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discuss A worldwide shift away from .com

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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.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
PS....

Ohhhh, Rick Schwartz is not going to like me for this article :xf.laugh:
 
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Yes, outside the US, cctld domains give end users an easy way to avoid paying for an aftermarket domain and still find a relevant and recognized extension. However, .Com is still widely used in Europe, Mexico and as I noted in an earlier post Colombia ( ten of seventeen real estate agencies or developers in a Nov 2018 Cartagena real estate magazine were using .Com domains; the rest were .co or .com.co). This summer I received a $3000 offer on a two-word .Com domain from a business in Argentina. They were using a different keyword but a .com.ar domain. I was aiming a bit higher so no sale.
 
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Yes, outside the US, cctld domains give end users an easy way to avoid paying for an aftermarket domain and still find a relevant and recognized extension. However, .Com is still widely used in Europe, Mexico and as I noted in an earlier post Colombia ( ten of seventeen real estate agencies or developers in a Nov 2018 Cartagena real estate magazine were using .Com domains; the rest were .co or .com.co). This summer I received a $3000 offer on a two-word .Com domain from a business in Argentina. They were using a different keyword but a .com.ar domain. I was aiming a bit higher so no sale.

Having just recently come back from Mexico I saw virtually only .mx extensions on billboards unless you are confusing a .com.mx with a .com

Here is the info on that.... (Courtesy Wikipedia)

Up to August 2009 domain registrations besides .MX, consist of third-level names beneath second-level names which parallel some of the top-level domains:

  • .com.mx: Commercial entities (actually unrestricted, like .com)
  • .net.mx: Network providers (registration limited to qualifying entities)
  • .org.mx: Non-profit organizations (registration limited to qualifying entities)
  • .ngo.mx: Non-profit organizations or Civil society organizations (registration NOT limited to qualifying entities)
  • .edu.mx: Educational institutions (registration limited to qualifying entities)
  • .gob.mx: Federal, State or Municipal Governmental entities only (.gob derives from the Spanish word for government: "Gobierno")
Currently second level domains can be registered directly under .mx.
 
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In Czech republic where I am located no one use .com .. everyone use strictly .cz (national ccTLD) or, in some cases, .eu (as it is part of EU as well). But you do not see .com here.

.Com is meant for international businesses, and companies in USA mostly (maybe some also in Canada or other english speaking countries)...and here new gTLD extensions are becoming direct competitors for .com names.. Many end users are now thinking twice whether they indeed need so much that great 1 word .com name for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (usually), or whether they will go for that great alternative(s) in new gTLD space (which can be also expensive, no doubt about it, but usually less expensive).

It was my opinion since long time ago that aftermarket values of great ccTLD domains will not be affected by new gTLDs that much, but imo .com is directly affected by all those new options and alternatives

(while your domain .com expert - who is asking large amout of money for name they broker and is really looking forward to their fat commision - will of course tell you that value of .com names will ONLY rise in future, no matter what .. and that you simply need .com name, and no alternative is possible if you take your business seriously. Well, I am sure they say it with end user's best interest in mind, disregarding their own financial interests) :)
 
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.com .... even your grandma knows it. But CC and gT definiely have become more viable.
 
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I am sure it varies from city to city. Large cities with international tourism (such as Cartagena) might be more prone to using .Com because tourists and international real estate investors or business people will feel more comfortable with .Com than a foreign extension. Perhaps in smaller towns which are more remote a cctld will be more common. Certainly in Latin America one will often find heavy usage of social media accounts without any domain name or website at all.
 
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In the U.S. most of the general public has no idea that .US exists or what country codes are.
 
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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.

It's not about .com vs .ca instead it's about better targeting the local customer and getting into search results for that country.

For example, if you only talk about America on your .com site why should your site appear in CA or UK? If you have both .com, say for America, and then write content for Canada on your .CA that makes perfect sense. It's more difficult to optimize and rank for every country on your .com. You can use subdomains or a folder structure, but after X number of pages you start to canabalize your page ranks.

Dot CA as you pointed out will trigger an immediate reaction to Canadians in PPC and SERP results who assume you are servicing the area vs US only shipping, returns, etc.

I would say it this way. The ccTLD are here to stay and they will get shorter not longer -- .com.mx vs .mx. While .com is currently the king over time the experiment on the Global TLD will continue to be challenged. Just look at what .top is doing now. I don't like .top. But China seems to like it.
 
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A lot to think about in @MapleDotspost. There is no doubt that country codes will continue to be strong and in some regions the dominant and preferred choice. As I compute it from the most recent CENTR report country code domains in total account for 152 million registrations. Their role in actual web use is probably even a bit more as I suspect there is far more speculation in .com and ngTLDs than in ccTLDs. The .de has more registrations than .net, the .uk has more than .org (slightly in both cases).

I had wondered whether a more isolationist USA might hurt continued global acceptance of .com. I think the Verisign saga, much more than the actual impact of the proposed price increases, has perhaps changed things because it has emphasized that .com is controlled (as well as by ICANN) by a US company under terms decided by the US Dept. of Commerce. I agree in many parts of the world that association is a definite negative. I think the splitting off of .org will in long run be very good for that extension, and I see bright prospects for .org as an extension.

