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Zoom domain registrations skyrocket
Some of the registrations are for bad purposes.
Zoom is zooming in domain registrations. This chart from Verisign’s DomainScope shows a surge in domain registrations containing the word zoom.
Videoconferencing solution Zoom is having its moment as millions of people work from home and kids take classes from their bedrooms.
My daughter is now getting instruction on Zoom the majority of the school day. My wife and I use the service throughout the day for meetings and conference calls.
Zoom is becoming a verb, much like “google it” became another phrase for “search it”.
With this, the number of domain names registered with the word zoom in them has skyrocketed. The picture above is a 90-day look at registrations in .com and .net that contain the word Zoom, according to Verisign’s DomainScope tool.
There are legitimate reasons to register domains with the word “zoom” in them. The videoconferencing company doesn’t have a lock on the term. Many of the 5 to 15 daily registrations earlier this year were for uses unrelated to the videoconferencing company.
But the spike in recent weeks is directly related to the Zoom bonanza.
Some of these registrations could be legitimate, even if they might run afoul of trademark rules. For example, someone registered OnlineZoomMediations(.)com. Another person registered ZoomwithLila(.)com, which forwards to the person’s Zoom instance. It looks to be an easy way for people to connect with her, much like an easy-to-remember Facebook or YouTube URL.
Other registrations are by nefarious actors trying to hack people. Check Point Software says that 4% of the registrations have suspicious characteristics.
From a domain name perspective, the surge in Zoom’s popularity might also help the .US top level domain. Zoom bought Zoom.com in 2018 but still uses Zoom.us for its website.
Post link: Zoom domain registrations skyrocket
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Categories: Domains
End user research helps me decide whether to acquire a domain
Kassey Lee explains the process he went through when evaluating an expired domain for purchase.
I was watching Godaddy Auctions today and found the expiring domain YogaYoung.com. Since “yoga” is a popular keyword, I decided to look into this domain.
First, I checked LinkedIn but found no company using the name “Yoga Young”. Google search gave no hope either.
However, dotDB, a site that shows registered domains containing a word/second level domain, reported 12 matches. dotDB has a nice feature I like — the matches have links. By installing the Snap Links extension to my Firefox browser, I can open the links and check their websites all at once.
The result was the discovery of two operating websites: YogaYoungistan.com and YogaYoung.cn.
Since YogaYoungistan.com already matches its brand Yoga Youngistan, there is no motivation for the company to change its domain to YogaYoung.com which is not brand-matching after all.
Nevertheless, YogaYoung.cn looked promising at first because Chinese companies like to upgrade from .cn to .com.
The home page design paints a solid company and the photos show a professional team and active yoga classes. However, even if you don’t read Chinese, you can see the name “Maya Yoga” prominently displayed at several locations. Thus, we can conclude that Maya Yoga is their brand and therefore upgrade from YogaYoung.cn to YogaYoung.com is unlikely because they are not brand-matching.
Based on this research, I decided not to acquire YogaYoung.com because I could not find any potential end users for it.
Post link: End user research helps me decide whether to acquire a domain
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Loco UDRP ends in reverse domain name hijacking
Tech company tries to hijack domain name registered in 1999.
A Brazilian technology company has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in its effort to get the domain name InLoco.com. The Complainant, In Loco Tecnologia da Informação S.A., uses InLoco.com.br for its website.
The phrase “in loco” is a common Latin phrase meaning “in the place” or “in the right or proper spot”. (Loco also means “crazy” in Spanish, and loco is an apt description of this case.)
The owner of the domain name registered it in 1999, well before the Complainant was established in 2014. In Loco Tecnologia attempted to acquire the domain name from the registrant before filing the UDRP complaint.
After filing the complaint, In Loco Tenologia tried to withdraw it. But the domain name owner said he’d only consent to this if it was with prejudice, meaning that it couldn’t be filed again at a later date. He also wanted the panel to rule on reverse domain name hijacking.
The three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel agreed with the domain name owner:
To allow a complainant to simply withdraw a complaint without prejudice after a response has been filed would allow for the possibility of a complainant refiling a complaint against the same respondent at a later point. Such “eleventh hour withdrawals” of complaints without prejudice invites the filing of potentially abusive complaints for strategic reasons.
It found that the Complainant had no chance of winning the case and attempted reverse domain name hijacking.
Post link: Loco UDRP ends in reverse domain name hijacking
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Flatten.ca: a great domain and great idea
College students registered Flatten.ca to help flatten the curve in Canada.
