These are the TLD growers and shrinkers of 2024 (part two)

Following on from the annual ccTLD growth statistics DI published last week, today we’ll look at the gTLDs, where .shop was by far the biggest volume winner and .com was by far the biggest loser.

GMO Registry’s .shop added 1,315,000 names to its zone file in 2024, ending the year with 3,470,000 domains. It’s now the second-largest of the 2012 batch of gTLDs, after .xyz.

The growth seems to have been pretty consistent across the year and is presumably due to the low first-year prices offered by many registrars. At least 10 registrars offer .shop for under a dollar currently, one as low as $0.27, though around $25 appears to be the floor for renewals.

.xyz, .lol, .bond and .sbs recorded similar growth stats, up 495,000, 487,000, 468,000 and 459,000 domains to end the year with 3,801,000, 601,000, 710,000 and 824,000 respectively.

Of the 750-odd gTLDs (excluding dot-brands) for which I have stats, only about 200 grew by more than one domain per day. About 60 grew by five-figure amounts. About 280 shrank. The rest were either still unlaunched or recorded negligible growth.

Only about 80 currently have over 50,000 names in the zones which, if the number matched domains under management, would be the threshold for triggering ICANN’s per-transaction fees.

At the other end of the table, .com was by far the biggest volume loser, down 3,769,000 zone file domains to end the period at 153,856,000. Verisign has blamed economic factors in China and price increases at American registrars for the decline. Verisign’s .net lost 424,000 names to end with 12,485,000.

ShortDot’s .cfd, a stable sister to .sbs and .bond at the top end of the table, lost over three quarters of its domains over the course of the year, ending December down 782,000 at 238,000 names, showing that domains sold for pennies tend not to stick around very long.

The next five shrinkers were .click, .space, .buzz, .live and .bio, which were down 94,000, 72,000, 43,000, 41,000 and 30,000 to end the year with 471,000, 310,000, 316,000, 545,000 and 48,000 domains respectively.

.social, .gay, .win, .mobi, .monster, .website and .biz all saw declines in the low five figures in the period.

Figures in this article are sourced from domain counts in zone files collected on January 1 2024 and 2025, rounded to the nearest thousand.

These are the TLD growers and shrinkers of 2024 (part one)

With all the excitement and concern surrounding the rise of artificial intelligence, the smart money might have been on .ai being the fastest-growing ccTLD in 2024. It wasn’t.

That honor instead goes to Russia’s .ru, which grew by the largest number of domains last year of any of the ccTLDs that have so far published statistics.

.ru grew by almost 388,000 domains to end the year at around 5,817,000, according to the registry. The matching Cyrillic ccTLD, .РФ, declined a little from 768,000 domains to 760,000.

Anguilla’s .ai, currently being re-homed on an Identity Digital back-end grew by just over 244,000 domains between late December 2023 and January 2 2025, according to registry stats.

After Russia, Indonesian ccTLD .id added the most domains in 2024, growing by almost 289,000 and breaking into seven figures in November to end the year with about 1,215,000 names.

Turkiye’s .tr is next on the list. Its second-level liberalization saw a sharp increase in registrations mid-year, and it ended the year with 1.283.000 names, up 271,000 over the period.

Portugal and Brazil (.pt and .br) are the only other two ccTLDs to report six-figure increases so far, with growth of 149,000 and 134,000 to 1,930,000 and 5,372,000 domains respectively.

.fr (France), .ir (Iran), .pl (Poland), .de (Germany), .my (Malaysia), .ca (Canada), .vn (Vietnam), .jp (Japan), .cz (Czechia) and .hu (Hungary) all reported growth measured in the five digits for the year.

At the other end of the table, the UK saw the biggest shrinkage in terms of registered domains in 2024, with .uk (second and third levels combined) down about 472,000 to end December at 10,261,000 domains.

The decline was primarily at the third level (such as the popular .co.uk), which lost 371,000 names compared to 100,000 at the second level. The third-level total is now 8,967,852 — below nine million for the first time in 15 years.

The ccTLD reporting the second-biggest loss was .nl, which lost 106,000 names to end the year with 6,192,000. The TLD has been on a downwards trajectory since its peak of 6.3 million domains in mid-2023.

Ukraine’s up next, reporting a 57,000-name decline to 458,000 at the end of December. Much as it’s hard to not speculate that international sanctions are behind the rise of .ru, one wonders whether the ongoing Russian invasion is not behind the decline of .ua. Entrepreneurial-aged men have more existential concerns right now.

.ar (Argentina), .dk (Denmark), .kr (South Korea), .at (Austria), .se (Sweden), .eu (European Union), .be (Belgium) and .nu (Niue, mainly sold in Sweden) all saw five-figure declines in their reg totals over the year.

.hk (Hong Kong), .cl (Chile), .it (Italy), .il (Israel), .mx (Mexico) and .ie (Ireland) all also saw modest dips in their totals.

