush with cash to play with, when you get to round 100 let’s see if anyone gives a damn.
How anti climatic. Everyone who WAS interested in new TLDs is sick of hearing/talking about new TLDs at this point, (check the message boards) – this blog included – after about 17 years of hearing a small but vocal group bitch for new TLDs – its over.
New TLDs do not work correctly. We all know the DOMAIN KING has pointed out they have no home page – one example. HELLO is there anybody out there? The only reason we have them is to absorb demand for an alternative root thus securing the future of the .com.
The most popular way of selling these new names is talk about how yesterday the .com is..dot coms will be worthless in 5 years etc… This is a shoot yourself in the foot argument when trying to persuade someone to invest in the name space. Unless you are actually buying dot COMs.
The Demand needs to be LANDRUSH in nature to get to critical mass, but we have 50 entries where greed has reserved how many to themselves? – and how many new TLDs are on the way?
Corporations are not so stupid that they will not figure out that the rights and function of these new TLDs differ from .com and that new TLDs are not suited for business use.
The potential bad press on these new TLDs is Enormous versus the potential good press.
-Damn train wreck in progress for those with skin in the game.
Most registrars are probably waiting more ngtlds to reach general availability before revamping their search engines. After that I’d imagine that ngtlds will be front and center in the domain searches – at least for a while.
Anyway, like the term “niche domains” (haven’t seen it in use before).
Hey no fair! You reviewed how we manage nTLDs before we even announced we DID! 🙂
Official announcement is now out:
http://www.hover.com/blog/our-take-on-the-new-tlds/
When you checked you needed to type the TLD to get nTLDs to show up. We’ve now turned them on as suggestions for keyword searches.
That said, this is only day one and we LOVE to iterate, so we’re watching closely what’s working and what isn’t so we can adjust and improve.
My guess is that domain search results will look DRAMATICALLY different a year from now once we’ve all integrated the new normal into our purchase processes.
Hi Ken, I can’t get .plumbing or .guru to show up as suggestions even when I do a search that includes these keywords. What would I have to search for to see one of these in the results?
trying something like mydomain in search. Give it maybe 30 seconds or so to populate the results.
Right now we’ve got an overactive suggestion-bot hogging the top results. We’re trying to calm it down a bit.
A good laugh. Head over to european domain centre. They have them all
It is working just fine on domaindiscount24.net (dd24.net)
Doesn’t seem to work on domaindiscount24.net. I searched for something.plumbing (literally), and it comes back as a match but with a price of zero. I then added it to the cart, but it doesn’t add the domain to the cart as my cart is empty.
Hmm, it works for me… Strangeness! We will analyze this…
It’s working now. It wasn’t working for me yesterday.
These ‘niche domains’ or newTLDs are the apartment complexes of the virtual real estate world because each registration shares the same one roof as its neighbors. Buy.cars would be an example of a one roof domain because like an apartment it sits under the same niche roof as buying.cars for example. And at some point buy.cars might find itself under the same roof as Charlie Sheen at winning.cars for example. The behavior of your neighbors under the same newTLD niche will reflect on your site too because unlike .COM each shares the same niche brand and .COM on the other hand is universal so each registration forms its own brand and sits under its own roof like a house.
The tech will get worked out at these companies provided enough consumers want one roof domains instead of .COM to justify the expensive cost of the programming changes.
Andrew,
First, as always, thank you for your research and write-up of your findings.
Like you, I was checking around on some of the new TLDs. I had a problem with the site at 1and1 on a new TLD that they do offer. Other searches did work, this one did not.
Calling in for 1and1 support, it appears that 1and1 has spent $50 million on advertising the new TLD pre-registrations, and zero dollars on employee training. (I know, I should not be surprised.) Of the three 1and1 reps with whom I spoke, I felt very, VERY sorry for the one poor girl attempting to help me on what appears to be a front of site problem on that specific new TLD. It is sad that she had such a bad day at work because of the negligence of her employer.
A QUESTION:
Does anyone know how I can contact Robert Hoffmann, the president of 1and1.com?
I want to inform him that the manner in which he treats his employees is appalling. To have support reps attempting to handle customers with so little training is really, REALLY a disservice.
If anyone can provide some insight as to how I can tell Robert Hoffmann, what a complete douchebag he is for the despicable support of his workers, I would appreciate that information.
Again, Andrew, thank you for your help!!!
Lyle
I’ve tried ordering a new TLD on 1and1 in many different ways, including by started on the company’s new TLD specific page, and I quite simply can’t find a way to do it.
Oh wait, I think I’ve figured it out. It’s not pretty.
Hi Andrew. We at HEXONET switched to live registrations immediately after submitting our GA queue. We are also in the process of updating our Domain Search functionalities. A meaningful domain search will be “key” to a lot of the success/failure of registrars with newTLDs.
Andrew,
As mentioned, they spent all that money on advertising, but other areas are so poor!! For example, when ones goes to:
https://www.1and1.com/new-top-level-domains?
And enters:
RobertHoffmannIHaveAHuge.GRIPE
and then click Check, it gives a
“ATTENTION! Please include a top level domain (TLD). See example.”
error message.
If you do a search for the
RobertHoffmann.SUCKS
domain, you get the message:
roberthoffmann.sucks pre-reserve with no obligation
For one TLD it works. For another, it does not.
There is a work around to get it to work for the .GRIPE donmain. The work around is too involved for this posting.
Lyle
Deleted for fake email and promotional
I am bombarded with emails from Katrina Douglas at 1&1 [email protected]. As far as I knew, I had pre-registered several new domain names using the new TLDs. When I check my 1&1 pre register list, I see them slowly seeping away as “registered”, with no function for me to actually register the ones I reserved. Most of the links on the registration page don’t work. When you get to a registration option, you are asked to log in, then thrown back to your pre reg list… click through again, need to login again… time becomes a loop.