Surveys show that citizens generally trust their own country code more than .com/.net (not in the US and not in some other important regions). The data actually supports that with abuse much lower in .org and in the strong country codes than in .com/.net.

There is no functional reason why .com should be so much more highly valued. - by that I mean that technically one extension is the same as another, and Google claim at least the extension does not impact SEO. So the high value placed on .com is largely a legacy of that is how it has always been, and it is valued simply because it is expensive to acquire. They have prestige because they are difficult to acquire (at least the very good ones).

Will that change? I am not sure. Many have huge investments dependent on it not changing. The long persistence of .com shows no real signs of changing. The growth has been strong over the past 12 months. Most of the major sales continue to be in .com. But I agree that the current state of world politics is probably not good for .com in most of the world outside the US. Will that matter?

Bob
 
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A lot to think about in @MapleDotspost. There is no doubt that country codes will continue to be strong and in some regions the dominant and preferred choice. As I compute it from the most recent CENTR report country code domains in total account for 152 million registrations. Their role in actual web use is probably even a bit more as I suspect there is far more speculation in .com and ngTLDs than in ccTLDs. The .de has more registrations than .net, the .uk has more than .org (slightly in both cases).

I had wondered whether a more isolationist USA might hurt continued global acceptance of .com. I think the Verisign saga, much more than the actual impact of the proposed price increases, has perhaps changed things because it has emphasized that .com is controlled (as well as by ICANN) by a US company under terms decided by the US Dept. of Commerce. I agree in many parts of the world that association is a definite negative. I think the splitting off of .org will in long run be very good for that extension, and I see bright prospects for .org as an extension.

Surveys show that citizens generally trust their own country code more than .com/.net (not in the US and not in some other important regions). The data actually supports that with abuse much lower in .org and in the strong country codes than in .com/.net.

There is no functional reason why .com should be so much more highly valued. - by that I mean that technically one extension is the same as another, and Google claim at least the extension does not impact SEO. So the high value placed on .com is largely a legacy of that is how it has always been, and it is valued simply because it is expensive to acquire. They have prestige because they are difficult to acquire (at least the very good ones).

Will that change? I am not sure. Many have huge investments dependent on it not changing. The long persistence of .com shows no real signs of changing. The growth has been strong over the past 12 months. Most of the major sales continue to be in .com. But I agree that the current state of world politics is probably not good for .com in most of the world outside the US. Will that matter?

Bob
To answer your closing question. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest global politics could or would have any correlation to the .com extension. Global politics has been dynamic for decades yet the .com extension remains exactly where it was, #1.
 
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Cctlds have barely being growing for years, good luck with the .ca wishful thinking.
 
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Don't say that you will be hated by stick .com

.in & co.in that's what I see most of the time at my location but I still see .com though it's getting reduced every day.
 
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“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”

Not good numbers and cctlds have been going nowhere for years.
 
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Any company that has a global ambition, or even a regional trans-border, should have their matching .com

Unless, it is a mom and pop shop in a small town, most companies hope some day to go places.

The OP treats cctlds as single entity, while it is not true and just shows the power of .com that it has to be compared cumulatively to ALL cctlds or ALL gtlds or ALL other extensions together for comparison even to make sense.

You can have just one .com, something like purple.com, and make a statement to the whole world, while if you go cctld route, you'd have to try to obtain 200+ names like purple.ca, purple.us, purple.ru, purple.de etc.

This is why .com premium names fetch the prices they do at the rates they do.
 
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Show attachment 104853


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.

.

The shift began around ten years ago, an explosion in CCs began and in many cases people moved their site from .com to their country code. Similarly in the UK people gravitate towards search results on .co.uk
or .uk domains. Plenty of multinationals also present local versions of their site, for example amazon.co.uk

Some people get SEO advice that tells them they do better on CC in their home market, but also in Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) you can select what country you want your site to be relevant to.

.eu has so far mostly been used by German and Czech users, as reported by @jmcc but I could see that changing for several reasons - more cross-border digital trade, and more confidence in an EU based site to observe GDPR, and the diverging politics the OP mentioned.

I would agree to present yourself as available globally you probably want .com so there will still be demand for that outside the USA.

Another concern is the regulatory environment - there seem to be serious problems now in the USA with powers that be wanting dramatic interventions and not wanting to respect laws or procedures, so there may be valid concerns about the risks of using a US controlled extension or a US based registrar. That could seem very risky for a name that represented your business and ran your email - it could be grabbed from you with no comeback, or a lengthy and expensive legal fight to get it back, and during that time it would be out of action.
 
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.co is doing better than country codes, .global as well, I have trust with .co.uk and .ca, - .us failed, .in hasn't totally failed yet, but could. while many countries do use their extension within their country. most know to have a very very large audience they have to have .com IMO

I don't see the US economy or tariffs playing any factor in .com , It is the worldwide extension for big business IMO.
 