Canadian college students started Flatten.ca to monitor COVID-19 cases.
We’ve all heard of “flattening the curve” by now. Some Canadian college students have created a website to contribute to the effort, and they chose a great domain for it.
The students, who are home from college due to the COVID-19 crisis, hand-registered Flatten.ca on March 19. They’ve turned it into a site where people can self-report COVID-19 symptoms. The site turns this into a heat map of potential cases and hotspots, which augments official data on verified cases.
I like this story for a couple of reasons. First, it’s great that these college students have found something helpful to do while not at college. Second, I like how they chose this simple (and available) domain to launch their website. The domain name states the objective and is easy to remember.
(Thanks Bill Sweetman for bringing this to my attention.)
Post link: Flatten.ca: a great domain and great idea
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Adjusting to the downturn and going virtual – DNW Podcast #279
Here’s how one investor is thinking about his domain portfolio in light of the economic downturn.
Domain name investor Page Howe returns to the program this week. Page talks about how he’s managing his portfolio in light of the coronavirus bust, and how the shift to web-based work could change things. He also discusses an upcoming virtual domain name conference he’s organizing.
Also: Verisign gets its price hike, coronavirus domain names, and it’s not all doom and gloom on the domain sale front.
Sponsor: Name.com
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)
Post link: Adjusting to the downturn and going virtual – DNW Podcast #279
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Opera to support alt-root .Crypto domain names
Opera users can now visit alt-root .crypto domain names from their browser.
Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain-based domain name system alternative, announced today that the Opera browser for Android will support its .crypto domain name.
.Crypto is an alternate-root domain name, meaning it’s not part of the domain name system that most people use. Users need to use a supported browser or browser plugin in order for the domains to resolve to a website.
Opera’s Android app is the first browser to support the domain names. The app already has a built-in crypto wallet, so it’s a natural fit for the domain. The app has been downloaded over 3 million times from the Google Play store.
Unstoppable Domains’ top level domains can also be accessed in Chrome if the user installs an extension.
Like most alt-root domain names, the biggest struggle to adoption is that the domains don’t work universally. While Unstoppable Domains faces this challenge, it has a unique advantage selling point compared to the alt-root challengers of decades ago: blockchain. Its domain names work with some cryptocurrency wallets in addition to functioning as website addresses, and it pitches its domains as immune from censorship.
Eventually, we should see a .crypto domain name on the “real” DNS. I suspect multiple parties will apply for the domain name in the next round of top level domain expansion. This will create a conflict with Unstoppable Domains’ .crypto domain.
Unstoppable Domains has 200,000 paid domain registrations across its top level domains, which include .zil and .crypto.
Post link: Opera to support alt-root .Crypto domain names
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Breaking: ICANN and Verisign agree to .com extension with 7% price hikes
The only surprise was how fast it happened after the comment report was published.
Did you have time to digest ICANN’s staff report on comments about the .com price hike? It was published yesterday. Today, Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) and ICANN agreed to the amendment as planned.
The agreement will allow Verisign to increase the price of .com domains by 7% per year in the last four years of each six-year extension. The first price increase would be allowed at the end of October 2020, but Verisign has already stated it won’t raise prices during this calendar year.
Verisign also agreed to pay ICANN an additional $4 million per year for five years beginning January 1, 2021.
Post link: Breaking: ICANN and Verisign agree to .com extension with 7% price hikes
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ICANN publishes .com price hike report
Staff justification report echoes its previous comments, as well as Verisign’s.
ICANN has published a review of comments submitted about its proposed contract amendment with Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for .com. The most controversial aspect of the amendment is allowing Verisign to increase the price of .com domains by 7% per year in the last four of every six years of contract extension.
The staff report (pdf) reads more like a justification, even defending itself against some of the comments made. In its analysis of comments about the price hike, staff comments that one of the objectives of the amendment is to align it with Verisign’s Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Government. That agreement now gives ICANN the option to allow Verisign to raise prices. It also repeats its mantra that it’s not a price regulator even though it has controlled prices on some domains for years, and still does with .net.
Oddly, the staff report adopts some of the language that Verisign introduced in its own submission (pdf). Verisign stated that the groundswell of comments about the amendment came from “domain name speculators” and groups that align with them. The staff report states:
One of the reasons for the high volume of comments is that several organizations involved in the speculation sector of domain name industry mobilized their members and customers to
submit comments to ICANN.
