According to nTLDStats.com, it looks like there are now more than 100,000 .Dev domain names registered. I can see more than 102,000 .Dev domain names in the zone file, and the number continues to grow.
The .Dev domain name extension is managed by Google, and .Dev domain names became available to register via the early access program on February 19. Since general availability phase began on February 28, the number of registrations has grown strongly. From what I can tell, it looks like there were about 5,000 domain names registered via the EAP, and in the last week and a half, over 95,000 domain names have been registered.
.Dev domain name registrations aren’t super expensive. It looks like 101Domain charges $13.49/year, Name.com charges $14.99/year, and GoDaddy is charging $13.99/year. There may be special promotional rates offered by some domain registrars, although I have not been tracking that. From what I can tell, it appears that Google has reserved some premium keyword .Dev domain names and charges a higher registration and renewal fee to register them.
Google also manages the .App domain name extension, which has also seen strong growth in the past year or so. There are more than 370,000 registered .App domain names, according to nTLDStats.com.
For those interested in tracking .Dev domain names and seeing some interesting use cases, Google Software Engineer Ben McIlwain has been tweeting about .Dev since they became available to register last month:
.dev domain registrations are seriously taking off in the early access program. More info here: https://t.co/WFwOoUOSiv #hellodotdev pic.twitter.com/UADRMsYV6I
— Ben McIlwain (@CydeWeys) February 23, 2019
Buyer beware. A lot of those registrations are free giveaways by Google to i/o conference attendees and roughly half of those registraions are at Google registrar (44%), not GoDaddy. GoDaddy is not even second in registrations (11%), NameCheap is at 16%.
There is also a $99 SSL certificate “FEE” at renewal time for .Dev domains.
.App on the other hand, has 35% of it’s registrations at GoDaddy (#1) and Google is a distant second at 11%. .App has no SSL certificate fee either, not yet anyway.
I own 0 .Dev domains. I thought about buying 1, but then noticed you had to pay $99 SSL certificate fee at renewal time. Not happening!
Thanks for sharing that info / insight. I did not look too far in depth on it.
Like you, I do not own any .Dev domain names nor do I anticipate buying any. I would have considered buying Elliot.Dev or Silver.Dev for reg fee, but those are taken already.
You don’t necessarily have to pay for SSL. There is a free SSL service called Let’s Encrypt.
An abbreviated crap gtld will always be an abbreviated crap gtld. I wouldn’t want one if you gave it to me.
.app has had a total of 14 aftermarket sales in the last year, that includes the $100 sales. It is dead just like all the other ntlds. I’d expect .dev to be even worse.
^^ Best comment!
Why would anyone register a TLD that is 100% (!) more expensive than a .com??
It’s simple. Either because:
1) The .com one is taken.
2) The user prefers using domain extensions semantically. And if I were to create a website to introduce my development career and showcase my development portfolio, I would use .dev because I personally regard using .com in this case not semantic.
We know what .dev means because we are in the business. Anyone else would ask what the hell does .dev stand for.
Things like this takes time.
>> if I were to create a website to introduce my development career and showcase my development portfolio, I would use .dev
As a developer that understands the benefits of .com, this sounds like industry propaganda to me.
Depends on the type of developer. I’m a front-end one so I can’t understand semantics more.
By the way, my reply to Richard forgot to say that I would also get the .com if it’s available and forward it to my .dev, and I will try to sell the .com to a commercial entity.
Redirecting a .com to a .dev?? Madness!
@ss
Well. Actually, redirecting .com to a personal .dev website doesn’t make much sense. I should have said that I would set up a For Sale landing page for the .com instead.