The world’s smallest active top level domain has seven second level domains.
ICANN recently published the latest batch of monthly registry reports, which include data on how many domains are registered in each (non-ccTLD) top level domain. The latest data was for the end of January.
There’s a lot of interesting data in these reports. What I find particularly interesting is looking at what I call “micro TLDs”. These are very small top level domains that are usually sponsored top level domains. Most have very restrictive registration policies that make it difficult to register domains. If the policies were looser, then these TLDs would have many more registrations — although that’s debatable for some of them.
Stumbling upon an active web site in these micro TLDs is rare. It reminds me of the game we played on car trips as children. You tried to spot all 50 state license plates. It was difficult to find an Alaska plate, and the rarest bird was Hawaii. When I find myself on an active .museum web site, it’s like the feeling of finding that elusive Hawaii plate.
Here are some of the micro top level domains. Numbers are as of the end of January.
.Aero – 8,327 domains
Billed as “the world’s first industry-based top level Internet domain”, this domain is solely for use by aviation companies. We’re about to see a lot more industry-based top level domains.
.Jobs – 6,586 domains*
Technically there were 42,597 registered .jobs domains at the end of January. But 36,011 were registered through a business deal to create a bunch of microsite job boards.
.Jobs is being liberated later this year, so you can expect many more registrations.
.Travel – 23,364 domains
Despite official restrictions on this domain, it is basically no longer restricted to travel companies.
.Post – 7 domains
Micro or mini-micro? This slow moving sTLD is only for members of the postal community. A recent news announcement from sponsor Universal Postal Union says that 30 counties have joined a steering committee for .post, but then says that only “several countries have registered for their own sponsored top-level domain name”.
The Universal Postal Union has filed community objections to all of the TLD applications for .mail, as well as a string confusion objection against Deutsche Post AG’s .epost application.
.Museum – 436 domains
Only museums, museums associations and museum professionals can register these domains. The domains are also available as internationalized domain names.
.Coop – 14,990
Designed just for co-ops, which is a larger category than you might think.
Kevin Murphy says
.post may have the distinction of the being the only TLD with its whole zone indexed in Google.
With [site:.post] I found: postnl.post, ems.post, posteitaliane.post, info.post, wnsstamps.post, postemaroc.post and ptc.post
Andrew Allemann says
Interesting…on the downside, if I type one of these .post domains into Chrome it brings me to a search results page rather than directly to the web site.
Pinky Brand says
Nice article. I stumbled upon pec.coop yesterday. It ranked high in a search as well.
James says
I wonder about the future of .TRAVEL. If they weren’t already in the root, I’m guessing there would’ve been 5-6 competing apps for the string. If they aren’t lobbying hard to remove what eligibility restrictions remain, then they should be…..
Andrew Allemann says
With .jobs managing to dump the restrictions, I’d say .travel is indeed missing the boat. Granted, it’s been mismanaged from day one.
J says
.travel and .jobs are as good as it gets as far as specialty tlds go. They are literally 100 times better than your average specialty tlds people allied for. These 2 tlds had years and years to get some traction with no competition, and they completely failed. Years later the only way to describe them is to say that they are absolutely irrelevant. I remember utah.travel tv ads a few years ago. Now the site is pointing to visitutah.com. I have never seen or came across a single other .travel or .jobs site.
ChuckWagen says
There is no MOMA.museum, at least it does not resolve.
To me, that speaks volumes.
Samit says
.Pro is another that should dump restrictions. It’s a natural fit for most keywords and would do well if no longer bound by ridiculous nexus requirements.
Andrew Allemann says
@ samit – .pro found a way to do that a long time ago, although the restrictions are still technically in place.
Pinky Brand says
I agree with your comments on restricted registration policies’ effect on reg numbers, and like your analogy to spotting license plates from different states.
I believe restrictions of any kind will suppress domain name registrations volume from their true potential in any TLD. This has been the history of the DNS and I believe it will be the same moving forward absent some kind of innovative way of automatically qualifying potential registrants in a closed/restricted TLD. Registrars don’t like dealing with restricted TLDs in general, it increases their costs and ultimately to the registrant.
Whether or not that means a future restricted TLD is successful or not depends on the mission and goals for that TLD. Success defined for TLD registry operator / new gTLD applicant may be entirely different from what others define as success, particularly those who speculate.
For example, .CAT seems successful in serving its community but they are certainly not high volume.
When I was in Cologne, Germany a few years ago I came across http://www.wallraf.museum . It was promoted rather widely in and around the museum and they have a great site. Not sure what kind of traffic they get but I know the site has been up since at least 2010 when I last looked at it.
Kevin Murphy says
Assuming .pro is sticking to the same strategy as it was before Jiwani left, I don’t think the restrictions will be dropped any time soon.