Biggest fresh TLD surprises (upside and downside)
We’re closing in on 200 top level domain names being released in general availability, and there have been quite a few surprises.
Some domains have done better than I expected and others have done much worse. I’ll list a few here, and I’m curious what you think.
Let’s start with three that have done better than I expected:
1. .Guru 67,322 registrations (zone file)
Would .guru have this much momentum if it wasn’t released at the beginning of the program? I doubt it. .Guru benefited from the novelty of fresh TLDs and its somewhat generic nature.
That’s not to say .guru isn’t a good domain. It’s pretty good. But I never would have guessed it would be #2 in paid registrations at this point. I’m sure Donuts would concur.
2. .Wang 47,543
I haven’t analyzed who is registering what in .wang, but it seems to have a couple meanings that appeal to a broad audience. First, it’s the hanyu pinyin transcription of Chinese for website or portal. Second, it’s a common surname.
.Wang registry Zodiac Leo Limited anticipated 104,098 registrations in the first year. All laughing regarding the specificity of that forecast aside, it might not be too far off.
3. .Today 33,356
“Today” is a great ending for a domain name. It’s a great option for a TLD since there are so many things you can put to the left of the dot.
Still, I’m surprised to see this domain name in the top 10.
OK, now here are some domains that are off to a slower start than I expected.
1. .Gripe 481
I know this domain hasn’t been out long, but it isn’t growing at all, either. Only one domain was added to the zone file yesterday.
This is a perfect example of the type of domain name trademark holders stated they’d be forced to register. A shakedown domain.
So where are they? They aren’t all clients of Donuts’ DPML.
2. .Democrat 984
.Democrat’s low numbers must be merely an awareness issue. Politicians are slow to catch on. But haven’t they learned anything over the past 15 years regarding not securing relevant domain names?
My guess is a few high profile cases of .democrat name squatting will help this domain name grow in the future.
3. .Recipes 2,942
Massive search volume + Lots of sites related to the topic = a big success?
Not necessarily.
Agree with my selections? What did I leave off?
