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.

 

[Kate]

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.

I am not sure we are talking about the same thing.
Are you saying numbers are falling ?
Or are you saying growth is slowing ?
Even slowing growth is growth.
I can't see how both statements can be true at the same time.
While it makes sense that at some point there is saturation and plateauing, we aren't there.

I can guarantee you that there has been a lot of growth in ccTLD over the last 15 years.

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..

They are doing so badly that they have become dominant in different countries... especially over the last 15 years.

These are the stats for .nl for example, you can usually find similar statistics on the respective national registries websites.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

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.

Do you know if those stats are based off of WHOIS registrant country OR registrar country?

Looking at HosterStats, the first column tracks the amount of registrars per country. I'm wondering if HosterStats is basing their data based off of registrar location. eg. All domains regged at [GoDaddy for instance] are included as USA.

If that's the case, than this probably isn't an accurate study. WHOIS location wouldn't be entirely accurate either given WHOIS privacy would skew results towards popular WHOIS privacy companies WHOIS country.

Take for instance Cayman Islands [#12 on HosterStats] with 2+ million domains registered in March 2018. Yet, they have a population of roughly 60,000 people. Are these stats reflective of Uni as a registrar, or do Cayman Island residents register a lot of domains?

 

[Recons.Com]

A simple test for the non-English speaking countries :

If you care enough to have the English language version of your site, 95% chance that you need .com of your name.

 

[Windoms]

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.

Cibc.ca
Bmo.ca
Td.ca
Scotiabank.ca
Those will redirect to .com.
.ca are the ones you will see used daily in advertisements or flyers, in Canada.

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/

Duckduckgo yahoo & youtube, no comment.
Linkedin, Godaddy, subway, aircanada etc.. all will advertise in .ca.

Large companies will get the .com, its a must.
Small/medium/large, all will advertise in .ca.

Local, cctld.
Global, .com.

 

[johnnie018]

I am not sure we are talking about the same thing.
Are you saying numbers are falling ?
Or are you saying growth is slowing ?
Even slowing growth is growth.
I can't see how both statements can be true at the same time.
While it makes sense that at some point there is saturation and plateauing, we aren't there.

Please look at the numbers, Verisign quarterly reports, it is crystal clear. Growth has been falling for a long time, the last quarter went negative for cctlds!

 

[MapleDots]

@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

Yup, I just had the same.... live in Canada and see the reality before you comment.
Any Canadian will tell you that .ca is dominant over .com

It's funny how the people not living in the countries actually using the ccTLD's are the ones arguing against.

Ohh.... thats right.... only the USA has a totally stagnant ccTLD called .us

Other countries are using them by the millions every single day.

 

[MapleDots]

Small pockets of the world know country codes like .cn, .ca...

OMG Keith.... small pockets of the world!!

Are you serious??

China, Russia, Canada, UK and a hundred other countries are small pockets of the world?

OMG I assume you are from the STATES. If you have ever travelled the world, and I have a number of times, especially Germany, France, Italy etc you cannot argue that ccTLD's are not in extensive use.

 

[Keith]

OMG Keith.... small pockets of the world!!

Are you serious??

China, Russia, Canada, UK and a hundred other countries are small pockets of the world?

OMG I assume you are from the STATES. If you have ever travelled the world, and I have a number of times, especially Germany, France, Italy etc you cannot argue that ccTLD's are not in extensive use.

You ever seen a .us or .ca in Russia? I rest my case since both have seen .com

 

[MapleDots]

You ever seen a .us or .ca in Russia? I rest my case since both have seen .com

Again Keith... with all due respect

Do you know the purpose of a ccTLD and what it actually is?

Off course you will not see a .ca in Russia you will see .ru

 

[Keith]

Again Keith... with all due respect

Do you know the purpose of a ccTLD and what it actually is?

Off course you will not see a .ca in Russia you will see .ru

Exactly!

You won’t see a ccTLD outside of a small pocket. Good luck marketing to some people when .com markets to the entire world.

 

[MapleDots]

Exactly!

You won’t see a ccTLD outside of a small pocket. Good luck marketing to some people when .com markets to the entire world.

