Wednesday, December 13, 2017

New domains for Companies: were we right?

In 2016 we started to select a certain number of domain name extensions in which we believed that companies should secure their (second level) domain names with: because they'd want to use it, or..."just in case". In 2017, from January to December, we tracked the variations of these registration volumes to see if they attracted consumers (Registrants) or not, and we're happy to see that we were not so wrong.


Note that if the number of domain names registered in a certain extension is not the only criteria for a successful new gTLD, it remains an important one.

Our selection
Here is the list of TLDs that that we believe companies should secure their domain name with:
  1. New gTLDs: .VIP - .SITE - .WEBSITE - .BLOG - .WORLD - .SOLUTIONS - .EMAIL - .COMPANY - .公司 (company) - .GLOBAL - .INTERNATIONAL - .EXPERT - .SUPPORT - .TEAM - .BUZZ - .商标 (".trademark" in Chinese) - .世界 (world) - .集团 (corporate group) - .CEO - .FEEDBACK - .WHOSWHO - .CONTACT - .WEB (coming).
  2. Legacy TLDs: .COM - .PRO - .TEL
What about 2017: blue or red?
With such an important list of more than 750 new domain name extensions, we did not want to select too many: just the one that we think are generic and international enough to be registered by a Trademark.

A certain number of TLDs have been very successful in 2017: the .VIP new gTLD gained 200,000 more registrations between January and December. This is mainly due to the chinese market.

The .BLOG - a must have - received almost 100,000 more registrations in one year and 50,000 more for the .WORLD new gTLD. The .SOLUTIONS received 20,000 more and 15,000 more for .EMAIL (let's hope that .MAIL does not see the day). 10,000 more registrations for the .COMPANY and .GLOBAL new gTLDs. With .TEAM, all of these extensions just kept receiving registrations from a month to the other (understand that they sticked to the blue). The .WHOSWHO TLD which received 15 registrations in one year ;-)

The .SITE lost 48,000 registrations: this is a surprise since the .WEBSITE belongs to the same Registry and gained 40,000 more domains during the same period. The .世界 (.world) new gTLD lost...28,400 domain name registrations between January and December. Few TLDs from this report have lost registrations and when they did, except for .SITE and .世界 (.world), they lost very few, they stagnated during one year.

Did Jean Guillon secure his trademarks in these extensions?
Let's admit it: securing a Trademark in "just" all of these extensions is an investment and as a very small company, I admit that I used my budget a different way. I use a .CONSULTING domain name for my company but I secured in .BLOG - .EMAIL - .COMPANY - .COM and .TEL. I also own other domain names in the .INTERNATIONAL and .BUZZ new gTLDs from this list.

What about 2018?
We will probably remove the .TEL from our list and it is yet unclear if .SITE and .WEBSITE are absolutely necessary for a Trademark to secure: unfortunately, they are not the only generic TLDs and when their number is too important (there is a .ONLINE too), we think that it drops their value. Not to forget that .WEB - a possible game changer - will come at some point too. By the way, I will combine two reports in a single one in 2018: "Company" and "Generics" will come as one.

Check the full report here.

No comments:

.BRAND new gTLD Reports are updated once a month: CLICK HERE !