Lots of competition has limited registration numbers for each new TLD.
Last month, Minds + Machines (MMX) announced that it was acquiring ICM Registry, the company behind four adult-themed top level domain names including .xxx. It’s interesting to take a look at the level of success ICM had for its four domains and to consider how some of the 2012 round of new top level domains would have performed if they didn’t have so much competition.
They likely would have performed quite well.
Consider .XXX, a sponsored top level domain name that ICM Registry introduced in 2011. It received 80,000 sunrise applications. The applications alone drove $13 million in revenue, not including auction revenue.
At the start of 2018, there were about 80,000 .xxx domains registered and another 80,000 that companies paid to block from registration.
Compare this to ICM Registry’s three domain names released as part of the new top level domain name program.
.Sex (8,000 in zone file)
.Adult (9,000 in zone file)
.Porn (11,000 in zone file)
You can make a good argument that none of these are as good as .XXX. Still, the results are worlds apart. It’s worth noting that .sex was released about a half year after the other two and has the fewest registrations so far.
Of course, .XXX is a unique domain. A lot of companies registered these domains defensively, and it’s expensive for companies to register all new top level domain names defensively. I recall friends who own small businesses asking me about .xxx back in 2011. None of them asked me about .sex, .porn and .adult when those domains launched.
Another domain to consider is .guru. Guru is a fine domain name, but it clearly would not have performed as well if it wasn’t among the first batch of new TLDs to be released. Until .app, .guru had more pre-orders than any other new TLD at GoDaddy. A lot of money flowed into .guru as new TLDs first came to the market. There are currently 65,000 .guru domains in the zone file.
It’s interesting to ponder how many registrations some of the new TLDs would have if they pre-dated the big increase in inventory of new domain extensions.
I think names like .club .shop .web would be as large or larger than .org and .net if they had launched at the same time. Quality TLDs combined with launch date matters. Although with emerging economies like China we are starting to see increased momentum.
Colin, have you moved to China? Ha Ha! I see you often in Chinese news so that’s very good marketing. I think you are doing the right things to build a long term future in China.
If If If!
These are junky tlds Colin. Yes they would have done better if launched in 1985 but the fact is they weren’t. None are anywhere near as good as .net, especially club and .shop, that is a ridiculous statement.
Actually .xxx is a dead zone.
At least 85% of registered .xxx names are inactive. Defensive registrations.
It’s not really being successful, even in relative terms vs its siblings
xxx domains never sell aside from some registry sales. i’ve dropped all the ones i had.
.xxx domains are dead like a dodo.
Not successful at all.
It’s just marketing stunts … good luck with it.
Back in the day .info had a similar level of interest to all the 1000+ tlds of today combined.
It has got the point where new tlds have done so badly that even “throwing everything at the wall” has not been enough to spur any meaningful usage.
No growth in these TLD’s suggest that they are just ‘run off’ businesses. The drops will kill them in time. IVM selling for cash was good, but taking shares in MMX as well maybe not so good
We dropped the three .xxx speculations we made two years ago. Happy to see them go.
GTLD = Good To Lose Dollars