How are new gTLDs being used?

The CSC® New gTLD Utilization Report

The CSC New gTLD Utilization Report is designed to update digital marketers and their peers in legal and IT about how new gTLDs are being adopted. We examine how .brand domains are being used and how effectively the new generic TLDs are penetrating the AlexaTM top one million websites (a potential indicator for TLD utilization).

SEPTEMBER

2016Date range: Research prepared by: With editorial by:

1 September – 8 September 2016 CSC’s Brand Advisory Team Vincent D’AngeloDirector, Brand Advisory Team

SUMMARY

DOT BRANDS

NEW GENERIC

TLDs

.NEUSTAR.中信/.CITIC

.NRA.BNPPARIBAS

.MMA

.BRADESCO

73%

107ACTIVE DOT BRANDSWITH MORE THAN 5

REGISTRATIONS

MOST ACTIVE DOT BRANDS BY

REGISTRATIONS

54DOT BRANDS

WITH ALEXA RANKING

69% SINCE LAST REPORT

63%DOT BRAND UTILIZATION

SINCE LAST REPORT

.MCDONALDS.MASERATI

.WALMART

RECENTLY DELEGATED DOT BRANDS

WWWMAIL

CAREERSSUPPORT

HOME

TOP FIVE TERMS TO THE LEFT OF THE DOT

.TOP

.WANG

.WIN

.CLUB

.XYZ

.SITE

TOP 10 BY VOLUME CSC’S ALTERNATIVE TOP 10

.LINK

.BID

.ONLINE

.YIP

.SEXY

.TODAY

.TOKYO

.HOST

.MEDIA

.ONLINE

.PRESS

.LIFE

.GURU

.NEWS

14,098

NUMBER OF NEW GTLDS IN THE

ALEXA TOP 1M

19% SINCE LAST REPORT

UNFILTERED.NEWS/ABOUT.HTML

MICROSOFT.BAND

VOLVOCE.VIDEO

INTERESTING NEW GTLDS IN USE

FROM

NEW GENERIC TLDS

Alexa.com (an Amazon® company) ranks websites based on their estimated traffic.

The Alexa Top 1M is a listing of the million most popular sites on the web based on traffic, and has been commonly used by the domain industry for many years.

Although it has certain reporting anomalies (such as the long tail effect)2, it is a proxy for utilization.

What is the Alexa Top 1M?14,098

NUMBER OF NEW GTLDS IN THE ALEXA TOP 1M

SINCE LAST REPORT

In this section of the report, we will continue sharing observations for the top 100 new gTLDs by registration volume. Our New gTLD Indicator1 helps gauge the relative value of the new gTLDs and compares them with .com. We are aware that factors such as TLD launch dates will skew the results a bit in the short term and that certain TLDs require special consideration.

There are several nice examples of new gTLD utilization by major brand owners, and the websites inthewild.domains and showcase.ninja (operated by Rightside registry) do a nice job collating creative uses of domains. Here are a few recent brand uses of the new gTLDs that also piqued my interest:

• volvoCE.video (Volvo Construction Equipment uses the .video domain extension as a social redirect to its official Youtube channel)

• unfiltered.news/about.html (Operated by Google® tech incubator, Jigsaw)

• microsoft.band (Microsoft® is promoting their fitness tracker with an exact match .band domain)

Among the Top 10 TLDs by registration volume, .online had the highest New gTLD Indicator score (73) followed by .site with an indicator score of 38.

It is also interesting to note that four (.top, .win, .link, and .bid) out of the Top 10 TLDs by registration volume are also flagged by ntldstats.com/fraud as being the Top Suspicious TLDs with the highest number of domains potentially implicated with fraud. The others on their suspicious TLDs list are .loan, .click, .trade, .download, .accountant, and .stream. In addition, it was recently reported by The Spamhaus Project (spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/) that the following extensions have a high ratio of SPAM domains: .top, .link, .click, .science, .gdn, .date, .review, .download, .accountant, and .stream.

