YouGov research: most UK businesses aware of fresh top level domains?
Really?
.uk registry Nominet recently worked with YouGov to poll businesses in the UK regarding fresh top level domain names.
The press release headline read “British businesses largely unprepared for fresh gTLDs”.
The headline number: 41% of British businesses surveyed are right now unaware of the fresh domains.
Wait a minute. That means close to 60% of businesses surveyed are aware of fresh top level domain names coming online.
That’s a staggeringly high number to me. I would think that only a modest minority of those surveyed would have heard of this expansion. 60% would make sense if they talked to the intellectual property departments. Or maybe a modest business owner at a tech firm. But overall?
The survey involved 530 senior decision makers in modest, medium and sizable enterprises with a website. I’m not sure how the question was asked, but I can’t think that 60% of these people would be really be aware of fresh TLDs. Maybe they stated they’d heard something regarding it. But you’d have to hit the right guy at the right firm to get a number this high.
If 60% of businesses are aware of fresh TLDs at this point, that ought to be seen as a huge win for ICANN and fresh TLD applicants.
Other numbers from the poll:
61% have no plans to buy any fresh TLD registrations
22% plan to keep their existing domains but buy fresh ones
2% plan to switch from their current domains to fresh ones
I think the relative percentages here make sense. 2% switching domains seems a bit high to me, though.
What do you think?
