discuss A worldwide shift away from .com

[MapleDots]

A worldwide shift away from .com?

Could it be?


I'm going to say that ccTLD's as a single entity are now the most relevant extensions period.
If you look at the UK, Germany, China, Russia, India, and Canada the ccTLD's are more widely used than the .com's.

There are a few exceptions like apple who will use apple.com/ca instead of apple.ca but the vast majority of companies like BestBuy.com will use BestBuy.ca for Canada. It absolutely shocks me at how dominant .ca is in Canada.

As the oldest extension .com's continue to have the biggest resale value but if you were to add up the sheer number of all ccTLD's they would easily surpass .com registrations.

So because each country code is unique the ccTLD's can never have the same numbers of registrations as the .com's but if you were to consider all the ccTLD's as one extension they would comfortably surpass .com registrations.

I think the trend of ccTLD's will continue on an upward scale, I think .com has plateaued and will only see nominal growth moving forward. ccTLD's will continue to grow as each countries economy grows and becomes more connected.

As a Canadian, when I do a google search I don't even look at .com's because I want to shop in Canadian dollars and same goes for people from Russia, China, UK etc.

As the Trumps of the world alienate other countries you will see more of a shift away from .com as other countries try to distance themselves from the USA.

Take Canada as a for instance.... the greatest ally the USA has ever had and Trump blew off Canadians as if they were yesterday's news, slapping tariffs on their goods and basically saying very inappropriate things about their leader. By comparisons other countries have been very reserved to bring any criticisms towards the USA. It is undeniable though that the populations of each country are feeling more and more alienated by the usa and because .com is perceived as being dominantly U.S. the entire future of the extension will see limited growth as other countries bring in protective measures for their economies.

So I personally think the future growth of the .com industry is directly linked to how open the US economy is. With Tariffs on other countries there will be repercussions and the .com's will slowly start to erode as other countries shy away from anything that could even remotely be considered american.

Please try to keep this a civil discussion and understand that you cannot look at the .com from yesterday, we are looking at times that are very different where most countries are looking seriously at protecting their own economies by asking the population to shop local products. A .com will NEVER be a local address unless it is in the USA.

In closing..... it is entirely feasible that another extension like .global could eventually become the new international extension for companies as the world distances itself from the USA. Will it be .global, .international, .business etc.... that is anyone's guess but I can tell you for sure, a lot of companies will second guess relying on a .com for local commerce.

 

[MapleDots]

Amazon.ca
Walmart.ca
BestBuy.ca
Lowes.ca
CanadianTire.ca

They all have .com's for the USA but not for Canada and not business.com/ca

Remember there are huge exceptions... Like in Comsumer Banking:
ScotiaBank, the .CA is a redirect. They are multi national though. Nearly A triilion in assets and 88,000 employees. Or TD, RBC, BMO, CIBC. All are dot com’s. I would say these are major entities on dot com.

Very true but they're all based in Canada doing business outside of Canada, and they do not want to limit themselves to being a Canadian entity

Remember there are huge exceptions... Like in Comsumer Banking:
ScotiaBank, the .CA is a redirect. They are multi national though. Nearly A triilion in assets and 88,000 employees. Or TD, RBC, BMO, CIBC. All are dot com’s. I would say these are major entities on dot com.

True the banking sector seems to be outside of the norm, but they are technically not commerce in the traditional sense. Technology would fall into the same spectrum.

Good point

 

[Recons.Com]

In closing..... it is entirely feasible that another extension like .global could eventually become the new international extension for companies

I have not said .global is replacing .com

 

[offthehandle]

As a consumer, I can’t open a Scotia Bank account in the US, btw. I can however outside it as there are quite a few in Latin America. Dot com protects their email leakage, so understandable and not good if it were solely on .CA

I don’t believe consumers in the US can open accounts in TD, Etc I mentioned.

https://www.scotiabank.com/global/en/country/united-states-of-america.html

These huge entities are a mixed bag:. Like CityTV. NationalPost. TheGlobeandMail, Could be anywhere, but not. Confusing actually at first glance. Maybe they have the .CA too. Didnt check.

NationalPost, TorontoSun, CP24, GlobalTV, CityTV, CanadianBusiness, TheGlobeAndMail, ThomsonReuters, WoodBridgeGroup

Enbridge, EnbridgeGas, Brookfield, PowerCorporation, Magna, Bombardier.

