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Junk drop cuts .xyz in half, .top claims volume crown

Kevin Murphy, July 17, 2017, 21:39:56 (UTC), Domain Registries

The .xyz gTLD has seen its zone file halve in size, as millions of free and cheap domains were not renewed.
The former volume leader among new gTLDs started this month with a tad over 5.2 million domains in its zone.
But its July 17 zone contained 2.5 million, much less than half as many, DI analysis shows.
The precipitous decline means that Chinese-run gTLD .top, increasingly notorious as a go-to TLD for spammers, is now literally at the top of the league table, when you measure new gTLDs by zone file volume, with 2.6 million names.
The primary reason for .xyz losing so many names is of course the expiration of most of the domains that were sold for just $0.01 — or given away for free — in the first few days of June 2016, and the aggressive promotional pricing on offer for the remainder of that month.
On May 30, 2016, there were just under 2.8 million names in the .xyz zone. By July 1, 2016, that number had topped 6.2 million, an increase of 3.4 million over a single month.
That was .xyz’s peak. The zone has been in gradual decline ever since.
Domains generally take 45 days to drop, so it’s entirely possible XYZ.com will see further losses over the next month or so.
There’s nothing unusual about seeing a so-called “junk drop” a year after a TLD launches or runs a free-domains promotion. It’s been well-understood for over a decade and has been anticipated for .xyz for over a year.
But compounding its problems, the .xyz registry appears to still be banned in China, where a substantial portion of its former customer base is located.
The company disclosed over two months ago that it had a “temporary” problem that had seen its license to sell domains via Chinese registrars suspended.
The ban was related to XYZ falling out with its original “real name verification” provider, ZDNS, which was tasked with verifying the identities of Chinese registrants per local government regulations.
I’ve never been able to confirm with either party the cause of this split, but everyone else involved in the Chinese market I’ve asked has told me it related to a dispute over money.
Regardless, two months later the major Chinese registrars I checked today still appear to not be carrying .xyz names.
XYZ has meanwhile signed up with alternative Chinese RNV provider Tele-info, and just three days ago submitted the necessary paperwork (pdf) with ICANN to have the move approved as a registry service under its contract.
In that request, XYZ said the new RNV service “will allow XYZ to reenter certain domain name markets”, suggesting that it has not yet regained Chinese government approval to operate there.

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Comments (3)

  1. Richard Funden says:
    July 18, 2017 at 11:51 am

    Hmm, ntldstats does not show this crash yet:
    https://ntldstats.com/tld/xyz
    Nothing about this drop that anyone did not expect though, right?

    Reply
  2. John McCormac says:
    July 18, 2017 at 6:19 pm

    It is quite a Junk Dump but it was definitely not unexpected. That China issue is far more serious than the 1c promotion deletions as XYZ has a major part of its registrations in the Chinese market. What will be interesting is to see the renewal rate on these promotional domains.

    Reply
  3. Samantha Frida says:
    July 18, 2017 at 7:59 pm

    Exactly why registration numbers should not be relied upon completely to determine success.
    I wish more registries displayed a sound strategy that promoted brand awareness and attracted quality end users – ultimately, that’s the Registry customer NOT the registrar necessarily, given its a channel partner to reach the user.

    Reply

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