The staff report also notes that many industry blogs, including Domain Name Wire, anticipated these price increases due to the Cooperative Agreement amendment. This also mirrors Verisign’s letter.
Earlier this week, Verisign announced that it would not raise prices this calendar year. Kevin Murphy of DomainIncite noted that the fourth year of Verisign’s current agreement doesn’t start until October 21, 2020. So this might just be a two-month reprieve. Verisign will need to give a six-month notice of its first price hike. I suspect it will “read the room” around the current status of the COVID-19 outbreak before announcing its first price hike but it will definitely happen before the fourth year is up in October 2021.
Post link: ICANN publishes .com price hike report
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Traffic up, domain inquiries down at Efty in wake of pandemic
Efty reports that domain name purchase inquiries were down last month.
Visits are up but inquiries are down at Efty.
What’s happening to aftermarket domain name inquiries in the wake of the pandemic and asset market plunge?
For most people, it’s hard to look at their portfolio and draw any conclusions. But domain name sales platform Efty has a large dataset to start drawing some conclusions.
Efty says that inquiries were down 14.5% in March compared to February. It notes that traffic to for-sale landing pages was up, though; it was up 37% month-over-month. The company thinks this is because more of our daily lives have shifted online. It notes that internet usage is up 50% in some parts of the world.
(If your company has access to other relevant data to show the impact of the pandemic, please contact me at andrew (at) domainnamewire.com.)
Post link: Traffic up, domain inquiries down at Efty in wake of pandemic
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Shop.app domain name sells for $200,000
Shop.app, a domain on Google’s .app top level domain, sold for $200,000.
Sedo has brokered the sale of shop.app for $200,000.
This is the highest sale ever reported for a .app domain name, which is a domain name extension introduced by Google in 2018. According to NameBio, the top sales to date include ZB.app for $91,000, Support.app for $30,000 and Dispatch.app for $15,000.
It’s still a far cry from the top sales across new top level domains in general, though. Several domains have sold for a half million or more including online.casino, vacation.rentals and home.loans.
Shop.app is currently being transferred to the new owner.
Shopify is a potential buyer—it owns the domain name ShopApp.com.
There are currently 680,000 registered .app domain names in the zone file.
Post link: Shop.app domain name sells for $200,000
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Namecheap integrates Sedo MLS fast transfer
Sedo MLS expands reach with Namecheap integration.
Domain name registrar Namecheap has integrated with Sedo’s fast transfer system, making it easier for Namecheap customers to buy domains listed on Sedo.
Namecheap already listed Sedo domains for sale, but customers had to go to Sedo.com to complete a purchase. Now, they can purchase domains through the standard checkout process at Namecheap and have the domains transferred into their Namecheap account.
This is a boon for domain name sellers that use Sedo MLS. Namecheap is the seventh-largest registration company in terms of .com domains registered. The integration should boost sales of Sedo MLS inventory.
Sedo has 19 million domains listed for sale and over five million of these are opted-in to the fast transfer system.
This is a one-way deal, though. Domain investors who are Namecheap customers cannot opt-in to have their domains in the Sedo MLS fast transfer system as of right now.
Post link: Namecheap integrates Sedo MLS fast transfer
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Companies help people stop wasting money on COVID-19 domain names
Companies are making it harder to register and sell crisis-related domains. You should thank them.
Domain name registrar Namecheap has stopped allowing domain names including the words coronavirus, covid, and vaccine from being registered through its service.
Domain name marketplace DAN.com is removing all coronavirus domain names from its service.
These two developments might irk people trying to profit from tragedy, but these people should thank the companies instead. Why? They’re saving them from registering worthless domain names. And looking like a schmuck.
Namecheap’s move will also help stem the tide of people registering coronavirus domains to peddle fake remedies and undertake other scams. Of course, it’s easy to just switch to a registrar that will look the other way. But kudos to Namecheap for not wanting to have any part in it.
There are legitimate reasons to register domains related to the pandemic. Just ask Oracle.
But for the bulk of people out there: just stop.
Post link: Companies help people stop wasting money on COVID-19 domain names
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How 151.com could be used
151.com, which recently sold for $415,000, could have a lot of uses in China.
A couple of days ago I read in Namebio that the numeric domain 151.com sold for $415,000. While I have not come across any business in the west using a numeric domain, it is quite common in China.