 

[wormfood]

The major companies like Google or Facebook etc have localized versions of their websites using ccTLDs.
For example when you type google.com you are usually redirect to google.cctld.

google does that, yeah, but facebook.ca goes to facebook.com, and facebook.co.uk gives me an error.
not a big deal, just pointing it out

duckduckgo.ca goes to .com
youtube.ca goes to https://www.youtube.com/?gl=CA
yahoo.ca goes to https://ca.yahoo.com/
godaddy.ca goes to https://ca.godaddy.com/
linkedin.ca goes to https://ca.linkedin.com/

reitmans.ca goes to https://www.reitmans.com/
'Reitmans Ltd. is a Canadian retailing company, specializing in women's clothing.'

aircanada.ca goes to https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home.html

subway.ca goes to https://www.subway.com/en-ca/

 

[Kate]

All of that is true. A redirect to .com is often performed, without or without subdomains, but they can still localize their websites, use local languages etc while using .com.
Concerning subway.ca: maybe it's because you accessed the site from a non-Canadian IP address. The practice is not always consistent across ccTLDs owned by the same entity

 

[xynames]

MapleDots should stick to threads like
Dot CA Discussion and Showcase
because all he did here is show us how prone to hyperbole and misstatement he is. There is no "worldwide shift" lol. He knows it himself but he's stubborn (apparently a Canadian trait) and won't let go of his ridiculous clickbait title.

 

[MapleDots]

You can clearly see I said FEASIBLE that an extension like .global

Do you really take that as me saying .global will replace .com

And by the way quoted completely out of context.

You would not by any chance be working for cnn?

 

[MapleDots]

MapleDots should stick to threads like
Dot CA Discussion and Showcase
because all he did here is show us how prone to hyperbole and misstatement he is. There is no "worldwide shift" lol. He knows it himself but he's stubborn (apparently a Canadian trait) and won't let go of his ridiculous clickbait title.

You really cannot have blinders on that are that narrow can you?

" .com losing track to all the ccTLD's in the world combined "

You are seriously arguing that .com is not losing in registration numbers (in actual use) compared to all ccTLD's combined?

Wow... just wow... I think you need to travel and get out in the world because you're spending too much time cooped up at home. Go to Germany, Canada, Mexico, Great Britain etc.

You keep criticizing me calling me names and making statements that are border line personal attacks. Why do you feel the need to do that, are you threatened in some way?

Do you not see defending one extension against a multitude of ccTLD's is pointless. The ccTLD's will continue to grow and more and more countries will adopt them. That means .com will stay at or near current levels as the ccTLD's grow.

PS. Another good Canadian trait is not to insult other people.

 

[Recons.Com]

You can clearly see I said FEASIBLE that an extension like .global

Do you really take that as me saying .global will replace .com

And by the way quoted completely out of context.

You would not by any chance be working for cnn?

You loathe Trump, yet are so heavily influenced by him.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

PS. Another good Canadian trait is not to insult other people.

 

[MapleDots]

You loathe Trump, yet are so heavily influenced by him.

Nope, I don't loathe anyone, I am simply quoting public opinion on Trump. A big part of the world loathes him. I personally respect all elected leaders regardless of how flawed certain policies are. The people put him in and they can judge at election time.

 

[OwnedWords]

Hey op, check your opinions against facts....out of the 10 fastest growing(2017-2018) CANADIAN retail companies 8 of them use .COM as their primary domain.

..and btw CAN barely breaks into the top 10 global ecommerce markets(nearly half the market of next on the list: S.Korea) so whatever's done there isn't a reasonable reflection of global movement. Localized traffic/consumer segmenting is largely done to for reason of limited payment and shipping options. Nothing to do with a choice of ccTLD, it's a convenient means to an end.

Seriously.. the only people on the planet worse than us in the US at overestimating their global importance has to be Canadians! (except maybe in Hockey; )

 

[wizard]

hmmmm nah cctld wont take over...

 

[johnnie018]

I don't know where you got your stats. But even 1% growth is not stagnant or falling.

1% cctld growth is stagnant in in my book, especially with 20million+ names free or registry reserved. I guess you are waiting for it to hit exactly 0% growth before admitting the obvious.

As I posted though the most recent quarter showed a decline so we are likely at that point anyway.

 

[MapleDots]

Hey op, check your opinions against facts....out of the 10 fastest growing(2017-2018) CANADIAN retail companies 8 of them use .COM as their primary domain.

..and btw CAN barely breaks into the top 10 global ecommerce markets(nearly half the market of next on the list: S.Korea) so whatever's done there isn't a reasonable reflection of global movement. Localized traffic/consumer segmenting is largely done to for reason of limited payment and shipping options. Nothing to do with a choice of ccTLD, it's a convenient means to an end.

Seriously.. the only people on the planet worse than us in the US at overestimating their global importance has to be Canadians! (except maybe in Hockey; )

Play on words fastest growing as to domains in use. Besides I said all cctld together, I did not single out Canada. We are a tiny part of the world market but I would be very interested to see the Canadian Commerce websites you are talking about. I live here, I only see .ca in use.

