Friday, March 30, 2012

New gTLDs first round is now closed

New comers looking forward to submitting a new gTLD application will now have to wait for the second round. As of 25 March there were 839 registered users in the TLD Application System (TAS) and this number will be updated.

When THE SECOND ROUND going to be is the question on every mouth at the moment. The Applicant Guidebook says: "The goal is for the next application round to begin within one year of the close of the application submission period for the initial round".

The Applicant guidebook also says it can take up to 20 months for an application to be validated by ICANN.


Thursday, March 29, 2012

.EUROVISION new gTLD

As well as the .RADIO new gTLD, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) wants to acquire the EUROVISION new gTLD.

Read down this article (in French).

Second applicant for .RADIO

According to this recent article, the UER (L'Union Européenne de Radio-Télévision in French), wants to acquire the .RADIO Top-Level Domain...but not only.

Well, I hope they're watching the clock because today is the 29 of March.

Read the article here in French.

.LUXE generic Top-Level Domain

Interesting: ".luxe will also ensure the online prominence of its community, improving search engine recognition for participating sites whilst introducing new marketing opportunities, and driving business development, both locally and in export markets."

.LUXE new gTLD project can be found here: http://www.dotluxetld.com/

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

A gap in the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook?

Community or Standard?

I strongly believe there is a serious "breach" in the Applicant Guidebook: I checked the scoring, I checked the possible objections, I am aware of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) early warning but I really could not find ...

...how ICANN is going to avoid Community applications to be submitted as Standard ones.

Read the end of the article on CircleId.

Monday, March 26, 2012

.FOOT & .FOOTBALL domain names

These Trademarks Registrations look like new generic Top-Level Domains, but are they?

.GOLF new gTLD coming?

Another .golf applicant coming or one more Registered Trademark for lawyers to play with?


Saturday, March 24, 2012

.PHARMACY Top-Level Domain

Fairwinds Partners to work with the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy® (NABP) to launch .PHARMACY domain names.

Found in gTLD Strategy, a blog from Fairwinds Partners.

Friday, March 23, 2012

.BRUSSELS Top-Level Domain

According to this press release, DNS.BE (Registry for Belgium country code Top-Level Domain) will also manage the launching of .brussels domain names.

Article can be read in French here.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

.NAGOYA Top-Level Domain

City of Nagoya - Japan - signs a letter of support to GMO registry to apply for the .NAGOYA Top-Level Domain.

Press release can be read here.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

.VLAANDEREN new gTLD

Dns.be, the registry for Belgium domain names (.be), will operate as the back-end registry provider for the Flemish Government.

Announcement is available here.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

How will Google treat new gTLDs?



  1. "There will be a transition period";
  2. "We've always wanted to return the best result we can to users".
Google says nothing and it is acceptable: a transition period is required to adapt to something new. Today, from the 22 existing generic Top-Level Domains, none offers enough precision to be considered as an industry or a specific area of interest and none can be considered as a keyword which truly represents a community or a group.
".museum" maybe? With a potential of 24 000 domains, maybe it is the reason why it does not sell. Too restrictive also which does not help. 

All others Top-Level Domains are no keywords descriptive enough :
  1. .xxx is just 3 x letters one after the other;
  2. .info means "information";
  3. .com means nothing (commercial ? communication ?) but users think .com when it comes to talking about domain names;
  4. .net means...internet, network?
  5. .org means...organization (for-profit? Not for profit?), orgasm ? :-)
  6. .biz means business;
  7. .travel could be a good example but isn't it too wide (and too restrictive)?
  8. ...
It makes it difficult for a search engine like Google to announce a web site about wine will be better indexed with a .WINE extension rather than with a .COM. There is no existing experience about this today but the .museum one.

Will a .WINE web site which deals with wine be better indexed than the same .COM web site?

I would say we already have the answer to this question. When doing a Google search about a museum (I previously searched for a museum which uses a .museum domain name...and there are not a lot of them), the "Penn Museum" (www.penn.museum) for example is found first on top of the Google results, same for the "International Council of African Museums" (www.africom.museum).

It seems to work...in english. And after all, "museum" is an english word.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Monitoring the new gTLDs launching

As the launching of new generic Top-Level Domains approaches, many registrants, companies, groups, IP councils and webmasters are going to require new gTLDs monitoring services.

Many offers start to show at major service providers.

I list some of these in "Promotion" here.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Trademark Clearinghouse: how does it work?