In terms of price, 151.com is certainly not the most expensive 3N domain ever sold. For example, Namebio reports 114.com at $2.1 million (2013) and 588.com at $1 million (2015). However, 151.com has the highest price in the last four years.
Similar domains are already used in corporate China. The 2019 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report indicates two companies preferring such domains. No. 9 360 Total Security (三六零安全科技) is an internet security company operating from 360.com. The number 360 suggests comprehensive services covering all aspects of security. No. 92 Chuang Lan (创蓝) provides SMS services from 253.com. Apparently, there is no connection between Chuang Lan and the number 253 and no meaning is attached to the domain.
151.com is a good domain in my opinion. It’s well balanced on both ends with 1, and 5 sits in the middle between 0 and 10. The number starts with 1, rises to 5, and then comes back to 1. This pattern makes the number relatively easy to remember.
If you want to create a Chinese meaning for the numeric domain, there are many choices. In the list below, I have come up with brands that rhyme with the number 151.
Chinese Pinyin Meaning Application 医我医 Yi Wo Yi Give me medical treatment Medical services 衣物衣 Yi Wu Yi Clothing Fashion 易玩易 Yi Wan Yi Easy to play Games 摇舞摇 Yao Wu Yao Rock and dance Dance school 依我依 Yi Wo Yi Rely on me ConsultingPost link: How 151.com could be used
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COVID-19 drives end user domain name sales
Companies are buying domains in response to the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is driving end user domain name sales, it’s just not for garbage domain names people have registered in recent weeks.
Consider SchoolToGo.com, a domain purchased by an initiative to help educate kids who are at home due to school closures. Or MedVideo.de, which, for now, is gearing up to provide information about the pandemic.
Sedo sold WashYourHands.com for $17,500 this week. The domain sale is clearly because of the pandemic, but it’s not yet clear who bought it. VMeet .com is probably for an online conference service or something similar. It’s still pending transfer, but I suspect it’s an end user that bought this domain for $17,995.
As a side note, Sedo has a 4 Letter .com auction starting Thursday.
Here’s a look at some of the domains end users bought at Sedo this past week. You can review previous end user sales lists here.
Cico.com €45,000 – It seems that an individual in China bought this domain for his personal site.
Giftee.com $20,000 – Giftee, Inc. is a Japanese company that enables people to give gifts electronically, just as a Starbucks drink coupon. It uses the domain name Giftee.co.
FTW.org $7,500 – The buyer is in the Arizona startup scene.
Ainos.com $5,000 – AI Nose is a Chinese company with a product for discovering smells for things like air quality and the presence of gases. Note that the domain it purchased is Ainos, not AInose. The latter domain is parked.
SchoolToGo.com $5,000 – Forwards to SchoolToGo.de. This website launched as a result of recent school closures to provide educational activities to students 6-18 years old.
UHR.org €5,000 – This domain is for Ultra HR, an online HR management tool. Companies can use this platform to manage and report on their various teams including administrative tasks like vacation time scheduling and time clock modules.
VGCX.com $3,500 – Victoria Gold Corp manages Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold Mine, located in central Yukon, Canada. It forwards this domain to its website vitgoldcorp.com.
Drager.com.cn $3,000 – Forwards to Draeger.com. Draeger, Inc. is an international medical and safety products company.
MedVideo.de €2,500 – This website is still in development but it will deliver daily updates and information regarding COVID-19.
MediNow.de €2,500 – Forwards to Savit.de, which sells store systems for pharmacies, labs and clinics.
GoSwordfish .com $2,499 – Swordfish Prime Services Ltd purchased this domain. It will provide financial information.
Post link: COVID-19 drives end user domain name sales
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Chinese registrars are very active in new top level domains
Kassey Lee analyzes how Chinese registrars account for a large portion of new top level domain registrations.
New top level domain names, such as .best, .rich, and .guru, began rolling out at the end of 2013.
According to nTLDstats.com, there are about 34 million new top level domains registered across 1,187 new extensions at 372 registrars. The site also displays a list of the 372 registrars and their market shares. For our study, I have selected the top 10 registrars, as shown below.
Rank Registrar Domains Share 1 Alibaba 5,426,279 15.90% 2 GoDaddy 3,253,218 9.53% 3 NameCheap 2,827,229 8.28% 4 West263 2,742,342 8.04% 5 GMO 2,150,271 6.30% 6 West.cn 1,839,191 5.39% 7 Eranet 1,717,788 5.03% 8 WebNic.cc 1,435,744 4.21% 9 NameSilo 800,547 2.35% 10 CentralNic 767,804 2.25%Because West263 also belongs to West.cn, essentially two Chinese registrars — Alibaba and West.cn — together capture about 29% of the new extensions. Chinese domain investors have been active since the early launches of new extensions. This might have been because there was a feeling that they were late to the .com game, so they hoped to lead in the new frontier of the domain space. New top level domain registries also pitched new TLDs as an investment in China and often offered low-priced registrations in the region.
