The first results for the newly launched Dot Hamburg (large German city) are in and after the first day of General Availability, there are 13,793 domains. Solid results and all in all, I can’t remember any geos about which you can say that they were a flop.
In contrast, Dot Furniture for example only has 605 domains after the first day of GA. In my opinion, if we were to limit ourselves to analyzing the strength of the term, Dot Furniture can be considered one of the very solid niche new gTLDs… yet as all of us have been able to see, it clearly underperformed.
Why?
Too many premiums?
A registration fee that’s too high?
Poorly marketed by the registry?
I’m reasonably confident all of the previously mentioned issues played a role and I’m just as confident other factors were also involved. The only thing that matters, however, is that we’re seeing an interesting pattern thus far.
Geos are outperforming.
Niche new gTLDs are underperforming.
Now don’t get me wrong, “outperforming” is a bit of a stretch if you were to compare the numbers to launches such as Dot Co but still, compared to niche new gTLDs, they’re doing considerably better.
As a domainer, it’s good to keep your eyes open for patterns such as these because with so many options out there, you have to be brutally selective.
August 28th, 2014 at 6:49 pm
I think the geo’s are one of the weakest areas myself.
Take .berlin, 90%+ of the registration look to be giveaway and it is adding 25-30 registrations a day, that figure is gradually falling. If you consider that in a year it might have 6,000 more registrations then now it is not good and the current domain count in the tld is completely meaningless.
http://ntldstats.com/tld/berlin
.hamburg _ I’m not sure what has happened here but it looks suspicious. When .berlin came out it looked strong as well, then slowly it leaks out of the following weeks that even the first lot of reges (before Sedo came along and registered a whole lot for free) were giveaways. It is the same registrar psi-usa with the biggest chunk of .hamburg registrations, just like .berlin.
.tokyo – 20k reges for one of the world largest and wealthiest cities? (population 35million). That puts it between .center and .expert. Is that a success? .Tokyo is getting 100 reges a day and rapidly falling.
August 29th, 2014 at 3:01 am
For a start they should be called city TLDs, as geo TLDs also include other geographic areas, which are not doing so well (e.g. .ruhr has 3.600 regs).
Don’t compare these numbers with your usual TLDs. It depends how the community uses them, and dot city TLDs certainly have lots of value for local business. Heck, I even think that Google will find a bakery.paris more relevant than bakery.fr.
These are early days, but there are many indicators of a snow balling effect such as the introduction of dot brands, Google’s view of them and new start-ups using them and then become succesful. If I opened up a shop in Berlin today for a local market, I would never consider another TLD than .berlin.
Come back and comment here in 2-3 years from now. The huge challenge for any of these new gTLD registries is creating awareness and maintain a staying alive financially. When (if) the market catches on, then it’s a different ball game. Right now only you and me have heard about them.
August 29th, 2014 at 4:08 am
@Snoopy: compared to the expectations people had sure, geos didn’t do amazingly well but compared to niche gTLDs, they outperformed. The Dot Center/Expert vs. Dot Tokyo example isn’t the best one in my opinion, for two reasons:
1) Dot Tokyo entered the GA period last month, whereas Dot Center’s GA phase started back in March and For Dot Expert, I think it was May
2) Dot Center/Expert are on the one hand not “everything goes” gTLDs like Dot XYZ or Dot Link but on the other hand, I wouldn’t call them niche gTLDs either, they’re somewhere in the middle (my arguments mostly revolve around geo vs. niche gTLDs)
I think it would be interesting to write a post about how new gTLDs can be categorized, will do it today.
August 29th, 2014 at 5:56 am
Andrei, which geo extensions do you think are outperforming then aside from .hamburg?
August 29th, 2014 at 6:10 am
@Snoopy: even with all of the issues you pointed out, Dot Berlin for sure. Dot Tokyo as well despite the fact that yes, I’m sure a lot of people expected a far better performance. Again, I’m not saying geos had amazing results, not at all. I’m simply pointing out that they seem to be outperforming niche new gTLDs such as Dot Furniture, Dot Plumbing and so on at this point.
August 29th, 2014 at 6:12 am
How many paid for registrations would you say .berlin has?