ICANN releases study detailing awareness of new TLDs

Jun 9, 2015 11:31 GMT  ·  By

A study conducted by Nielsen at the request of ICANN shows how most people are still unaware and distrust new Top Level Domain (TLD) extensions like .email, .link, .party, .photo, .systems, .tips, or .wiki.

Introduced in late 2013, the new wave of generic TLDs now comprises over 600 entries, from the weirder .xyz and .ninja, to common extensions like .marketing, .club and .agency.

Questioning over 6,100 users in 24 countries, the Nielsen study reveals what we expected. Old domain extensions like .com, .net, and .org are common knowledge for 98% of all respondents while newer TLDs only for 46%.

This was to be expected since the marketing for these domains is left in the responsibility of domain registrars, which haven't actually been putting the focus on the new TLDs, still focusing on already established extensions.

.email is a popular extension

Asked what would be the TLD they'd consider using for a website in the upcoming future, out of the classic TLDs, .com (79%), .net (61%), and .org (48%) were clear winners, while from the newer batch .email (40%), .link (36%), and .club (30%) were the top choices.

Not many of these new TLDs were visited though, with only 65% of all respondents actually accessing at least one of the newer extensions.

On the bright side, the words used in most cases to describe new TLD extensions were useful, informative, helpful, practical, interesting and innovative.

Expect these percentages to grow once users realize that common words and expressions are free to register in these newer TLDs, something older domains like .com stopped being helpful for since the start of the 2000s.

The full study is 125 pages deep and provides additional statistics about consumer trust in the Domain Name industry, the type of devices used to surf the Web, URL shorteners, abusive Internet behavior and cyber-crime.

Awareness of new TLDs
Awareness of new TLDs

Most new domain name extensions are still unknown (10 Images)

Awareness of TLDs
Intent to visit among those awareAwareness of domain extensions
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