While it is still debatable whether the new extensions are a success or not, there have been some great sales. In 2019, for example, Free.games was sold for $335,000, ZB.app for $91,000, and Business.club for $60,936. You can find more sales data at Namebio.
As years go by, it is becoming difficult to justify still calling these extensions “new.” Unfortunately, so far, there is no consensus on what to call them, so they’ll remain to be called “new” extensions.
Post link: Chinese registrars are very active in new top level domains
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Breaking: Verisign won’t raise .com prices this year
Even if ICANN gives the company the nod, it won’t raise prices this year.
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .com and .net domain names, won’t raise prices for its domain names this year.
In an announcement on its blog, the company announced the price freeze in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of right now, Verisign can’t raise prices on .com anyway. However, ICANN is widely expected to allow Verisign to increase .com prices 7% this year. It’s not known if ICANN planned to delay its decision due to the pandemic.
Freezing .com prices for the year won’t have much of an impact on Verisign’s bottom line for the current year. Even if ICANN decided next month to allow the company to raise prices, it would have to wait 6 months before implementing the change. At the earliest, it would be able to raise prices in October.
What remains to be seen is if Verisign will ask for the right to increase prices twice (or double) next year due to this year’s freeze. That might require approval by the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The company is also rolling out a program to registrars that may help registrants keep their domains if they aren’t able to pay for them due to the pandemic.
Post link: Breaking: Verisign won’t raise .com prices this year
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Verisign gets IDN homograph detection patent
System would help detect homograph attacks shortly after domains are registered.
Examples of domains that could be used in homograph attacks. Image from Verisign patent.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 10,599,836 (pdf) to Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for “Identification of visual international domain name collisions.”
The patent describes a way to detect a “homograph attack”. A homograph attack is when someone creates a mixed-script domain name that is visually similar to another domain name. Many top level domain names allow registrants to register domain names that include more than one script in an internationalized domain name. For example:
…a malicious entity could register the IDN “xn- -oogle-wmc .com” via a registration service. When a web browser displays this IDN, the punycode element “-wmc” would direct the web browser to place a Latin small capital letter “G” in front of the characters “oogle”—resulting in the domain name Googl e.com. Users accessing Google .com would then be directed to the IDN registered by the malicious user rather than to the expected home page of google.com.
To detect homograph attacks, the patent suggests turning the domain name into an image and then using optical character recognition to look for similarities.
The patent is similar to one that Morgan Stanley recently applied for.
Homographs are a big issue with IDNs. Donuts, which operates over 200 top level domains, includes homograph protection in its Domains Protected Marks List product and plans to expand its homograph protections in the future.
Post link: Verisign gets IDN homograph detection patent
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MMX swings to profit in 2019, 25% revenue growth
MMX (Minds + Machines) had a good year in 2019, and 2020 looks solid barring COVID-19 impact.
Accounting wise, 2018 was a bad year for new top level domain name company MMX (London AIM: MMX). It wrote off $11.3 million related to a contract to run .London, had bad debt write-offs of $2.1 million, and one-off costs of $1.4 million. It lost $12.6 million for the year.
The good news is that this pushed a lot of water under the bridge, making 2019 a stellar year for the company, as detailed in the company’s annual report.
In 2019, MMX reported a profit of $4.7 million, or 0.51 cents per share.
Sure, that was helped by a couple of accounting gains, but anyway you look at it, 2019 was a much better year for the company.
Revenue increased 25% to $18.9 million, helped in part by a full year of the contribution of ICM Registry, a business it acquired in 2018.
Renewal revenue was $11.7 million, or 62% of the total.
Operating EBITDA was up 79% to $6.4 million.
And Adultblock, a new brand protection product related to the ICM Registry portfolio, generated $1.1 million in recognized revenue during the last two months of 2019.
While ICM had a lot to do with MMX’s changed fortunes, the company also saw positive movement in some of its other top level domains. In Q4, .VIP grew by over 360,000 registrations. Importantly, 267,000 of these were standard sales at GoDaddy. (Read: not heavily discounted sales to China.)