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Cctlds are good in their own countries but I think .com will always be better.
Theres risk if your company is established and you dont own .com.
Cctld is good within your country. .com is better with the rest of the world.
You can have both cctld and .com.
Even if you dont use .com
 
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Dot com is still king. Over 90% of companies still use dot com versus any other extension.

I think OP has made a very thoughtful post but some of what he posted is offered as fact when it is rather mere opinion. Also as recons.com pointed out - OP’s facts are skewed. The OP’s post makes it seem like the country specific extensions are overtaking dot com in individual countries - this is not the case. As recons.com alludes, Dot com remains #1 in each country the OP listed - it’s only perhaps when considering all the listed countries together that it may appear that dot com is not #1.

OP mentions Canada. I recently sold a domain dot com of course for high five figures to a Canadian company that paid...reg fee (just some months prior to buying my domain) for the exact same domain in dot ca. In case that wasn’t clear...they paid basically nothing for the dot ca and just a few months later still viewed it as mandatory that they spend high five figures for the dot com. Those are high five :xf.laugh: US dollars not Canadian by the way.
 
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I almost forgot - when planning the trip to Cartagena I found an international tour company, Ciity Sightseeing, which offers tours at major tourist destinations around the world. Their main site on City-Sightseeing.Com offered a 14-stop bus tour around Cartagena for US$23 per person. However, by doing some research I came across a local site (Spanish) using the .com.co extension. They offered the same tour for 40 thousand pesos or about $13 per person. Since I was booking for eight people (my wife's family joined us) I was able to save some money. However, I do recall a little uneasiness about booking the reservation on a cctld site and was a little apprehensive that perhaps it was not a legit site. It was legit and later that week we used the same tour company to book a trip to a nearby beach (Playa Blanca).
 
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Dot com is still king. Over 90% of companies still use dot com versus any other extension.

I think OP has made a very thoughtful post but some of what he posted is offered as fact when it is rather mere opinion. Also as recons.com pointed out - OP’s facts are skewed. The OP’s post makes it seem like the country specific extensions are overtaking dot com in individual countries - this is not the case. As recons.com alludes, Dot com remains #1 in each country the OP listed - it’s only perhaps when considering all the listed countries together that it may appear that dot com is not #1.

OP mentions Canada. I recently sold a domain dot com of course for high five figures to a Canadian company that paid...reg fee (just some months prior to buying my domain) for the exact same domain in dot ca. In case that wasn’t clear...they paid basically nothing for the dot ca and just a few months later still viewed it as mandatory that they spend high five figures for the dot com. Those are high five :xf.laugh: US dollars not Canadian by the way.
@MapleDots is from Canada.
.ca is king in Canada. Like for real. Maybe thats why his opinion is biased.
That being said you are right, they do pay higher amounts to secure the .coms after hand regging the .ca.
@MapleDots i dont think the prevalence of .ca in Canada is going to repeat itself in other countries, especially not because of the us economy. I think its just the Canadian government that is efficient with its citizens.
.ca is owned and managed by the Canadian Internet Regulation Authority. Theres whois privacy enabled on ALL .ca, all registrars. Canadians love Canada and I think the Canadian government is 100% why .ca is prevalent in Canada.

With that being said @MapleDots , your .ca business is not foolish.
 
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To answer your closing question. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest global politics could or would have any correlation to the .com extension. Global politics has been dynamic for decades yet the .com extension remains exactly where it was, #1.

THIS IS JUST MY OPINION BUT....

Since the the beginning of the internet I don';t think there has ever been a more volatile political climate. Trump has basically thrown out all the rules and single handedly alienated more countries than ever in the history of any single politician. I mean.... to alienate Canada, the single biggest and most loyal ally he has ever had. At one point in time when he was spewing about his wall he had even mention the Canadian Border which is one of the friendliest borders in the whole world.

Have no doubt, those policies will affect the relationships of out countries and because .com is mostly considered American the volatility will eventually trickle down into that extension.
 
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Any company that has a global ambition, or even a regional trans-border, should have their matching .com

You are assuming that a new extension like .global or similar won't eventually be adopted because it does not have the deep association with the USA. In today's world things change fast and the current political climate is changing things, you can see the shift away from the American currency as an example, we would never have thought this could ever happen yet here it is happening under our noses.
 
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Cctlds are good in their own countries but I think .com will always be better.
Theres risk if your company is established and you don't own .com.
Cctld is good within your country. .com is better with the rest of the world.
You can have both cctld and .com.
Even if you don't use .com

Here is an example for you....

Take the top 10 biggest companies that do COMMERCE without MIcrosoft and Apple.

Let's take electronics, office supplies, home building supplies etc.

BestBuy, HomeDepot, Lowes, Staples, etc etc
They all use ccTLD's for commerce instead of the .com. Sure they have a single .com but in most cases they have the matching .ccTLD for each country they do business in.

If you use that as an example it is only a question of time before ccTLD's will totally dominate over .com because each company needs multiple ccTLD's per one .com.

Now factor in that another extension like .global could also encroach and we will eventually see the end of the .com dominance.
 
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