As promised, the roll out of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) has continued apace, offering website owners millions more possible combinations from which to choose. So what are the latest, most popular options?
.xyz
Sounding a little like a poor password, or a bit of filler text, the best-selling gTLD of recent months has been .xyz. The organisation who won control of the new gTLD commented on the popularity:
“Generation XYZ is everyone. It combines Generations X, Y, and Z to create a whole new generation inspired by the internet and its limitless potential. .xyz is one of the first unrestricted platforms for people all over the world to share their passions, cultivate knowledge, and express themselves.”
According to Namestat, over 785,000 xyz domains have been sold since release.
.webaddress
The second biggest selling gTLD is .??, which is Cantonese for “web address”. With over 350,000 registrations, this new gTLD shows how important non-Roman characters are becoming as the business domain of the Internet extends into regions which do not use English as the primary communication language.
Unsurprisingly, given the linguistic barrier, 100% of .?? registrations originate from China.
.club
Back in October the Broadband Cloud Solutions blog suggested that businesses could use the .club gTLD to build some creative new website addresses. And with 175,000 new .club registrations, it seems as though a lot of people took our advice.
The gTLD continues to grow in popularity with an average of 365 new registrations every week. The gTLD also holds the distinction of being the most valuable to date – Coffee.club sold for $100,000 last November for instance, and an auction was held in January for a number of ‘premium’ addresses, including wine.club and fight.club, the results of which have yet to be published.
.work
Proving that the Internet has become central to business generally, the .work gTLD has begun to gather pace. Although not in the top 10 biggest selling domains, it is one of the fastest growing. Selling an average of 395 new addresses each week, .work’s growth is second only to .xyz.
(Bad news for any subversives out there though – ihate.work has already been registered!)
.rocks
Perhaps the most surprising successful new gTLD is .rocks. There are now nearly 40,000 .rocks website addresses registered, with another 171 being added every week. More than half (52.6%) of these registrations were made from the USA, although the UK makes up a further 8.9% of purchases.
The .rocks promotional message is unusually informal, indicating a fairly specific target audience at the moment:
“You know it when it rocks. It’s cool, it’s crazy, it’s legen– wait-for-it, crazy, bananas, still waiting for it? –dary!!! When something rocks, you have to share it with the world. That’s where the .ROCKS Top Level Domain comes in.”
And finally, .com is still a banker
Despite the large volume of gTLD sales, the highest amount paid so far this year was for a .com address. On the 4th of February Porno.com sold for $8,888,888 – over £5.75 million.
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