In its annual report, the company notes that it is closely watching the impact of COVID-19. For now, it expects the immediate-term impact to be on one-off brokered sales but those account for less than 10% of the company’s sales.
As it monitors the impact, the company has delayed its decision on a previously-announced dividend until September. In the meantime, it’s going forward with share buybacks of its (now cheaper) shares.
MMX’s report is perhaps the first financial report by a publicly-traded domain name company in the wake of the spread of COVID-19. While the company is hopeful, it provides caution that everyone in the domain business should heed:
“But to believe that we are fully insulated from the global crisis would be unwise.”
Post link: MMX swings to profit in 2019, 25% revenue growth
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Let’s add these 2 questions to UDRP complaints
It would avoid a lot of reverse domain name hijacking findings.
There are two common things I see in UDRP filings that trip up Complainants and often end in findings of reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH).
- The Complainant files a UDRP against a domain name that was registered by the Respondent before the Complainant existed or had trademark rights.
- The Complainant refers to a case involving Octogen Pharmacal Company, Inc, or other cases that argue “retroactive bad faith.”
The latest example is Kevac S.r.l’s filing for the domain name Kevac.com. At best, it had weak arguments for a common law trademark that pre-dated the domain registration. It also referred to the retroactive bad faith cases. While some panelists agreed with retroactive bad faith a long, long time ago, the argument has been widely panned since then.
Kevac lost the UDRP and was found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking.
Reverse domain name hijacking is bad for the Complainant. It wastes time, money, and legal resources and the company is labeled a reverse domain name hijacker. It’s also bad for the domain name owner, who must pay to defend the case.
Many RDNH cases could be avoided if the UDRP form added two questions to the submission.
- Does your trademark pre-date the Respondent’s registration of the domain name, or is there a good reason the domain name owner would have known of your brand prior to registering the domain name?
- Do you cite the Octogen case?
If the answer to the first question is no or the second one is yes, the UDRP provider could explain that the case is probably weak and might result in a reverse domain name hijacking finding.
This would have caused Kevac to think twice before filing its dispute, even if it had already been warned by the domain owner’s attorney.
In the instant case, Kevac was represented by LS LexJus Sinacta and the domain owner was represented by Muscovitch Law P.C.
Post link: Let’s add these 2 questions to UDRP complaints
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China has 21 of top 50 global sites based on Alexa Rank
China has a large share of the most-trafficked sites on the web.
Alexa.com gives you a big picture of the most popular websites in the world. If you go to the Alexa.com/topsites page, you’ll get the top 50 sites — or the top 500 for paid membership. Below is the top 50 list with domains in China indicated.
1 Google.com – 2 Youtube.com – 3 Tmall.com China 4 Facebook.com – 5 Baidu.com China 6 QQ.com China 7 Sohu.com China 8 Login.tmall.com China 9 Taobao.com China 10 Yahoo.com – 11 360.cn China 12 JD.com China 13 Wikipedia.org – 14 Amazon.com – 15 Sina.com.cn China 16 Weibo.com China 17 Pages.tmall.com China 18 Reddit.com – 19 Live.com – 20 Netflix.com – 21 Okezone.com – 22 Xinhuanet.com China 23 VK.com – 24 Blogspot.com – 25 CSDN.net China 26 Alipay.com China 27 Office.com – 28 Instagram.com – 29 Yahoo.co.jp – 30 Microsoft.com – 31 Bing.com – 32 Google.com.hk China 33 Twitch.tv – 34 Bongacams.com – 35 Panda.tv China 36 Zhanqi.tv China 37 Livejasmin.com – 38 Naver.com – 39 Stackoverflow.com – 40 Microsoftonline.com – 41 Twitter.com – 42 Google.co.in – 43 Tribunnews.com – 44 Tianya.cn China 45 Aliexpress.com China 46 Ebay.com – 47 Amazon.co.jp – 48 Mama.cn China 49 China.com.cn China 50 Myshopify.com –Here are some observations.
- China accounts for 42% of the top 50 sites, confirming China as a very important market for domain investors.
- The best extension in China is .com (12 sites), followed by .cn (5). .tv (2), .net (1), and .hk (1).
- 2-pin names are very popular. 8 of the 21 Chinese domains use 2-pin names.
- Short is good. Most of the Chinese domains are less than 6 characters excluding the extension.
Post link: China has 21 of top 50 global sites based on Alexa Rank
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