.Directory enters the club as I become more sure of my forecast for new TLD registration volumes.
Of the dozens of new top level domain names to enter general availability so far, six have now topped 10,000 registrations based on zone file records. .Directory is the most recent entrant in this club after hitting the milestone within the past few days.
Other domains with over 10,000 registrations include .guru, .photography, .tips, .today and .technology.
There are a number of reasons the first group of domains to come out might not be representative of future ones in terms of registration numbers and the pace of early registrations. Some of these reasons are:
1. Many of the the best domains will come out later after contention sets are resolved.
2. Changes to how name collisions are handled might allow more good domain names to be available for registration close to launch.
3. Awareness of new TLDs will grow.
That said, the early results are in line with the general estimates I made for the typical new TLD. In January I wrote:
A year or two from now, I suspect that most new TLDs will be measured in tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. (I’m not alone, as that’s in the business model of many registries.) Many will struggle to maintain more than 10,000 registrations. Some outliers will take off and be embraced.
With the new data I’m more confident about this forecast. I’m confident that many of the domains under 10,000 registrations right now will continue to grow at a healthy clip at top 10,000. I’m also confident that most new TLDs will follow previous trends of losing a good chunk of registrations at the one year renewal mark. This is especially the case for more expensive new TLDs.
I think most of the large new TLD applicants have forecasts in this range as well.
ROYAL.domains says
i will feel happy if some will reach 100k
Jonathan says
So the bar has been set pretty low for these. 10,000
You have .tel and .name around 150,000 to give some perspective and those are horrible.
“i will feel happy if some will reach 100k”
There aren’t 100k keywords that make sense with any of these.
ROYAL.domains says
totaly agree
still wondering how they can pay fees with just 10k
Andrew Allemann says
10k at say $20 wholesale each is $200k annually. Multiply that by 100 and you’ve got a nice business.
The average will be much higher than 10,000, too.
ROYAL.domains says
lets say 10$ for the registry at the end
– loans, servercosts, lease .. etc
for sure donuts is smart and got a lot of domains (splitting the costs)
but whats about frank, with just a few tlds, as we know, he sold not very much yet
but bla bla bla .. we need the accounting 🙂
Andrew Allemann says
Frank applied for more than a few. I think Tattoo is one of the weaker ones.
But really his problem so far is distribution. He’s missing some of the biggest registrars including GoDaddy.
Philip says
.Berlin topped 32,000 within the first 48 hrs. It strengthens the case for the geo domains to be the high flyers in the space. They look to be the sure fire winners of the new gtlds.
Mark says
Of course there are not going to be millions of nearly any “niche” TLD’s because, by design, they are “Niche”.
What has and will continue to happen is that most intuitive TLD’S will “find their niche”. The .DIRECTORY TLD is a perfect example.
http://www.Dentist.Directory makes way more sense as an intuitive search option to find a Dentist than any other domain on the internet.
I think the guys at Donuts know exactly what they are doing.