domains The Case for Calling .US Domains What They Are - American Domain Names

[Ron Jackson]

AmericanDomainNames at ADN.US is now on NamePros with the user name AmericanDomainNames, but is currently unable to post links as a newcomer. This article was published there today:
The Case for Calling .US Domains What They Are - American Domain Names at
https://www.adn.us/news-views/2021/0712.htm

 

[Keith]

I don’t subscribe to things like “american domains”. Domains should aim to be global, regardless of extension.

Can Soccer.us be a worldwide brand? Easily!

 

[omelet]

I don’t subscribe to things like “american domains”. Domains should aim to be global, regardless of extension.

Can Soccer.us be a worldwide brand? Easily!

：）

Canadian businesses look only interested in .ca names. They look like never thought about .com and the global market

 

[Samer]

I don’t subscribe to things like “american domains”. Domains should aim to be global, regardless of extension.

Can Soccer.us be a worldwide brand? Easily!

Soccer is an anomaly. Terrible example.
Most of America is different from the world.
From sports ️ to the metric system. Shocked us doesnt drive on left side road, lol.

I believe .US can embody all ideals of the “American Dream” alive and well. wish .US doesnt require “public” That’s annoying, if .US support “Private registration” will still be “.US” Hopefully day, in my life .US allows private. — plausible, Godaddy .com private is mandatory; and they are the new owner of the .US registry

Even no change, see better path for .us, ahead

 

[jmcc]

AmericanDomainNames at ADN.US is now on NamePros with the user name AmericanDomainNames, but is currently unable to post links as a newcomer. This article was published there today:
The Case for Calling .US Domains What They Are - American Domain Names at
https://www.adn.us/news-views/2021/0712.htm

It is a good approach, Ron,
But it is only half the battle. Strange as it seems, the objective is to make people forget about the extension and automatically assume that any website targeting the US market has a .us extension. This is exactly what happens when a ccTLD becomes the first choice TLD in its own market.

Three things happened in the mid 2000s that kickstarted the European ccTLDs in their own markets. The first was massive Domain Tasting in the gTLDs. That meant that people found it difficult to get a good domain name. The effect was to drive people to register domain names in their own ccTLDs. Once that trend took hold, the ccTLDs began to overtake the gTLDs in terms of new registrations per month in their local markets. It was the ccTLD local/gTLD global flip and most business is local.

The second was the .EU ccTLD fiasco.The European Commission effectively gave the .EU ccTLD contract to a small backwater ccTLD registry (the Belgian DNS.be registry) with no expertise in running what was effectively a gTLD with around 27 different languages. Naturally, it was completely unprepared for what happened. The .EU was completely plundered and flooded with speculative English language registrations through front companies set up for the purpose. The registry's legal department only had about three people to deal with all the complaints and problems. It was a very expensive lesson for the speculators and domainers because portfolios were being dumped a year or so later because nobody was interested in buying them. That hardened the attitudes in the ccTLD markets. To people in the countries that made up the EU, the ccTLDs were their TLDs in a way that the .EU was not. That locked in the ccTLD local/gTLD global trend. (The history of all this is in the free to read pages (on Amazon) of the Domnomics book.)

The third, and this might be one of the most important, thing was that the mindset in the ccTLD registries became more reponsive to the market and more commercialised. Most of the ccTLD registries originated in university Computer Science departments. They were often poorly run and not exactly commercial. This gave the .COM (which was going through a boom in the late 1990s) a headstart. It was essential for businesses to get their .COM even though they may not have known what to do with it. Some of the ccTLD registration fees were much higher than that of .COM even before the advent of the registry-registrar model. The ccTLDs struggled because ccTLD registries often treated the ccTLD as their own personal fiefdoms. Once the management of these registries was either replaced or realised that it was running a business in conjunction with the registrants, things changed.

The .US ccTLD is, for the immediate future, going to be competing with the .COM as the de facto US ccTLD. It would have been interesting to see how Bob Parsons would have marketed the ccTLD had Godaddy won the contract to operate the ccTLD a few years ago. The .US needs a brand champion. This is quite different from the big name tech companies. It is not uncommon to see press releases announcing the use of a ccTLD by some big name tech company like Google or Facebook. That completely misses the point of ccTLDs.

The ccTLDs are the TLDs for the Mom and Pop businesses and for ordinary people. People recognise brands rather than extensions. When Google or Facebook uses a ccTLD, it has no effect. When the local store or garage uses it, it has an immediate effect. That's a geographical connection.

The people have to register and use the ccTLD. Once they do so, then others will follow as it gains a critical mass of usage. If circumstances had been very different the .US would have approximately 50 million registrations by now. Unfortunately, the .US did not benefit from the positive effect of Domain Tasting on ccTLDs. The most important thing that the registry could do would be to push the .US as the American TLD and promote usage at a local level. All the successful ccTLDs have strong web usage and development.That, more than heavily discounted registration promotions of which less than 10% renew, is important.

Regards...jmcc