discuss Where .com is Not King

[ixex]

Where in the world is .com not king?

Where that other extensions are more popular, accepted, etc.?

Any other heavy rival extensions in the world regions, demographics, other than ccltds?

 

[7363824]

the OP said excluding ccTLDs and the thread turned to be exclusively about ccTLDs discussion lol

If we exclude ccTLDs then .com will almost always be king except in some few situations like:

• .org for non-profit & NGOs is much better than .com
• .edu for educational institutions
• .gov for governmental institutions
• clever domain hacks like these ending with ly
• url shortners

Not much of an aftermarket for .edu or .gov though I did hear an interesting story recently about a security researcher who was able to convince the GSA (who administers .gov) that he was the mayor of some small little town somewhere (it was a real town atleast) and he got a .gov domain for this town. He did utimately reveal what happened and how to them and it seems in March they made a change to what is required to get a .gov domain but I digress.

I do like .org but I think it is the best option as an investment that is non .com and not a cctld.

.ly is actually a cctld for Libya. And I think most url shorters are based on cctlds with clever letter combos. Microsoft for example uses aka.ms for their url shortner where .ms is the cctld for Montserrat.

 

[jmcc]

.com is more king than before, and I think .net suffered most from new tlds.

The .NET was in trouble since the end of Domain Tasting in 2009. Apart from a few events like the Chinese bubble, it has been continually losing registrations. In some countries, there seems to be more interest in the .ORG now. What happens with country level markets when the ccTLD gets established is that the volume of new registrations in that country each month switches to the ccTLD and new registrations in .NET, .ORG, .BIZ and in INFO slow down with .COM benefiting from the .ccTLD/.COM effect where new businesses will register their ccTLD domain name and the same in .COM if it is available.

Markets also have a development trend when it comes to domain names. In an early market, everyone is looking to sell products and services to the world and .COM is the natural global option. As the ccTLD develops, more people in the country will use the ccTLD for their main business. At a particular point in time, people switch to using their ccTLD only because most business is local. This causes a very interesting effect in that some domain names will only ever exist in a ccTLD and not in gTLDs. As the ccTLD begins to dominate its market, businesses stop registering their .COM because the focus of their business is local. However, businesses and people will still register .COM because it is the top global TLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[jmcc]

I wonder if the reason .us did not develop as strongly as a country code is because of not just .com but also .edu and .gov. In most of the world the highly trusted government and educational sites are on the country code, and that helps with trust and respect. Like I go to government sites it is on a .ca. But in .us, there are separate TLDs for that, so the carry over of trust is absent, somewhat.

The .US is a sad case, Bob,
Some of it has to do with the registry being unable to market effectively against those TLDs in its market. But in an ideal situation, the .US would have around 50 M registrations. Some of the discounting offers in recent years were quite stupid as it is a bad way to drive interest in a TLD and a great way to kill development and credibility (loads of junk and spam registrations occur in discounting offers). Godaddy bought Neustar's registry operations and now runs .US (and .BIZ, .CO and a few others).

The .CA is doing well. There's a psychological aspect to ccTLDs in that when people think of their local ccTLD as being their TLD, it starts to overtake .COM.

The .eu is an interesting case. @jmcc has a lot on it in his recent book.

It had great prospects but it is less than half the price of a .COM registration at the moment. Unfortunately, it is caught in the non-core TLD downturn where people are rethinking what domain names in other non-ccTLD/non-COM TLDs that they can drop.

Regards...jmcc

 

[TheBuyerz]

In crypto world, ORG extension is a king... some of projects with .org extension:

- bitcoin.org
- ethereum.org
- bitcoincash.org (Sold for 48888$ on Godaddy - 2017 - year of the hard fork)

Decentralizilation and transparence, projects have to be open sourced to build trust.

Followed by: IO

INFO (generaly for chain explorers like blockchain.info, and recently ethereum.info sold for 3650$ in dynadot backorder auction) and NET also used for several projects...

 

[ixex]

In crypto world, ORG extension is a king... some of projects with .org extension:

- bitcoin.org
- ethereum.org
- bitcoincash.org (Sold for 48888$ on Godaddy - 2017 - year of the hard fork)

Decentralizilation and transparence, projects have to be open sourced to build trust.

Followed by: IO

INFO (generaly for chain explorers like blockchain.info, and recently ethereum.info sold for 3650$ in dynadot backorder auction) and NET also used for several projects...

Cryto world the ORG is King? Wow!

 

[JordanH]

As an American, we also get Canadian Broadcasting Network along with all the same exact advertising that Canadians see. I find it pretty surprising how much .CA gets used over .COM emphasizing Canadian presence, Canadian dollars, Canadian rules and regulations, etc. Canadians have a lower population count per square mile/kilometer so they never are added in "Top 10" lists. Maybe one day, I will count the number of .CA vs .COM I see on CBN and report my findings!

I was going to say this too.
In Canada, most websites that are Canadian owned will have the .ca as it's primary TLD over the .com. (While still having the .com redirect)

 

[Prophecy]

Check out this latest news - tehrantimes dot com/news/447198/U-S-Treasury-blocks-seizes-domains-of-Iranian-media-outlets
This high-handed approach of USA authorities is denting the value of .com domains. It is not the first time that USA authorities have seized .com domain names. This news confirms my prophecy that country codes will rise, excepting America, as .com is their ccTLD.
I think country code domain names will be the order of the day.

 

[cipcip]

.com is king in US and Canada probably. All over the world, cctld's are more popular.