TLD Registration Volume3

Number of Domains in Alexa 1M4

New gTLD Indicator1

.xyz 6,491,775 3,137 13

.top 3,571,350 942 7

.wang 1,061,435 51 1.win 1,015,577 104 3.club 801,327 1,151 37.site 475,930 686 38.vip 449,296 38 2.link 406,302 299 19.bid 404,813 90 6

.online 390,902 1,082 73

CSC ALTERNATIVE TOP 10In CSC’s Alternative Top 10, which considers Alexa rankings alongside the TLD’s registration volume, seven of the top TLDs remained the same (.media, .today, .online, .news, .press, .life, and .guru). The new entrants to the list are .sexy, .tokyo, and .host. At the top of the charts for the number one spot is .media.

TLD Registration Volume3

Number of Domains in Alexa 1M4

New gTLD Indicator1

.media 28,334 109 101.sexy 26,881 103 100

.today 55,639 192 91

.tokyo 51,479 154 79

.host 28,714 82 75

.online 390,902 1082 73.news 80,601 210 68.press 40,035 98 64.life 42,739 102 63

.guru 60,638 138 60

.商标 TLD

In this section, we will be featuring industry observations or statistics about a specific TLD’s utilization. The intent of this section is to simply consider the available options for brand owners versus promote the new gTLDs over .com or other TLDs.

There is now a significant and growing middle class in China who actually want to buy genuine brand merchandise, but finding authentic brand merchandise or services, especially online, is challenging. The .商标 TLD (“. Shangbiao,” meaning “dot trademark” in Simplified Chinese) was established by Dot Trademark Registry as an online trademark symbol, “to help brands establish official trusted websites, where Chinese consumers can easily find authentic brands online.”

To accomplish this, all registrants of “.商标” domains are required to provide proof of their registered trademark. Visitors to .商标 websites, therefore, can trust that the actual brand is associated with the site. Over 7,000 brands have already registered their names in both Roman and Chinese characters. Since many brands do not sell directly at retail, some are using their .商标 domain to list and link to authorized dealers and distributors.

If you are doing business in China, plan to do business there, or want to protect your trademark, you may want to consider registering .商标 domains for each of your core brands.

TLDS IN FOCUS

TOP 10 BY REGISTRATIONSOBSERVATIONS

WHAT ARE THE TOP 10 NEW GTLDS FOR YOUR BRAND?Request a complimentary new gTLD analysis to find out.

CSC Digital Brand Services | New gTLD Utilization Report

19%

DOT BRANDS

Some industry experts are focusing on the number of brands that have fully migrated away from .com to .brand as the gauge of the program’s success. As the largest provider of .brand registrar and advisory services, CSC Digital Brand Services doesn’t agree with an all or nothing approach. With any new digital channel, brand owners need to evaluate the potential impact on consumer behavior, branding, compliance, security, and innovation before making widespread changes. In essence, their .brand should become part of their digital asset inventory which can be leveraged as a tool to capitalize on opportunities or to mitigate a risk. The .brand implementation strategy is very specific to each organization and there is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Some new examples of .brand utilization that caught my attention this month include:

• uk.fage and usa.fage (Luxembourg dairy company)

» Leveraging .fage geo domains for its U.S. and UK websites

• gady.mini (British automobile manufacturer owned by BMW)

» Leveraging .mini for its dealer websites

• buzz.shell (Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company)

» Leveraging .shell to promote its app

• aaa.aaa (American non-profit member service organization)

» Leveraging .aaa to create a directory for local clubs

• sanki.komatsu (Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures construction, mining, and military equipment)

» Leveraging .komatsu to position the breadth of their product and service offering

The current top three most active industries for .brand utilization with more than five registrations are:

Industry # of Active Dot Brands

Finance and money 13

Construction, engineering, and equipment

13

Internet services 9

In this section, we will be focusing on the number of “active” .brands (those with five or more registrations) as an insightful measure of participation by .brand owners. With 570 .brand TLDs now delegated in the root zone, we are constantly seeing more .brand websites being launched or redirected to existing websites with participation across all industries. Recent additions to the list of delegated .brands include .walmart, .mcdonalds, and .maserati.