 

[Brands.International]

If you take a look here
http://www.janrezab.com/list-of-top-czech-technology-companies-and-start-ups-updated/
Not only do many of the tech companies and start ups in Czech Republic use dot com (or used it until they were bought out by US dot com using companies ) but the Czech blog listing the companies is a dot com itself!

Using terms like “no one” marks you for the same ridicule that MapleDots is experiencing here although he’s so stubborn that he keeps mindlessly repeating the same incorrect fallacies. There is no “worldwide shift.”

@xynames will all the respect, do not make me laugh. I live here and I know what Czech companies are using in TV, bilboards, streets, radio, in every day live...they simply do not use .com, period. They use local ccTLD, .cz.

It is nice that you were able to google some link, but that can not alter my direct every day experience. Thanks for understanding

 

[Kate]

As I posted though the most recent quarter showed a decline so we are likely at that point anyway.

Decline of what ? Absolute numbers ? Relative market share ?
Why not just post your sources and let's talk.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

I believe in a future worldwide shift away from .com but I don't think that ccTLDs will be the reason for that, I more think the reason for that will be another gTLD, I believe most of you know which one I mean.

 

[Recons.Com]

@xynames will all the respect, do not make me laugh. I live here and I know what Czech companies are using in TV, bilboards, streets, radio, in every day live...they simply do not use .com, period. They use local ccTLD, .cz.

It is nice that you were able to google some link, but that can not alter my direct every day experience. Thanks for understanding

It is like you both are looking at a pyramid, one from a side, the other from the top and arguing that it is a triangle vs a square.

One of you sees local consumer facing ads, naturally with .cz, the other one is looking on the web for English language blogs and sites, startups etc, for whom international business, visitors, investments, clients matter and sees many .coms.

And this is perfect illustration how cctlds and .com are often complementing each other, while new gtlds are soul searching for their meaning in life.

 

[johnnie018]

Decline of what ? Absolute numbers ? Relative market share ?
Why not just post your sources and let's talk.

Absolute numbers, I already did post it up,

Total country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations were approximately 149.3 million at the end of the third quarter of 2018, a decrease of approximately 0.5 million domain name registrations, or 0.3 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2018.1,2 ccTLDs increased by approximately 4.6 million domain name registrations, or 3.2 percent, year over year.1,2

Verisign 3rd Quater Report 2018

(I'd post a link but my a/c is restricted)

The only thing holding it up on an annual basis (3.2% annual growth) was a 1.4 million .uk domain automatically put into people accounts and .tk adding 2.5 million free registrations.

 

[Kate]

OK. But the full paragraph is more explanatory:

Total country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations were approximately 149.3 million at the end of the third quarter of 2018, a decrease of approximately 0.5 million domain name registrations, or 0.3 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2018.
ccTLDs increased by approximately 4.6 million domain name registrations, or 3.2 percent, year over year.

Sure, there are ups and downs in everything, it's the long-term patterns that are interesting.
Lots of disparities from one ccTLD to another too.

 

[garptrader]

Hosterstats provides the number of .Com registrations (Mar 2018) by country:

China ~12.0 million
Germany ~8.1 million
Canada ~8.5 million
India ~4.3 million
Japan ~2.6 million
France ~2.5 million
UK ~2.2 million
Etc

It might be interesting to compare .Com registrations by country against the number of cctld registrations in those countries.

 

[johnnie018]

OK. But the full paragraph is more explanatory:

Sure, there are ups and downs in everything, it's the long-term patterns that are interesting.
Lots of disparities from one ccTLD to another too.

This trend of falling growth rates has been going for a long time, 15 years. Growth is now zero or close to it for cctlds. It is not going to reverse.

.com is going the same way (rapidly slowing growth) but it has held up far better.

The internet is now mature, most businesses have their domains, it is now a slow growth area.

You can say some cctlds are doing better than others of course that is true, but overall they are not doing well despite the title of this thread. What growth is occurring it is mainly the developing economies that are not wealthy, the established extensions are mostly stagnant, in decline or seeing barely any growth.

 

[maya-zir]

Who uses ccTLD?

1. Those who have a small business and have no idea about SEO and pay AdWords or pay nothing and sitting on last search engine pages, or even thier website is indexed, mostly they even dont registered and go to webmaster to confirm thier ownership of the website.
2. Local business only, usually small business who or just reg local extension because the local registrar shows it as main extension or just becasue they want a nice name and reg it any aviable extension, even is this is another country ccTLD.

I see in Spain too much weird hotmail/outlook/yahoo users who reg thier email with .es even when .com is aviable.
The reg form just set it up with .es by default and they never change it...

Big or international businesses need .com

 

[Keith]

Here’s the bottom line, and it’s so simple!

The entire world knows .com. Small pockets of the world know country codes like .cn, .ca...

You choose which way you want to go. You can market to all, or some!