Rights protection update of the ICANN new gTLD Program:

  • Rights protection mechanisms explained;
  • New requirements;
  • Trademark Clearinghouse:
    • What is it?
    • Sunrise Period;
    • Trademark claims service;
    • Trademark claims process;
    • Implementation;
    • Selection of the service provider and process development;
    • Implementation Assistance Group (IAG);
    • Criteria for inclusion in the Trademark Clearinghouse;
    • Authentication and validation;
    • Trademark claims notice;
    • Matching rules: “Identical Match”;
    • Dispute resolution and principles;
    • Costs;
  • URS implementation;
  • Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PDDRP);
    • Trademark PDDRP.
Download ICANN presentation down this page here.

Comments from Google on new gTLDs

"Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will." This question was answered by a back-end registry promoting and selling new generic Top-Level Domains.

Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google seems to have a different answer to this question and came back responding a "Sorry, but that's just not true".

If I can understand the answer of Matt Cutts, I don't think the initial question was asked the correct way so I asked him in more simple words:

My question:
"If I should launch a web site in 2013 (or later when the .wine registry is launched) which content is about wine: would google favor the one with a .wine extension or the one with a .com extension?"

Will Matt answer this question? I will keep you posted. :-)

Follow posts here.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Brands are applying for generic keywords



According to Ken Hansen, Senior Director at Neustar (a back-end registry provider), "some brands are applying for generic keywords that are related to the business that they are in".

There will be no .ADELAIDE domain names

According to South Australian Information Economy Minister Tom Kenyon, it cost too much to apply for the Australian city Top-Level Domain.

Articles can be read here and here.

According to figures, let's say, "if a city Top-Level Domain sells", it can be FREE

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

.NRW Top-Level Domain

According to a publication by Managing Internet IP, the German state of North Rhine Westphalia will apply for its domain name extension.

Sponsored article from Minds + Machines on CircleId

Read the article here. More on Reuters here.

.YOKOHAMA new gTLD

GMO Registry, a Japanese back-end registry provider, wins the bid for the city of Yokohama.

GMO registry receives letter of support from city of Yokohama to operate new generic Top Level Domain .yokohama, more here.
Press article can be translated from Japanese here.

Sedari talks about TLD applications

Still looking for video stories from New gTLD applicants! Email your video’s lin...: Still looking for video stories from New gTLD applicants! Email your video’s link to communications@icann.org for a mention here. In this video, Sedari speaks on behalf of their clients. If you’ve ever felt unclear about what “sunrise period” means, you’ll hear a clear definition and some original thinking in this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk8aOuMbsLQ&feature=youtu.be


Sedari talks about TLD applications
www.youtube.com
First thoughts about the motivations and learnings of the ICANN top-level domain application process from registry business platform company Sedari.

Monday, March 12, 2012

.AARP new generic Top-Level Domain

Heard at the SXSW 2012 conference, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) would apply for its own Top-Level Domain.

www.donate.aarp domain names like coming ? I doubt it.

The AARP's web site.

ICANN new gTLD batching process

The new generic Top-Level Domain batching process is the method the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will use for applicants to compete if more than 500 applications are received.

This process is now called: "Target Time Variance" and it is explained/discussed on various web sites:




Friday, March 9, 2012

.IINET Top-Level Domain

As officially announced by Australian Internet service provider iiNET, the company will be applying for its own Top-Level Domain.

Announcement can be read here on its blog.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Your city new gTLD can be free

Most new gTLD applicant do not necessarily want to earn money from their domain name extension. .BRANDS, for example, will be using their domain names for themselves and they will not earn money from the sale of domain names.

So, who are these new gTLD applicants who do not want to earn money from selling domain names and who do not want to spend money in an application? Who are these applicants who can have the benefit of applying "for free" and acquire the visibility of launching a new domain name extension?

Read the rest of this article in English on CircleID and...
...en Français on Le Journal du Net

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

.SONG Top-Level Domain

As explained on its Facebook page: "DotSong (.SONG), the generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Name and Internet/Web Address (TLD) Extension for songs."

A web site is available here:  http://www.dot-song.com

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Google's algorithm and new gTLDs

The recent Google's "Inside Search" report (see "The official Google Search blog) reports an interesting change which could be adapted to new domain names coming in 2013.

One of the fourty updates for the month of February says:
"Refreshed per-URL country information. [Launch codename “longdew”, project codename “country-id data refresh”] We updated the country associations for URLs to use more recent data."

Olivier Andrieu, SEO consultant for Abondance.com, translates it in French: "Meilleure identification du pays au travers des URL". I understand a country is better identified because of the .fr country code Top-Level Domain.

Adapted to a new string like "rugby" or "wine"...would it make a difference in terms of positioning on Google?

Mr Cutts, would you help us with this one please?

Search quality highlights: 40 changes for February: report.

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