About three quarters of the ccTLDs for which I have data were up in the year, with the rest going down.

I should note that this prose league table cannot be considered comprehensive. Many ccTLD registries with substantial DUM (eg China, the US) will not report their year-end numbers for months and others (eg .tv, .co, .in, .me) typically do not report numbers at all.

In addition, strict apples-to-apples comparisons between ccTLDs may not be fair, given the differing ways registries calculate their totals.

New gTLD use cases not much use

ICANN has come in for periodic criticism over the last decade or so for not being sufficiently enthusiastic in public about its new gTLD program, but this time around it’s trying to do something about it.

New gTLD program participants have said that ICANN should have thrown more of its substantial resources into marketing the program, raising the profile of both the application period and the availability of new gTLDs when they go live.

But, under community guidance for the 2026 application window, Org started promoting the program earlier this year, with the publication of a “Next Round Champion’s Toolkit” web site containing ready-made marketing materials that consultants and gTLD service providers are free to use to reach out to their respective communities or sales prospects.

The latest component of this effort is a batch of 13 “use case” documents, each covering a specific gTLD from the 2012 round, compiled by ICANN, “each providing a compelling example of how different types of organizations use gTLDs”.

ICANN was wise to avoid calling them “case studies”. They’re pretty lightweight, with not [m]any particularly useful insights or actionable nuggets of advice. A cynic might summarize the 13 documents thus:

Hey, did you know .CEO/.SECURITY/.BANK exists? It really does! Here’s barely 500 words of elevator-pitch fluff from the registry’s PR folk, presented in the format of one of those glossy, double-sided, one-page inserts you find in a conference schwag bag and toss into your hotel room trash can unread when trying to reduce the weight of your carry-on.

Six out of the 13 use cases are generics run by XYZ Registry. Five are big-C “Community” gTLDs (including the geographic/linguistic niche offerings .gal, .lat and .bzh). Microsoft is the only dot-brand registry represented.

Notably, given how much emphasis ICANN has been putting on its goal to expand outreach efforts in under-served regions (op-eds and press releases have started popping up in places like India and Nigeria recently), there are no IDN gTLD use cases yet. And all the use cases are in English.

Still, I expect the use cases could be useful to Next Round “Champions” in some scenarios, certainly not as later-stage decision support but rather as part of an arsenal of foot-in-the-door introductory materials aimed at prospects utterly unaware that new gTLDs exist.

Defensive dot-brands are renewing, making ICANN millions

Companies that have not used their dot-brand gTLDs in a decade are nevertheless renewing their registry contracts with ICANN, leading to a situation where even ICANN seems to be benefiting directly from defensive registrations.

In just the last month or so, the registries behind .delta, .cipriani, .gallup, .icbc, .frontier, .alibaba, .taobao and others have renewed their Registry Agreements for a second 10-year term, despite having never registered a single second-level domain name.

Far more dormant dot-brands have renewed their contracts this year than have voluntarily terminated them.

According to my database, there are 116 dot-brand gTLDs today that have only ever registered their obligatory nic.[brand] domain and nothing else. That’s from a total of 369 dot-brands still live in the DNS.

Given that the absolute minimum a registry has to pay ICANN is its $25,000 annual registry fee — rising to $25,800 on January 1 — it looks like ICANN is making about $3 million per year, a couple of percent of its annual budget, from defensive dot-brands.

Registrar and back-end registry services partners are of course also making revenue from these unused brand gTLDs, but the terms of those contracts are typically not public.

There are any number of reasons why dormant dot-brands may renew their RAs. They may still be playing wait-and-see, they may be spooked by the looming 2026 application round, or they may just have an aggressive BLOCK EVERYTHING brand management strategy.

Identity Digital offers free domain trials through LinkedIn

Identity Digital says it is to offer its services via a partnership with LinkedIn.

The company said in a press release it will offer a three-month trial of the web site bundle offered by registrar subsidiary Name.com, to people who sign up for LinkedIn Premium, as one of the service’s “perks”.

The trial, which includes domain, hosting, and email, renews at $99 for the first year before reverting to the regular $289 annual price, the company said.

Other trial perks offered by LinkedIn Premium include a mindfulness app and Audible, which provides audiobooks and podcasts.

The new gTLD Next Round is really happening as two ICANN programs go live

There’s no going back now. After over a decade of politicking and policy development, ICANN has finally opened the doors to companies that want to participate in the new gTLD program’s Next Round.

You can’t apply for a gTLD yet, but if you think you will and you want it on the cheap, you can now apply to the Applicant Support Program. And if you’re a registry back-end, you can now apply to the Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program.

The RSP program is for companies that want to offer technical services such as an EPP registry or DNS resolution to new gTLD applicants in the Next Round, currently targeted for April 2026.

Companies that qualify under the program will join an a la carte menu of RSPs published by ICANN that applicants can choose from without worrying that they’ll fail their technical evaluation.