Where I have been:
- In Portugal is .PT everywhere
- in Spain is .ES
- In Romania is .RO
- In Italy is .IT
- In Malta is com.mt ( more than .mt )
- In Greece, .GR
- In France, .FR

I am talking from banner ads that I have seen throughout the city, not some statistics over the internet.

Thanks,
Cristian

 

[uzver]

Don't know where but for me .com is not king.

Here is the last 28 days performance of my autopilot website which I build on .pw domain. Yeah you read it clearly. It's a .PW domain beating many of its .com competitors in Google search.
Show attachment 151994

This BS extension didn’t increase your traffic. I’m sure there are plenty of people on warrior forum who can beat many coms on whatever extension you give them.

 

[ixex]

This BS extension didn’t increase your traffic. I’m sure there are plenty of people on warrior forum who can beat many coms on whatever extension you give them.

Thanks for letting me know about Warrior Forum

 

[uzver]

Thanks for letting me know about Warrior Forum

You’re welcome.

 

[falez]

Globally .com is about 40%.

Here is ccltd data.

https://www.webnic.cc/the-most-popular-cctlds-by-the-number-of-domains-registered/

not sure how reliable those numbers are since TK has so so so many spammy websites

 

[GoKaizen]

.IE

https://www.iedr.ie/domain-stats/

@jmcc

You either did an amazing solo job or got some help along the way @Reddstagg, as CENTR in their last report single it, and a couple others, out.

"The Irish ccTLD (.ie) has performed particularly well, having recorded high growth and an increased global Cisco rank. It has done this without compromising its renewal ratio which is above the European average, and also by keeping deletions low."​

Best wishes to all investing in .ie.
Bob

 

[Doron Vermaat]

There are so many countries across the world where the ccTLD is the preferred choice. The Netherlands is an obvious one, with the .nl extension being in the top 10 globally. There's a very active aftermarket too, with many .nl domains selling for big bucks.

Here in Hong Kong you mainly see .com.hk or .hk domains being used (but the aftermarket is pretty much non-existent). I own a lot of very good one-word domains such as Launch.hk, Rise.hk and Lead.hk but I've only sold 1 so far which is Seed.hk

 

[ixex]

I just saw this .info thread dialogue writing examples, extending this threads topic on .com vs. other country and regional location specific tlds.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/official-info-showcase-thread.423981/page-115

 

[EP2020]

I see a lot of people talking about geography but I think there is a generation gap. Last couple of years .io and .co became common for startups and tech focused businesses.

I think zoomers don't understand what .com means, it doesn't make sense to them for it to have a monopoly since what they use it for is not a commercial experience on platforms like Facebook, Google and YouTube - free services. Yeah sure they use Amazon but I think most people order using Alexa now anyway.

Gen Z use extensions like .gg for popular apps and platforms and I see .xyz is becoming more common, in particular for cam sites. I like the management behind .xyz so I think it has potential.

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

I apologize for, like many others, not picking up on the except country code reference in OP. But anyway, we have a nice discussion of country code going now .

In @jmcc recent book he makes the point that it is the large number of adoptions and use by small businesses that really drive a TLD to succeed (hopefully paraphrasing that accurately). I think in a fair chunk of the Earth, we see that if you look at the majority of active websites, like real authentic ones, the country code has a slight lead, but if we look at say the top 100 or something, then .com will dominate. I would say that is true in Canada, and from what I read seems so in much of Europe. So who is king kind of depends on definition of king. A TLD like .de can be very strong in Germany, but in global impact, since most of use in Germany and a few other countries, not so much. But in Germany, it may well be king.

As a global presence, I can't see in near future anyone coming close to .com. However, particularly if politics continues to fracture globalization, it is possible that in many parts of the world country codes will become even stronger.

I don't see .org or .net in a position to challenge .com, nor do i see .co, .io etc. They will continue to probably grow use, but nowhere near to .com.

Most of the new extensions are meant to be niche players. That does not mean that they can't be successful in those niches, just that only a few (like .xyz) are general purpose like .com is (and those few don't seem destined for dominance). I think it is possible, but unlikely, that an extension like .news might become a challenge in the news sector, and others in other niches, so collectively they might dent the .com dominance a bit, but we are nowhere near actually seeing that yet.

I see, unlike some or many probably, that the dominance of .com will slowly weaken, but it will still be #1 for a long time. Probably much longer than my horizon in domain names.

Bob

For me it's .se that is number one, I was chatting with a friend who is a locksmith and safecracker two nights ago and I started checking some of his brilliant .se names, we talked a lot about phone numbers as well. I am helping him with a site to tie together all his .se domains... and his matching .com domain names. Yes people do that here. For that I will get a 08 NNN 000 telephone number, another great investment. Investment is part of it too. Maybe the business will provide a nice exit later on and all these extras will be good assets that help close the deal. I bought a really great name for the scandinavian market that I saw had dropped a few days ago. The .com is taken and for sale but not required for just this niche.

The main reason I think .com is popular here as well is that if we ever cross a border with the site, for example, a Swedish site gets Finnish or Danish customers, then we secure all of those ccTLDs and the .com for our eventual English translation of the site. After all english is our 2nd national language nowadays (maybe a shared 2nd place). If it's a tech site then more likely it will have an English priority (if non Swedish speakers work in the company and there is a meeting, the meeting may be held in Swedish if everybody understands, otherwise it has to be held in English) and the website will be in English as well... in this case Swedish will not be a part of the site at all.

 

[LUP]

My guess is the United Kingdom

and german .de, canada .ca