.XYZ and .CLUB, closely followed by .BERLIN, are the extensions with the most registered domains at the end of 2014. .XYZ has surpassed 750,000 registrations, while .CLUB and .BERLIN have both crossed the 150,000 mark.
The full top 10: .XYZ, .CLUB, .BERLIN, .WANG (“network” in Chinese), .REALTOR, .GURU, .NYC, .OVH, and .LONDON. These figures come with an asterisk, though. There’s strong suspicion that Network Solutions, one of the world’s largest registrars, automatically assigned .XYZ domains to customers who already held the equivalent .COM name. Similarly, 1&1 offered its customers free .BERLIN domains for one year.
In total, more than 3.5 million domains are now registered across the 320 extensions open for general registration.
.BERLIN AND THE NEW GEOGRAPHIC DOMAINS
.BERLIN is leading the pack among geographic domains, those tied to a city or region. Analysts have high hopes for this category, since it gives local businesses memorable domains that clearly signal where they operate. In the top 10, geographic domains are represented by both .BERLIN and .NYC (New York). There are also early signs that geographic domains may perform better in local search results, which could give users a real reason to adopt and trust these extensions over time.
THE BATTLE AGAINST .COM
The central argument for launching new domain extensions has always been to provide alternatives to the growing scarcity of available .COM names. Yet while new domains have just crossed the 3.5 million mark, .COM already exceeds 115 million and has grown by more than 2 million in recent months alone. The new extensions still have a very long road ahead of them.
