Coronavirus lockdown is working out great for at least one registry
The Dutch ccTLD registry has revealed that its volume of new registrations has been growing rapidly since the Netherlands implemented its coronavirus lockdown measures.
“Since the measures came into effect, Dutch entrepreneurs and private individuals registered over 85,000 .nl domain names, 10,000 more than in the same period in 2019,” SIDN said today (translated from the Dutch by Google).
Only about 2% to 3% of these names relate directly to the pandemic, the registry said.
There were 5,930,715 .nl domains registered as of April 20, an increase of about 17,000 from the start of the month.
A survey of registrants carried out for SIDN found that 100% of them intended to use their domains for online-only activities, as opposed to using them to promote a bricks-and-mortar business, for the first time.
SIDN’s good luck may not be shared by all in the industry, however.
ICANN, which is funded by a tax on registration fees, is to host a call next week in which it will explain how it will have to adapt its budget to respond to the impact of the pandemic.
If we take Verisign’s .com as a benchmark, its zone file has grown by roughly 383,000 domains since the end of March. In the same period last year, the increase was 434,000.
Tonight, Verisign is due to report its first-quarter numbers, and no doubt we will get some color on how its bosses think the virus will affect the market.
People got ideas, they got time, and they are home. A great combination for domain registrations.
A lot of existing businesses have also been unable to make money from their stores, while there has been a large increase in people ordering stuff online. So for example restaurants are turning into food delivery services. And fitness gyms are giving fitness courses online for people at home. And so on.
As the author of the original piece I’d like to add: most entrepreneurs going online now are working local, regional or national. There is a decline in internationally oriented registrants.
The more localized the focus, the higher the preference for the local ccTLD over .com. This is one of the main drivers behind our growth.
It would be interesting to see the figures of other strong ccTLDs for comparison.
Michiel Henneke