So the point is?

ccTLD's will only be marketed in the area from where you reside, I have never said different.

I said that ccTLD's as a group, so all the different countries using them combined like .ca .mx .uk .de .ru .cn etc are giving .com a run for the money. A singular extension has no chance to out number that many ccTLD's, it is only a question of time before the ccTLD's combined will overshadow .coms

I don't know why members are seeing that as a bad thing, I'm not putting down .com's. if anything it shows their strength because it is only when combined as a whole that ccTLD's can overshadow the .com's.

So why worry..... there is no need, .com is strong and always will be but even the best boxer in the world cannot win against hundreds. That does not take away from the greatness of the boxer.

See the point?

 

[MapleDots]

Here is a link on Morgan Linton fresh of the press today
https://morganlinton.com/after-spen...e-to-say-that-de-com-there-and-dashes-are-in/

Quote:

DE is everywhere and it’s actually hard to find a .COM domain name anywhere

 

[Keith]

So the point is?

ccTLD's will only be marketed in the area from where you reside, I have never said different.

I said that ccTLD's as a group, so all the different countries using them combined like .ca .mx .uk .de .ru .cn etc are giving .com a run for the money. A singular extension has no chance to out number that many ccTLD's, it is only a question of time before the ccTLD's combined will overshadow .coms

I don't know why members are seeing that as a bad thing, I'm not putting down .com's. if anything it shows their strength because it is only when combined as a whole that ccTLD's can overshadow the .com's.

So why worry..... there is no need, .com is strong and always will be but even the best boxer in the world cannot win against hundreds. That does not take away from the greatness of the boxer.

See the point?

I’ll tell you why it’s a bad thing. A CC tld vs .com is like selling a product to a few hundred people vs a few million. Nobody in their right mind would opt to sell to a tiny audience.

 

[Keith]

The only people that promote cc domains are those that invested too much and are afraid to get burned.

 

[MapleDots]

I’ll tell you why it’s a bad thing. A CC tld vs .com is like selling a product to a few hundred people vs a few million. Nobody in their right mind would opt to sell to a tiny audience.

Did I ever talk about selling a product?
Did I ever say a ccTLD was worth more than a .com?

Do you think we don't know that ccTLD's have a fraction of the value of .com's?

You need to go back and read where I say this over and over, I cannot keep repeating this.

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT RESALE VALUE

Most businesses are not in our business, I am talking as a business owner, a business owner who does business in only one country does not care about a .com, the ccTLD for the corresponding country is a much better choice.

Anyone doing commerce in more than one country will deem it critical to own a .com but in sheer business numbers there are millions of mom and pop shops that cannot afford nor want a .com because they only have one store or website, or shoe repair shop on one street in the world. Do you think they care about your opinion on a .com or that you can make more money on it. They just want a local website address no different from the area code on your phone number. For them the ccTLD makes much more sense.

Travel and expand your horizons outside of the US and you will see there is a whole other world out there.

 

[Kate]

Please look at the numbers, Verisign quarterly reports, it is crystal clear. Growth has been falling for a long time, the last quarter went negative for cctlds!

And what is the methodology behind Verisign (.com operator) reports ? Do they lump all ccTLDs together ? We are talking about the pure ccTLDs here, not .tk, .tv or .cc.

Germany as a country also had a negative GDP growth in Q3Y2018. Is Germany falling ?
We can have a look at .de over the last twenty years, the overall pattern is not one of stagnation.

The only people that promote cc domains are those that invested too much and are afraid to get burned.

The smart people simply recognize opportunities in both .com and mature ccTLDs.
Aren't you a .co seller BTW ? Personally my focus is European ccTLDs, after .com of course. .co is not my thing.

There is nothing controversial here, just taking stock of what happens outside America.

 

[TERADOMAIN]

The only people that promote cc domains are those that invested too much and are afraid to get burned.

I agree with you.

I like to add one more important fact. I do not know from where OP came up with figure from India. Lets visit the fact instead of promoting some wrong info here.

