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Top domain registrars in China, and how to use them in English (updated)

by — Domain Registrars 4 Comments

Here’s an updated list of registrars in China, and how you can interact with some of them in English.

Magnifying glass over Chinese flag

Based on the “Internet and Domain Industry Report” (Chinese) published in June this year, here’s the updated list of the Top 10 domain registrars in China.

Rank Registrar Chinese Domain English?
1 Alibaba Cloud 阿里云 AlibabaCloud.com Yes
2 Xin Net 新网数码 Xinnet.com –
3 West.cn 西部数码 West.cn Yes
4 eName 易名 eName.com Yes
5 Bizcn.com 商务中国 Bizcn.com –
6 Bang Ning 江苏邦宁 BN.beian.top –
7 DNSPod 帝思普 DNSpod.cn Yes
8 35.com 三五互联 35.com –
9 22net 浙江贰贰 22.cn –
10 CN DNS 美橙互联 CNDNS.com –

Only four registrars provide services also in English: Alibaba Cloud, West.cn, eName, and DNSPod.

Alibaba Cloud offers mainly domain registration (use Alibabacloud.com/domain for English). This registrar also owns the long-established domain registrar HiChina (万网=Wan Wang). While it is a bit confusing, Alibaba Cloud is also known as Aliyun in China.

West.cn is also known as Chengdu West Dimension Digital Technology. Its English site is West.xyz where you can register, bid for, or drop-catch domains. This registrar also offers a buyer agent service to help you acquire a particular domain from a Chinese owner.

eName provides a wide range of services such as auction, backorder, and escrow. Its subsidiary 4.cn also offers similar services in English.

Because HiChina, Xin Net, eName, Bizcn.com, and 22net are Afternic partners, if you list your domains at Afternic, they will be available in China when buyers search for your domains at these registrars. This mechanism allows you to sell to China without having to deal with the language and payment issues.

Is Wechat.com registrar migration a harbinger of things to come in the China domain market?

by — Domain Registrars 4 Comments

Chinese companies might move their domains from the United States.

wechat logo shows two text clouds with eyes

Domaingang.com reported on September 24 that WeChat.com has recently moved from the USA-based registrar MarkMonitor to the China-based eName. This happened amid the worsening relationship between the USA and China.

Naturally, you may wonder whether it is just a single case or other Chinese companies are also following. So, I selected the top 20 companies from the “2019 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report” and checked their Whois records. Here is the result.

Rank Company Domain Registrar Location
1 Alibaba Alibaba.com Alibaba Cloud China
2 Tencent (Teng Xun) Tencent.com MarkMonitor USA
3 Baidu Baidu.com MarkMonitor USA
4 Jing Dong JD.com MarkMonitor USA
5 Ant Financial Antfin.com Alibaba Cloud China
6 Wang Yi (Netease) Netease.com MarkMonitor USA
7 Meituan Meituan.com eName China
8 Toutiao Toutiao.com eName China
9 360 Total Security 360.com eName China
10 Xin Lang (Sina) Sina.com Xin Net China
11 Pinduoduo Pinduoduo.com 22net China
12 Sou Hu (Sohu) Sohu.com MarkMonitor USA
13 58.com 58.com eName China
14 Su Ning Suning.com eName China
15 Xiao Mi Mi.com Network Solutions USA
16 Xie Cheng (Ctrip) Ctrip.com eName China
17 Yong You (Yonyou) Yonyou.com Alibaba Cloud China
18 Cheetah Mobile CheetahMobile.com eName China
19 Autohome Autohome.com Alibaba Cloud China
20 Mango TV MGTV.com Alibaba Cloud China

70% of the domains are located in China and all of them have been there for quite a while. In other words, there is no recent migration of domains from the USA to China. You may notice that Alibaba Cloud and eName are the preferred Chinese registrars. (Note that Alibaba Cloud is known as Aliyun in China, which also owns HiChina.)

