New gTLD Growth
and Analysis
April 2015
Introduction
Welcome to the April edition of Donuts Inc.’s exclusive ICANN Board Report.
Donuts remains the New gTLD Program’s most extensive participant, with more than 150
new gTLDs currently available, and more being added every month. In this issue, we bring
you updated numbers on adoption of new gTLDs, a fresh look at the most heavily used
issue. We also provide a glance at additional websites using some of our gTLDs.
and as always, we invite your input and feedback.
The Donuts Team
[email protected]
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New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
gTLDs By the Numbers
Total New Domains Registered:
New gTLDs:
New gTLDs Available to the General Public:
Total Donuts gTLDs Available to the General Public:
New gTLDs in Sunrise:
Total Donuts gTLDs in Sunrise:
4,836,066
578
328
155
23
8
Data Source: https://ntldstats.com/ (March 31, 2015)
New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
3
Top 25 New gTLDs by Volume
No
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
gTLD
.XYZ
.CLUB
.BERLIN
.WANG
Total Registered
853,705
352,323
199,406
156,573
136,029
Market Share
17.65%
7.29%
4.12%
3.24%
2.81%
6.
7.
8.
9.
.REALTOR
.GURU
.SCIENCE
.TOP
95,157
84,007
79,953
68,793
1.97%
1.74%
1.65%
1.63%
10.
11.
12.
.LINK
.NYC
.OVH
77,376
73,859
60,177
1.60%
1.53%
1.24%
13.
.LONDON
59,726
1.24%
14.
15.
.PHOTOGRAPHY
.EMAIL
53,902
50,941
1.11%
1.05%
16.
.WEBSITE
49,424
1.02%
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
.TODAY
49,419
47,449
43,807
41,672
39,342
1.02%
0.98%
0.91%
0.86%
0.81%
22.
23.
21.
25.
.SOLUTIONS
.TIPS
37,729
37,033
36,955
35,165
0.77%
0.77%
0.76%
0.73%
.ROCKS
.COMPANY
.PROPERTY
.TOKYO
Data Source: https://ntldstats.com/ (March 31, 2015)
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New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
Usage of new gTLDs
We continue to carefully analyze Donuts-managed gTLDs, including looking at how they’re
being put to use.
In our last report, we highlighted the fact that time has a critical impact on usage numbers—
content using a domain name. We reported that as of the end of 2014, 22% of our domains
contained sites with multi-page dynamic content or redirected to a site with such content.
We’re pleased to report an increase in that metric. Here’s a look at our current statistics, as of
February 1, 2015:
•
24.4% Names with active content or redirection to an existing site with active,
multi-page content
•
23.1% Names with holding pages (e.g., “Under Construction”)
•
37.1% Names with pay-per-click functionality (often a default version of a holding page)
•
15.4% Do not resolve
Is this good or bad?
Again, the trend lines are good. Over the past four months:
•
Active content is steadily increasing—an annualized 42% rate of growth
•
Pay-per-click (PPC) has fallen by 8%—an annualized decline of 24%
Donuts gTLDs with the highest rate of active content and redirects:
.GRAPHICS
.PHOTOGRAPHY
.FLORIST
.WORKS
.MEDIA
35.59%
35.53%
32.75%
31.68%
30.74%
.HOUSE
.WTF
.ZONE
.DATING
30.54%
30.27%
28.12%
26.05%
New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
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4%
39%
2%
10%
2%
12%
3%
4%
3%
Registrants in Donuts TLDs:
Top 10 Countries
United States: 39%
Germany: 12%
United Kingdom: 10%
Canada: 4%
Australia: 4%
France: 3%
Netherlands: 3%
Switzerland: 2%
Spain: 2%
Others: 21%
Data is as of 3/26/15 and does not include proxy service registrations
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New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
Featured Sites
www.coopersquare.ventures
www.seo.agency
www.maki.guru
www.movement.builder
We encourage you to go to the Featured Sites page for a deeper look at how registrants are
putting Donuts gTLDs to work as new and fresh online identities.
