Renewal Rates are a critical performance metric for domain registries. Let’s look at the 2023 average renewal rates for the Top 8 new gTLD registries. The average renewal rate for a new gTLD was 39% compared to 74% for .com in 2023 per the Domain Name Industry Brief (www.dnib.com) data. However, there is a substantial variance across the Top 8 New gTLD registries from 76% to 3% annual renewal rate. Identity Digital’s consistency and volume outdistance the competition. Let’s look a little deeper.

One statement I often hear regarding Strategic Planning is “It is difficult to get started”. A blank sheet of paper can be intimidating – so don’t start with one. Write down these three phrases:

1. Defend the Core

2. Grow the Base

3. Create the New

Every good strategic plan addresses these three points. The emphasis on each one may vary depending upon the current situation of the business. These three phrases are “pre-strategies” which allow organizations to better organize their strategic planning efforts.

Let’s delve deeper.

The year was 2002 with the tech industry coming off the .com bubble bursting and .com recorded its first ever year of shrinkage going from 24.4M domains down to 23.2M.  It all started on March 15, 1985 with the first .com domain name registered: symbolics.com and it is still active today: https://symbolics.com. Let’s look at the nearly forty years since and the current market circumstances around .com’s second annual decline in history.

Happy New Year! For a New gTLD, there is a substantial domain registration penalty for each character beyond three letters. Today we are going to look at the relationship between how many characters are in a new gTLD string vs the total number of domains under management. Prior to ICANN’s 2012 New gTLD Round 1, most TLDs were either two characters (ccTLDs) or three characters (.com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .xxx, .biz as examples). ICANN’s prior name expansion efforts did introduce longer gTLDs such as .coop, .info, .travel, .museum, .info, .aero and others. You can find a full list of all TLDs at dnib.com. Let’s look at what the ntldstats.com data tells us about the relationship between length of a new gTLD string and volume of domains registered.

It is always interesting to compare things at a high level to distinguish macro behaviors. Today let’s look at the top-traffic website for each of the Top 10 ccTLDs ranked by domain volume from the Domain Name Industry Brief. The .cn ccTLD of China is the largest ccTLD with 20.3M domains and the highest traffic website is the social media site weibo.cn. Germany’s (.de) top site is consumer-services amazon.de. The United Kingdom (.uk), The Netherlands (.nl), Russia (.ru) and Australia (.au) are all news-branded sites being bbc.co.uk, nu.nl, yandex.ru and news.com.au respectively. Brazil (.br), France (.fr) and Italy (.it) all have the country-instance of Google leading the way. The .eu ccTLD leads with the European Union Gateway government services site europa.eu.

The CEOs of CIRA and SIDN chose the suite of John Matson Consulting’s (JMC) “human-side” strategy tools to engage themselves and their organizations to complete a historic domain industry deal.

CIRA and SIDN, registries of the Canadian .CA domain and the Dutch .NL domain respectively, yesterday announced the formation of a new partnership to collaboratively develop, promote and support the current CIRA Registry Platform. John Matson Consulting supported both sides in the deal.

Byron Holland, CEO of CIRA (.CA) stated “John has been a trusted advisor to myself and CIRA for the past decade and was a key content contributor and intermediary to getting our historic deal with SIDN across the line. John’s strategy tools of Knowledge Wheel Framework, S3 Model, Exec-Pairing and 1:1 Coaching were crucial facilitation tools that enabled our two organizations to engage beyond the technical to create trust in a very short time.

Roelof Meijer, CEO of SIDN (.NL) stated “SIDN and CIRA needed to engage across an ocean and navigate deal complexities in a very short time. John and his human-side tools enabled us to candidly interact, find common ground and build trust. John’s tools and methods were a refreshing change that bridged international and cultural barriers.”

John Matson stated “I was delighted to be of service to CIRA and SIDN. I have the privilege to do what I love, assisting clients to achieve their goals using tools of strategy that engage their both their intellect and humanity.”

Today let’s take a break from data and enjoy a great explanation of an Internet registry. All of us have experienced the challenges of explaining Internet infrastructure to our friends and family. In 2012 JPRS (the .jp ccTLD Japan registry) created this video to save us the trouble. It is amazing that a service which daily underpins almost every aspect of our society can be so little understood. Enjoy this JPRS classic video. Hope to see you at ICANN Hamburg.

.tokyo leads all other “dot cities” in monthly traffic visits to all domains within the TLD. The .tokyo TLD receives over 84M visits per month compared to its nearest competitor .London at 34M visitors per month - over twice as many. .istanbul is third with 26M visitors, .nyc with 18M and .vegas rounds out the top 5 at 16M visitors. .berlin, .taipei, .Paris, .moscow and .madrid round out the top 10. Let’s look further at how city TLD traffic (usage) performance compares.

In 2012 there was significant uncertainty as to how ICANN’s New gTLD program would impact existing TLDs. This was to be the biggest expansion of the namespace since the creation of the Internet. There were three basic scenarios for how the New gTLDs could impact the existing .com, .net, other gTLDs and ccTLDs domain volumes.

1. No Impact – the New gTLDs are duds and do not gain significant traction

2. New Demand – the New gTLDs are successful, but they are “new demand” and do not harm existing TLDs.

3. Cannibalize Demand – The New gTLDs are successful, but the eat demand from other groups of existing TLDs

Let’s look at how growth and market share over time has shifted since the introduction of ICANN’s New gTLD program.

It has been over 10 years since ICANN launched the New gTLD program. Which New gTLD has been the most successful? Domain industry metrics would point to .xyz with over 3.6M domains under management or DUM as listed in the #1 position on www.ntldstats.com. ICANN launched the New gTLD program to give Internet users greater choice and bring innovation to the DNS industry. Several categories of New gTLDs applied: generics, geos and cities, communities and brands. Brand New gTLDs were the largest category of applications with over 500 applications. So today, let’s look at which is the most successful brand new gTLD. It might not be who you think.