Google Chrome handles new TLDs badly

Sint Maarten’s new .sx country-code top-level domain has been online for at least a couple months now, but Google’s Chrome browser appears to be still a bit wary of it.

Typing “registry.sx” and “nic.sx” into Chrome’s combined URL/search bar today, instead of being sent to my chosen destination I was instead sent to a page of Google search results.

The browser presented the message “Did you mean to go to http://registry.sx?”.

Once my intentions were confirmed, Chrome bounced me to the registry’s web site and seemed to remember my preference on future visits. Other Chrome users have reported the same behavior.

Chrome is understood to use the Public Suffix list to figure out what is and isn’t a domain, and .sx does not currently appear on that list.

Internet Explorer and Firefox (also a Public Suffix list user) both seem already to resolve .sx names normally.

While not a massive problem for .sx, which has just a handful of second-level domains active, new gTLD applicants might want to pay attention to this kind of thing.

Chrome has a significant share of the browser market – about 15% by some counts, as high as 38% by others.

Launching a new gTLD without full browser support could look messy. Chrome isn’t blocking access to .sx, but its handling of the new TLD is not particularly graceful.

Imagine a scenario in which you’ve just launched your dot-brand, and instead of arriving at your web site Chrome users are instead directed to Google (with the top sponsored result a link you’ve probably paid for).

ICANN is currently pondering ways to promote the universal acceptance of TLDs for precisely this reason.

Searches for the pop producer Will.I.Am prompt Chrome to attempt to find an address in the Armenian ccTLD.

Newbie domain registrant discovers Whois, has Twitter meltdown

The need for the domain name industry to enforce accurate Whois is often cited by law enforcement and intellectual property interests as a consumer protection measure.

But most regular internet users haven’t got a clue that Whois even exists, let alone what data it contains or how to use it.

A study (pdf) carried out for ICANN’s Whois Review Team last year found that only 24% of consumers know what Whois is.

This stream of tweets I chanced across this afternoon, from what appears to be a first-time domain registrant, is probably more representative of consumer attitudes to Whois.

UPDATE (April 27): I’ve removed the tweets per the request of the Twitter user in question.

No Google boost for new gTLDs

Companies hoping to reap search engine optimization benefits from applying for keyword gTLDs related to their industries are in for a rude awakening today.

Google engineer Matt Cutts said that it’s “just not true” that relevant gTLDs will automatically rank higher than their equivalent .com domains.

In a post on Google+, Cutts wrote:

Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that’s your choice, but you shouldn’t register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you’ll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.

The post was in response to an article by ARI Registry Services CEO Adrian Kinderis, in which he postulated that dot-brand and keyword gTLDs can help build credibility, leading to SEO benefits.

Kinderis wrote:

Ultimately, the big question is: will car.insurance rank higher than carinsurance.com (for example)? All the evidence suggest the answer is yes, provided that the .insurance namespace builds value and perhaps verification into its space to ensure it is a signpost for good, trusted and authoritative content.

In response to Cutts’ post, Kinderis said he’s sticking by his opinion.

Dyson says new gTLDs will kill the DNS

Former ICANN chair Esther Dyson thinks apps and new gTLDs will cause internet users to abandon domain names.

In an article for TechPresident entitled “Is the Open Web Doomed? Open Your Eyes and Relax“, Dyson writes:

Right now, we’re moving slowly from open data and APIs and standards, to a world of Facebook and apps. We’re likely to see abandonment of the DNS by consumers both because of those apps, and a tragedy of the commons where new Top-Level Domain names (.whatevers and .brands) confuse users and lead to more use of the search box or links within apps.

The point seems to run counter to the rest of her argument, which is that the open web will continue to be used even while Facebook carves away its own little corner of it and that the whole “walled garden vs open web” war is fought in cycles.

(At least, I think that’s what she’s saying, it’s not an easy read.)

I always find these arguments confusing.

If consumers are not using the DNS, where are these “search boxes” and “links within apps” sending them? IP addresses? How do the consumers know they got to where they wanted to go?

Verisign: our DNS was not hacked

Verisign today reiterated that the recently revealed 2010 security breaches on its corporate network did not affect its production domain name system services.

In a statement, Verisign said:

After a thorough analysis of the attacks, Verisign stated in 2011, and reaffirms, that we do not believe that the operational integrity of the Domain Name System (DNS) was compromised.

We have a number of security mechanisms deployed in our network to ensure the integrity of the zone files we publish. In 2005, Verisign engineered real-time validation systems that were designed to detect and mitigate both internal and external attacks that might attempt to compromise the integrity of the DNS.

The statement followed several news reports that covered the hacks and speculated about the mayhem that could ensue if Verisign’s root or .com zone systems were ever breached.

The information the company has released so far suggests that the attacks were probably against back-office targets, such as user desktops, rather than its sensitive network operations centers.