Earlier this year ICANN commissioned a study to see how aware consumers are of domain name extensions, both “legacy” ones like .com and .org and the new ones such as .tech, .online etc.,. The results make for interesting reading:
- More than half of respondents (52 percent) were aware of at least one new gTLD.
- Awareness has particularly increased in North America (29 percent in 2015 vs. 38 percent in 2016), Asia Pacific (53 percent vs. 58 percent) and Europe (33 percent vs. 45 percent).
- Reported visits to new gTLDs decreased (65 percent vs. 50 percent).
When talking about “legacy” domains:
- Of a subset of legacy TLDs, consumers were most aware of .COM (95 percent), .NET (88 percent) and .ORG (83 percent).
- These TLDs rated highly (91 percent) as trustworthy destinations on the Internet.
- ccTLDs are considered trustworthy by most consumers (95 percent) in regions where they are commonly used.
The guys over at Radix put together a graphic to illustrate some of the report’s findings, though obviously they’re focussing on their own domain extensions. Regardless it’s still interesting to see how aware people are of the new options for domains.
Have you seen many new domains online? Let us know in the comments.
About the Author: Michele Neylon
Known for his outspoken opinions on technology and the Internet, Michele Neylon is the award winning author of several blogs and co-host of the Technology.ie podcast. A thought leader in the Internet community, Neylon is active within ICANN and an expert on policy, security, domains, ICANN, Nominet and Internet Governance. You can stalk him on various social media networks including Twitter and Instagram