The majority of .brand registrations have been primarily in the following TLDs:

Number of Domains TLD

1,735 .mma (French insurance social network)

504.neustar (American information and analytics provider)

339.中信/.citic (Chinese multi-industry conglomerate)

143 .nra (American nonprofit organization)

120.bnpparibas (French bank and financial services company)

108.bradesco (Brazilian financial services provider)

As the largest provider of .brand registrar and advisory services, CSC Digital Brand Services is actively assisting clients with technical implementation, naming strategies, deployment plans, and data analysis related to launching and maintaining their new .brand asset. One of the key considerations in relation to .brand utilization is naming strategy. Our brand advisory experts share best practices in relation to this topic as well as others that will have implications to SEO and search marketing in general.

107 ACTIVE .BRANDSSome of the most commonly used terms to the left of the dot, with 10 or more references are:

[home], [www], [mail], [careers], [cloud], [support], and [news]

NEW DOT BRANDS IN USE

LEFT OF THE DOT

MOST ACTIVE DOT BRAND REGISTRATIONS

DOT BRAND ACTIVITY

DOT BRANDS BY INDUSTRY

BEST PRACTICES

CSC Digital Brand Services | New gTLD Utilization Report

DOT BRANDS

1. New gTLD Indicator: In order to assess a new gTLD’s relative penetration of the Alexa 1M, we developed a simple ratio which compares the number of domains for the TLD in the Alexa 1M with the registration volume for the TLD. We then indexed the ratio against .com (assigned a score of 100), which is currently the most globally utilized TLD.

2. Please note that data may be skewed by the fact that website migrations from existing domains may have already ranked for the related keywords, and there may be reporting anomalies from the Alexa.com data set related to the long tail effect: support.alexa.com/hc/en-us/articles/200449614.

3. Source: ntldstats.com4. Source: s3.amazonaws.com (Alexa 1M list). Please note that this does not include sub-domains.5. Source: semrush.com6. Source: namestat.org7. Source: spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/

CSC Digital Brand Services | New gTLD Utilization Report

Current Alexa

Position

Previous Alexa

Position Dot Brand Domain

3,222 3,226 mabanque.bnpparibas (French bank and financial services company)

3,517 3,258 banco.bradesco (Brazilian financial services provider)

19,017 17,447 domains.google (American multinational technology company)

42,829 N/Aglobal.canon (Japanese manufacturer of imaging and optical products)

43,275 53,700 mabanquepro.bnpparibas (French bank and financial services company)

45,144 113,811www.uol (Brazilian online services provider)

62,036 N/Agroup.bnpparibas (French bank and financial services company)

64,162 87,026 home.cern (European research organization)

71,224 91,392 home.barclays (British financial services provider)

102,508 130,930 study.monash (Australian university)

Proponents of .brand domains have suggested that websites using the domains will provide Google with signals that they are authentic, and that this may influence search engine rankings. We have looked at a few .brands that either have an Alexa ranking or were referenced above as new examples of .brand utilization to see which keywords they are ranking with in Google.

Google

Although Google has not confirmed that .brand domains are finally starting to influence search engine rankings, we noticed that one of Google’s registered .brand domains ranks first or in the first several pages for the matching keyword. With that being said, the Brand Advisory Team at CSC Digital Brand Services will continue to monitor with interest how .brands are performing in search.

Merck

The gTLD “magazine.emerck” has managed to rank in the first several pages of Google.com for the following competitive non-branded keywords: [multiple sclerosis magazine] and [information technology magazine].

BMW

Also, “next100.bmw” continues to rank in the first several pages on Google.com for non-branded keywords that receive greater than 1,000 monthly searches: [the next 100 years].

63% of registered .brand domains now have properly configured DNS zone files. We will continue to see an oscillation in this metric as the pace of registrations varies over time.

54 69% INCREASE SINCE OUR MAY REPORT 63% DOWN FROM 73% IN

OUR LAST REPORT

DOT BRANDS IN SEARCH

DOT BRANDS WITH AN ALEXA RANKING DOMAIN UTILIZATION

TO VIEW ONLINE, VISIT NEWGTLD.REPORTDO YOU NEED ADVICE ON YOUR .BRAND?Request a CSC Dot Brand Strategic Analysis.

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