India will be one of the very huge growing market for lots of new start up as well as 95% of existing companies in India does not operate website matching their business name. Its changing since last couple years. Huge awareness is there. Lots of companies in India advertise on TV with their website name which matching their brand name. Since last couple years we will see Lots of sign boards of GODADDY on boundaries of Cricket match in India.

.com is number 1 choice in India.

Why & When companies in India do chose .in or .co.in

• When .com not available for sale
• When .com not affordable to the company in its initial stage

Ultimately if budget allow them and if .com is for sale within their reach then they will upgrade to .com

BestBuy or any other companies does not operate local TLD recently. They have been running since many years. Nothing new in that. Title of this thread is totally misleading.

We understand you are big fan of .ca and you hold large portfolio of .ca. We need to present fact to stay relevant in life. Credibility is very important. People are not dumb they will figure out if our intention. They will figure out motive behind out act.

Show me 1 example where company has 2 choices where .com is $500 and .ca is $5000 and still they buy .ca first and did not touch .com ... There are so many variables in play.

.com is king not because of domainers. .com is king because of 90% of people by default will relate some memorable brand name with .com and ultimately will try to visit .com after few months. This is reality. .com is default extension for most globally.

Thanks

 

[Keith]

Show attachment 104942
Aren't you a .co seller BTW ?

No

I own very few .co...like .tv, .us..

But if we’re talking about mass appeal and creating real businesses, .com is the only choice.

 

[Keith]

Did I ever talk about selling a product?
Did I ever say a ccTLD was worth more than a .com?

Do you think we don't know that ccTLD's have a fraction of the value of .com's?

You need to go back and read where I say this over and over, I cannot keep repeating this.

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT RESALE VALUE

Most businesses are not in our business, I am talking as a business owner, a business owner who does business in only one country does not care about a .com, the ccTLD for the corresponding country is a much better choice.

Anyone doing commerce in more than one country will deem it critical to own a .com but in sheer business numbers there are millions of mom and pop shops that cannot afford nor want a .com because they only have one store or website, or shoe repair shop on one street in the world. Do you think they care about your opinion on a .com or that you can make more money on it. They just want a local website address no different from the area code on your phone number. For them the ccTLD makes much more sense.

Travel and expand your horizons outside of the US and you will see there is a whole other world out there.

We’re in the business of buying and selling domains, and maybe developing.

In either case, you want domains that cater to the world, not just a fraction. Nobody wants to sell a valuable domain to a small shop. So the question becomes, are you buying shit and hoping a small fish offers a small price? Or, are you buying quality and waiting with confidence that a shark will come along?

That’s the difference between. CC and .com!

 

[Brands.International]

The only people that promote cc domains are those that invested too much and are afraid to get burned.

@Keith, but the same can be told for .com names

Understand, that in many EU countries (I can speak about it because I have direct experience from here) people and businesses are not using .com. They are using their respective ccTLDs, like .cz, .pl, .sk, etc. Honestly, I have not seen any website here in Czech using .com as far as I can remember in news, media, radio, etc. Zero.

I understand that beying in US you do not have this experience with non - english speaking countries, so you are welcome to travel a bit here in Europe to understand it more.

Disclaimer: I own 0 ccTLDs. But the facts are facts.

 

[MapleDots]

Show me 1 example where company has 2 choices where .com is $500 and .ca is $5000 and still they buy .ca first and did not touch .com ... There are so many variables in play.

Again you need to read the topic, how many times can I say I am not talking about dollar value.

Again you need to read again because I never said only India, I said all ccTLD's combined.

Again you need to read the topic, nowhere am I selling anything nor trying to sway anyone into a .ca. I simply live in Canada and can only speak as a Canadian but having travelled the world I can tell you ccTLD's are dominant in lots of countries.

You need to read the whole topic before you attack someones credibility so please don't preach to me. Have you read the Morgan Link I posted above, I made it as bold as I possibly could.

It is not about my credibility, my gosh you too cannot possibly say there will continue to be more .com's in use than all ccTLD's combined.

Take a word, any word, in can only be registered in .com once. It can be registered hundreds of times in every ccTLD in the world. That together will eventually overshadow .com's in sheer numbers.

