Extracted from source: "As part of the New gTLD Program: Next Round, ICANN is preparing the Next Round Base gTLD Registry Agreement (Next Round RA). Approved applicants will be expected to execute the Next Round RA in order to become a registry operator and operate a gTLD. ICANN is opening its first Public Comment proceeding on the draft Next Round RA and encourages early engagement from the community".
A blog about New gTLDs and dotBrands (.BRANDs) from the ICANN new gTLD program. You can subscribe to The gTLD Club's Newsletter.
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Public Comment Upcoming Proceedings
Extracted from source: "As part of the New gTLD Program: Next Round, ICANN is preparing the Next Round Base gTLD Registry Agreement (Next Round RA). Approved applicants will be expected to execute the Next Round RA in order to become a registry operator and operate a gTLD. ICANN is opening its first Public Comment proceeding on the draft Next Round RA and encourages early engagement from the community".

Thursday, May 29, 2025
How old should your Trademark be for Round2 ?

Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Joke of the day

Thursday, May 22, 2025
New gTLDs : did you ask the AI ?
Something very unattractive about the ICANN new gTLD program is that you have to search for common basic questions like: "how do I proceed to create my domain name extension?", "who do I talk to?", "how much doe it cost?", etc.
You will notice that absolutely no service provider will show any price on their website.There are several reasons for this : an easy one is: "the ICANN new gTLD applicant guidebook has not yet been published, so we can't give you a price".
With my experience learnt from the first Round of the ICANN new gTLD program in 2012 a price is difficult to produce because no one can tell what is going to happen.
Once applications were submitted in 2012, I also read invoices increased by ten times compared to what some other applicants had paid ! Some projects could absolutely not be profitable for this reason and some filed.
Today, the AI starts to offer good answers about what one must do or pay. Legal and Financial questions are important too and the AI starts to be a very good tool to help in the application process. We answer many of these questions on www.gtld.blog, the AI will answer - and publish - your answers too if you want to send them to us.

Monday, May 12, 2025
3 applications submitted
The ASP is intended to make the New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Program: Next Round application and evaluation processes and fees more accessible to entities that would like to operate a registry but would otherwise be unable to apply, because of financial and resource constraints.

Friday, May 9, 2025
Numbers : new gTLDs are doing good !
The DNIB Quarterly Report Q1 2025
Read the full report.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025
New gTLDs and naive thinking
The network of accredited Registrar "does not sell", Registrars are a vitrine in which all new applicants think they will show up. Thinking Registrars will do the job of "selling" is naive : numbers don't lie.
The one to develop his business on his dotBrand (.brand), create domains added to a service, and control which domains to allow comes with something new...that sells.

Monday, May 5, 2025
Just updated, new gTLD reports for the month of April 2025
New gTLD reports are monthly domain name registration volumes' captures according to specific groups, businesses or industries. On the last day of each month, we take a snapshot of these numbers so one can see if they increase or decrease for a month to the other. This method is a good way to see if these domain names meet with adoption...or not.
We update 22 categories and .BRANDs is one of them.

Friday, May 2, 2025
New gTLDs : LOCAL = city names
I am probably sure that many noticed...that the first new gTLD applicant guidebook (and probably the upcoming one for the 2026 ICANN new gTLD Round) blocked interested applicants for submitting an application for the .LOCAL new generic Top-Level Domain.
It is the chosen one for innovative project "John Wolley" which focuses on city names but we have to take a different approach since this TLD is blocked.
Generic Names
We all know that one advantage to create a new domain name extension, a generic one, a dotBrand (or any other), is to benefit from the availability of "to be created" generic second level domains : domain names such as shoes.tld (".tld" is an example here), product.tld , mobile.tld or paris.tld
A real benefit
If the real SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefit of using a generic name relies on what Google says, one think remains certain : the benefit of using a generic name is clear on a leaflet, a visit card, in the paper or online press. Reading a generic domain name is nicer and easier to comprehend than reading a descriptive domain name, and by the way : the shorter, the better.
City names and local visibility
Can generic city names such as "boston.tld" benefit for local content in search engine optimization? if - again - "Google decides", the benefit remains in the title : a word is a word and "boston" alone as the second level domain name says it all : a website with this generic domain name is probably going to be about the city of Boston. I asked that exact same question to an AI and this is the answer received :
"...notably Google, explicitly state that geoTLDs are treated like other generic TLDs (.com, .org) and do not provide any direct algorithmic ranking advantage for local searches based on the TLD itself. Keywords within the TLD also offer no direct SEO benefit. In contrast, country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) like .uk or .ca do serve as strong geographic signals for country-level targeting."
Scary, isn't?
Now, it also says this:
"Potential benefits of city TLDs like .boston
are primarily indirect, stemming from branding and user perception. They can strongly signal local relevance, potentially enhancing user trust, reinforcing community connection, and possibly improving click-through rates (CTR) from local searchers who recognize the geographic identifier."
Much nicer.
Conclusion
Using city names as second level domains for local content makes sense in the next round of the ICANN new gTLD program. Industrializing such domain name creations using a .BRAND Top-Level Domain makes the project a cash machine if the minimum annual income per domain is $40. To learn more about this project : talk to us.