New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
7
Renewal Trends in New gTLDs
Donuts rolled out last year. As an indicator of overall health of gTLDs, we have been
keenly interested in how often end-user registrants would renew.
phase (that is, following Sunrise). The renewal rate for this set of names was 68.4%.
The three largest gTLDs in this examined group are .GURU, .PHOTOGRAPHY, and .BIKE—
individual renewal rates for these gTLDs are 63.4%, 75.7% and 74.0%, respectively.
.GURU saw more speculative buying than did other Donuts gTLDs; hence, we believe its
rate will be below our average.
We expect the cumulative rate on all Donuts names to stabilize around 70%, then trend
upward toward 80% as the average age of registrations increases and the proportion of
names with website content continues to grow.
Why do renewal rates matter? Because it’s an indicator of the health and overall quality of
a gTLD. A low or declining renewal rate is a caution alarm, as low rates reduce the
long-term value of the domain.
For this reason, we’ve paid particular attention to the renewal rate for .COM and .NET
names registered in 2014. You may have seen it reported that .COM has a “blended”
renewal rate of 72%—take note, however, that a blended rate includes, and is heavily
weighted by, names registered more than a year (and often, many years) ago and are
consistently used and renewed every year. Our interest is in the .COM and .NET names
and according to third party analyses, renewal rates for these names is 50% and declining.
How is this important? Comparing renewal rates for new and legacy gTLDs provides an
indicator of the utility of new gTLDs. Much has been made, appropriately so, about the
attributes of freshness and relevancy of new gTLDs, and this is well illustrated by these
contrasting numbers. Given the choice between renewing a legacy gTLD name registration
(perhaps a lengthy or otherwise less-than-desirable name) and a renewing a new gTLD
registration (more likely a shorter, semantically meaningful name), customers are
re-upping their investment in new gTLD names. That’s a healthy indictor for the program.
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New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
Name Collision: The Issue
That Never Arrived
For years now, ICANN has examined the issue of name collisions—the unintentional
wise to withhold literally millions of domain names from the marketplace to be sure they
could operate cleanly.
Much was made of the danger of collision. Proponents of a wait and hold strategy went so
far as to suggest human life would be endangered if these names were let loose. ICANN
hold until the issue was sorted out.
Millions of names were blocked without any evidence of collisions existing. Months later,
provided to parties that may have been “leaking” queries intended for private namespaces
to the public DNS.
Meanwhile, registries and registrars were unable to sell the most sought after names and
had to defend themselves to the public and the press against accusations of hoarding.
The increased customer service workload was substantial.
The result was that Donuts:
•
•
•
Withheld just over 1.2 million domain names across 144 gTLDs
In 2014, received nearly 40 billion DNS queries (an average of 3.2 billion per month)
Since the start of the “controlled interruption” framework, received reports of
only three collisions in total, none of which were life threatening and each of which
were quickly mitigated
It’s regrettable that registrants were deprived of useful and valuable naming options for
such an immoderate “problem,” and doubly unfortunate that the community was scared
into believing there was a clear and present danger, even to human life.
Donuts will notify registrants who have constructive use for these names that they will
begin to become available, in stages, in June.
The fact that we observed essentially no operational disruption due to name collisions is
good news for the availability of those names, but has another implication as well. Donuts
believes, given this evidence, that there are reasonable mitigation paths for the risks
begin the work necessary to review those risks and consider such possible mitigations in
light of the experience with all the other gTLDs, and without making the draconian
decision to permanently block their entry into the root.
New gTLD Growth and Analysis April 2015
9
As an ICANN Board member, you are automatically subscribed to this report, which we hope you’ve
found useful and informative. We welcome your feedback and input, and encourage you to
contact the Donuts team member that provided you the report, or e-mail us at [email protected]
Donuts
10500 NE 8th Street
Suite 350
Bellevue, WA 98004 USA
Web: www.donuts.domains
Mail: [email protected]