CAN I MAKE IT ANY CLEARER

Let me try again.... I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT RESALE VALUE NOR THE VALUE OF MY PORTFOLIO.

I am simply talking about the sheer numbers of registrations eventually completely outpacing .com's

You are a smart guy @TERADOMAIN but please don't try to make it sound like I am trying to make people sound dumb. The only ones that are dumb are the ones that cannot do basic math.

one.com

vs

one.de
one.ru
one.cn
one.ca
etc etc

one.com will be outpaced by the registration of the other ccTLD's

Can you argue that? can you see that? ... PLEASE TELL ME YOU SEE THAT

Now the .one.com is probably worth more than all the others combined but I have NEVER said to the contrary so I don't know how my personal portfolio is coming into play here.

PS. If India is more dominant in .com then so be it, eventually the .in will be bigger because all the .com's are registered all over the world and India can only have a small percentage of those .com's while they have the entire dictionary in .in to pick from.

Eventually there will be more .in in India than .com. If not today and tomorrow then maybe next year or the year thereafter but the shift will eventually happen as .com's are simply unattainable to the average person.

 

[Keith]

@Keith, but the same can be told for .com names

Understand, that in many EU countries (I can speak about it because I have direct experience from here) people and businesses are not using .com. They are using their respective ccTLDs, like .cz, .pl, .sk, etc. Honestly, I have not seen any website here in Czech using .com as far as I can remember in news, media, radio, etc. Zero.

I understand that beying in US you do not have this experience with non - english speaking countries, so you are welcome to travel a bit here in Europe to understand it more.

Disclaimer: I own 0 ccTLDs. But the facts are facts.

You are proving my point. In order for anyone to justify cc tlds they have to pinpoint certain areas. You just did it with EU.

I gaurentee that all of EU uses .com. They don’t need anything beyond that.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

@Vito @nicholas.
In countries like Canada. All you see is .ca.
If you are a business, you need a .ca, otherwise you are screwed when it comes to reaching Canadian customers.
I dont know for Germany and .de, like if theres a mix of .com and .de, but in Canada, theres no mix of .com and .ca. No .ca, no business.

In other countries where the cctld is not established, yes the cctld as well as ngtlds can be used when the .com is saturated.

Tweed is doing good with tweed.com not the .ca
Even our government run cannabis store is on .com I am sure they get business.
I have 108 .ca and 102 .com and do believe as time goes on, and there is a severe shortage of good .com that Canadians will start using .ca more, which they should.
I am looking through cira factbook, I read before 70% of canadian business still using .com and i will find that page again.
NapaCanada.com NAPA auto parts, they doing ok with no .ca
Lordco.ca goes to .com should be other way around
wyattparts.com I buy stuff from them, maybe you should reg the .ca and tell them how they need it so badly. Windoms
You cant run a world wide business .on a cctld
You can run a local business on a .com
Maple is right again, to be a worldwide business, you really do need the country codes
Telus.ca goes to telus.com shifting.away

 

[MapleDots]

to be a worldwide business, you really do need the country codes

Yup

You need the .com first but most add the ccTLD for each country they do business in.
This means each company owns more ccTLD's than .com's

BestBuy.ca was in use by an Auto Parts company when BestBuy came into Canada and Best Buy spent a whole pile of money buying the domain from the Auto Parts company. Best Buy knew the value of having a .ca to do business in Canada.

PS. That was a pretty high sale in it's day. Not compared to the .com but enough to be a high sale for a two word .ca.

 

[Keith]

Yup

You need the .com first but most add the ccTLD for each country they do business in.
This means each company owns more ccTLD's than .com's

BestBuy.ca was in use by an Auto Parts company when BestBuy came into Canada and Best Buy spent a whole pile of money buying the domain from the Auto Parts company. Best Buy knew the value of having a .ca to do business in Canada.

PS. That was a pretty high sale in it's day. Not compared to the .com but enough to be a high sale for a two word .ca.

In all fairness, bestbuy is a failing company. I wouldn’t hang my hat on their domain investments.