United Domains: “1 Million New gTLD Pre-Registrations”

Nearly two years ago, United Domains announced that the company would begin to accept non-binding pre-registrations for gTLD domain names. In a press release  today (also announced on the company blog yesterday), United Domains reported “1 million pre-registrations made through its New Generic Top-Level Domain (New gTLD) Pre-Registration Program.”

The company offered users the chance to reserve domain names in 120 expected gTLD extensions, although there are nearly 1,500 actual gTLD strings that have been applied for. The press release did not mention whether there were one million unique gTLD pre-registrations or if there were domain names with multiple pre-registrations.

An important thing to note is that the pre-registrations aren’t binding, so people could pre-register hundreds or even thousands of domain names without having to actually pay for them or commit to paying for them once they become available. Obviously, many of these pre-registrations won’t materialize into actual purchases.

With that said, I think the most interesting aspect of the report ia the top gTLD extensions that were reserved, since that might give a general indication of what TLDs will have strong interest once they are available. Knowing the amount of interest might give applicants a boost when it comes time to the auctions for competing applicants on a TLD.

United reported these as “Top Ten Most Popular New gTLDs:”

  • 1. .web
  • 2. .shop
  • 3. .site
  • 4. .hotel
  • 5. .music
  • 6. .nyc
  • 7. .film
  • 8. .eco
  • 9. .berlin
  • 10. .sport

In case you aren’t already aware, United Domains is part of the United Internet Group, which also owns Sedo, 1&1, fasthost, and GMX.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

12 COMMENTS

  1. These numbers are way off you can have a small army call center in india plugging these things in day and night in hopes they actually think these guys are going to catch a single domain for them. I don’t believe unaudited hype.

  2. @Ron “small army call center in india plugging these things in day and night” LOL is that what they call domain warehousing?

  3. Does the fact that both .web and .site appear in the top 3 indicate (if you can take anything from the stats) that people are generally looking for a generic alternative to .com rather than specific gtlds like .horse. Most .com names are taken and people need something new.

    • Do you really think end users have come to the site, and pre-registered.

      My guess China, & India ip’s on most of those reservations are multiple attempts to reserve what they think will be strong keywords with unproven extensions, in hopes of getting a quick flip on.

      As we have seen, and continue to see, generic dictionary words, will be held, and attempted to be auctioned.

      I still remember the music.mobi auction, and how the second place bidder wanted to sue when his bid didn’t get placed and it clsoed at over $600K in 2007.

      We have come a long away, there is a lot more smart money in play, but maybe if they make these new extensions .99, or $1.99 they will gain traction, until renew time, and then they will sit unregistered like many .info, .us , and biz are today…

    • They’ve been looking for A and they will soon be surprised to find B might just be attractive. But it’s up to innovators like United Domains to prompt and offer consumers the option for both in a way that can be understood and responded to. Not ‘search & name spinner presents: 100 ridiculous options!!’

    • Pardon the outrage- but I abhor the idea of TLDs getting cheaper! They are already perceived as practically valueless in the price war of the hosting companies.

      This is digital real estate. Names like .Investments, .Ventures need to imply scarcity and excellence in their content. Names like .Cars need to encourage traffic to a sales site but not impending scammery. Why would that cost .99 cents if you actually WANTED the owner of the TLD to have made an effort at selling you something?

      The new TLDs are here to change the value of the digital property landscape. I think it’s possible the .99 cents proposition is aimed at the TLD collector who might want to spread his bets across the the new TlD board. Most genuine buyers (read USERS) fall into a few select categories of names. Have I mentioned my penchant for .whateverblogtypeIminthemoodforthatday?

  4. Hi Everyone,

    This is Courtney Mirenzi, and I’m the Marketing Manager for United Domains. I wanted to clarify one question Elliot had about announcement for the readers:

    >>The press release did not mention whether there were one million unique gTLD pre-registrations or if there were domain names with multiple pre-registrations.<<

    Our New gTLD Pre-Registration system accepts one reservation per unique string. So for example, if someone pre-registered elliots.blog, he/she would be the only customer with that pre-registration. Therefore our one million pre-registration milestone is based on unique pre-registrations and not multiple pre-registrations.

    Thank You,
    Courtney Mirenzi

  5. I have been watching the regs for years. Most words and phrases coming thru seem to be European. Which makes sense, that is where new gtlds will be accepted first.

    What appears to be a lot of legitimate regs imo.

    btw, United Domains I think blocks multiple regs, they have introduced a ‘waitlist’ service for duplicates. ‘pre-regs’ are all unique. I think

  6. Better save my $$$$$ away this time … Had a bad taste last time with .tel & .mobi …. But to be honest … Do you remember the advertisement ? They were made to rip people … Said, but its true.
    It happened to The Domain King too 😉
    Wish I had put all those $$$$$ in just 1 good .com 🙁
    Lesson learned …
    As.. The Ex president once said :

    Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me…. you can’t get fooled again.”

    • Yes definitely I was about to buy new domains but your comments reminded me that I lost 100$ in 9 different domain names, I better get a good .com and get things done there

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