Although both Wechat.com and Tencent.com are owned by Tencent, the former has moved but not the latter. It’ll be interesting to see if Tencent.com will eventually move to China.

At this stage, the WeChat.com registrar migration does not signal any change to come. However, if Chinese registrants became worried about any sudden action by the US government, they would certainly move their domains back to China.

Although unlikely, in the extreme case, Chinese companies may be motivated or even ordered to use only .cn domains for operation inside China. If this happened, it would greatly dampen demand for .com domains because currently .com is still the preferred extension in China.

In this age of uncertainty, anything can happen, so it’s important to keep a close watch of the China domain market if you want to sell your domains there.

Top 10 registrars in China

by — Domain Registrars 7 Comments

These Chinese companies are top domain name registrars.

Picture of globe focused on China with word "top chinese registrars"

I get asked from time to time which domain registrars are the best in China and which of them offer services in English. Well, hopefully you’ll find your answers in this article.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) surveys the domain industry every year and publishes its findings in a report (互联网域名产业报告). The latest one was released in June, 2019. Based on the report, I have compiled the following Top 10 domain registrars.

RankRegistrarWebsite

1 Aliyun (阿里云-万网) wanwang.Aliyun.com (C)
2 Xi Bu Shu Ma (西部数码) West.xyz (E)
3 Xin Net (新网数码) Xinnet.com (C)
4 eName (易名中国) eName.com (C,E)
5 Shang Zhong Zai Xian (商中在线) Bizcn.com (C)
6 Zhe Jiang Er Er (浙江贰贰-爱名网) 22.cn (C)
7 Mei Cheng Hu Lian (美橙互联) CNDNS.com (C)
8 Bang Ning (江苏邦宁) BN.beian.top (C)
9 San Wu Hu Lian (三五互联) 35.com (C)
10 Xin Wang Hu Lian (新网互联) DNS.com.cn (C)

In the table, C indicates information available in Chinese and E in English. As you can see, only two of the top 10 registrars offer their services in English.

Xi Bu Shu Ma (西部数码) is probably better known as West.cn. The company actually offers its English services from a separate site (West.xyz). You can register, bid for, or drop-catch domains. They also offer buyer agent service to help you acquire a particular domain from a Chinese owner.

eName provides a wide range of services such as auction, backorder, and escrow. (Its subsidiary 4.cn also offers similar services in English.) Interestingly, if you list your domains with a BIN price at Afternic, they will be available to Chinese buyers when they search for your domains at eName. This is because eName is a partner in Afternic’s global retail network. This method actually allows you to sell to China without having to deal with the language and payment issues.

Therefore, you can try West.xyz, eName.com, and 4.cn for domain services in English.

Official data show effects of Chinese domain investment bonanza

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

What happened in December, the one year anniversary of the Chinese investment bonanza.

ICANN just published data from Verisign about .com activity in December.

This was the one year anniversary of lots of Chinese speculative registrations, and the deletions were massive.

eName had 794,258 domains delete. HiChina saw 532,231 names delete. 22net had 125,766 deletions.

These numbers were significantly higher than November for eName and HiChina, but lower for 22net.

Now, let’s look at how the registrars fared with new registrations and transfers in December: Click here to see the charts…

Chinese registrars lose of lot of .com, but HiChina picks up domains from others

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Official data from November show some interesting domain movement.

ICANN just published data from Verisign about .com activity in November. This was right in the thick of the anniversary of the “Chinese surge” and the data show it.

GoDaddy has the most expired deletions because it’s the biggest, but check out these huge deletion numbers at Chinese registrars:

22net 339,307
eName 315,143
HiChina 265,138

I imagine these numbers increased in December, but we’ll have to wait a month to find out.

You’ll see below that HiChina also had massive inbound transfers, and conversely, eName and 22net lost a lot. So it appears HiChina picked up some domains from them. Maybe it was an investor buying out other investors?

Now, let’s get to the normal charts that I track each month for .Com Winners & Losers… Click here to see the charts…

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