Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Most abused TLDs are not new gTLDs

I often read critics about new gTLDs but most of the time, they come from the ".com" domaining industry and those investors who can't sell their domain names anymore because new gTLDs have now flooded the market.

Most abused TLDs
While reading a French article on the .BZH new gTLD, I discovered the existence of the SURBL list of most abused TLDs and I was not surprised to read that the most abused TLD is ".com". The reason for this is obvious to me: it's been there forever and trademarks want to make no mistake starting something online. Trademarks often look for their ".com" first, instead of searching for something that offers more precision...but things are changing.


The SURBL list
The SURBL list is a good indicator and in today's report (Tue Sep 18 08:00:12 UTC 2018 - updated every hour), it clearly shows that ".com" leads in terms of abuses. In this top 10 of most abused TLDs:
  • The .COM comes first on top of the list;
  • Country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) are present with 6 ccTLDs;
  • Other legacy TLDs such as ".net", ".biz", ".info" and ".org" are listed too (that counts as 4 legacy TLDs);
  • Then we have 9 new gTLDs, which comes as no surprise since they offer the advantage of availability, with an important number of new extensions to have launched at the same time (hundreds of them).
Confusing new gTLDs: the next list
I recently read that article from FairWinds Partners, entitled "How Cybersquatters Capitalize on Typos and How to Protect Your Brand". I recommend this reading since ccTLDs are a serious risk when it comes to securing a ".com" domain name...but I doubt that ".com" si the future.

If the future is with new gTLDs - and that's my strong feeling - I think that it is time to add that the typos risk might become second with the introduction of hundreds of extensions: similar TLDs such as ".cam" and ".com", ".casa" and ".cash" or again ".fun" and ".fund" are the new risk to consider when registering a domain name since the problem will not be the type but the exact same second level domain in a different extension. I compiled a list of similar new gTLDs that I strongly suggest to check prior to registering any domain name.

My opinion on this
I have personally redirected my old ".com" domain name to my new ".consulting" one since I do...consulting: not because ".com" is the most abused TLD, but because it makes more sense to me. And by the way, I do Consulting, not "com": whatever it means.

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