The ASP initiative is for applicants themselves, but only those that come from certain countries seen as under-served (actually a very large list) and are registered non-profits.

ICANN has set aside $10 million for the ASP and expects to offer up to 45 applicants a discount of between 75% and 85% on the base application fee, which is expected to be $227,000.

The window to apply for ASP support is open now and closes November 19 next year. The RSP program is accepting applications until May 20, but the opportunity will reopen during the new gTLD application window the following year.

Verisign has much to be thankful for as .com contract renewed

Verisign went into the US Thanksgiving weekend with a freshly renewed .com Registry Agreement that allows it to keep control of its cash cow for another six years with price-raising powers the US government admitted it is powerless to rescind.

The deal with ICANN does not change Verisign’s price caps — it will still be allowed to raise prices by 7% in four of the six-year term — but it does allow ICANN to raise the fees it charges by an amount linked to US inflation.

ICANN has already said it plans to increase its fees on all other gTLD registries, so it seems certain .com, which raises more transaction revenue than any other TLD, will get the same notice before long.

The deal means cost-conscious registrants have a bit of breathing space; Verisign is only allowed to raises prices in the final four years of its term, which runs from yesterday until November 30, 2030.

So, no more price hikes until September 2026. Due to the required notice period, designed to allow registrants to lock in renewal pricing, we’ll almost certainly hear Verisign talk about a fee increase in early 2026.

The US government, via the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, also confirmed that it has renewed its Cooperative Agreement, which is where the price caps come from, with the company:

NTIA recognizes concerns about current pricing and believes a reduction in .com prices would be in the best interest of the public. We also recognize that prices at both the wholesale level and downstream, including prices charged by resellers and substantial markups by warehousers, need to be addressed. That said, both parties must agree to any changes in order for the Cooperative Agreement to be amended. Over the past several months, NTIA and Verisign have engaged in serious conversations, but, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to agree how wholesale .com pricing should change.

So the status quo remains, at least regards pricing.

The ICANN contract also requires Verisign to act on reports of DNS abuse — malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and some spam — for the first time, in line with the standard RA signed by all other gTLDs.

A side deal that sees Verisign pay ICANN a few extra million bucks a year and commit to cooperate on DNS security has also been renewed, with a strong implication that it will too become part of the contractual status quo over the coming year.

Another 40,000 .ai domains registered

Anguilla’s .ai grew by almost 40,000 domains in the last two months, according to the registry, as the ccTLD continues to benefit from the growth of the artificial intelligence industry.

Total registered domains was 572,575 domains on November 27, according to the registry web site. That’s up 39,507 from the 533,068 it reported on October 1. On December 20, 2023 the total was 353,928 domains.

.ai is in the process of a migration, which will see Identity Digital take over the functions of the registry. The TLD’s IANA record was recently updated to replace as technical contact the long-time manager Vince Cate with the Government of Anguilla.

Unlike other rapidly growing TLDs, which tend to sell cheap and rapidly fill up with junk, .ai still commands a mid-range price of $70 a year with a two-year minimum.

A dot-brand that was actually used is shutting down

It’s been a slow year for self-terminating dot-brand gTLDs, but today we’ve seen our third.

Lipsy, a UK-based women’s fashion retail brand owned by Next, has told ICANN it wants to end its Registry Agreement for .lipsy, which it has operated since 2016.

What’s unusual about this termination is that Lipsy actually had quite a lot of registered domains — at least 133 over the years, of which 132 were still active a month ago.

My records show that all of its domains apart from the registry home page were deleted October 22, the day before the company sent its termination notice to ICANN.

The domains were generally product keywords which pretty much all redirected to next.co.uk or nextdirect.com; Lipsy’s own web site had also redirected to Next’s since 2018.

Almost all of its domains were registered between December 2020 and July 2022. It hasn’t registered any since.

.lipsy was on Verisign’s back-end until May 2023, when it switched to Identity Digital.

.id joins the million-domain club

Indonesia’s .id appears to have become the newest ccTLD to be able to boast that it has passed the one million registered domains mark.

PANDI, the local registry, is reporting on its web site that it currently has 1,073,779 registered domains. According to my database, it passed a million on November 14.

At a time when many TLDs are shrinking, .id is adding new regs at a rate you’d normally associate with a heavily discounted new gTLD. It’s grown by over 100,000 names net in the last year and reports on its web site it’s added almost 400,000 gross over the same period.

.id uses a three-level structure, which over a dozen extensions to choose from, such as .co.id, .net.id and .or.id. While second-level regs are also available, .my.id is the most-popular option, with a little over a third of all registered names.

Indonesia is the fourth-largest nation in the world by population after India, China and the USA. It has about 277 million inhabitants of whom an estimated 69% have internet access.

There are at least 40 TLDs that can currently count their domains under management in seven figures or more.