How to track the performance of new domain name extensions

It’s safe to say there are more new domain name extensions out there than any of us can remember. There are some clear leaders when it comes to registrations like .XYZ and .CLUB, .TOP and .WIN, but did you know that .LOAN is in the top ten along with new extensions like .BID? Probably not, unless of course, you’re a domain geek like me in which case you can skip this article because what I’m going to tell you is something you already know.

I’m talking about how to stay on top of the statistics behind the new domain name extensions (or new gTLDs as they say in the Domaining world) without writing custom software or trying to sort through data yourself. Lucky for all of us this is pretty darn easy to do and you can get all of this data for free thanks to my personal go-to for stats – nTLDStats:

ntld-stats

When you first go to the site you can simply click the “New gTLDs” link at the top (or just click here) and you’ll instantly see a list of the top new domain name extensions along with who their backend provider is and other handy information that you might want to know. If you want to integrate some of this data on your own site, nTLDStats recently came out with a beta of their API so if you have some dev chops you can build something completely customized.

There’s also a new service out there, or at least new to me, that popular domain name investor and new domain extension owner Frank Schilling was tweeting about over the weekend called NamePulse.

NamePulse

While NamePulse isn’t a free option (plans start at $500/month) it does look like a pretty badass service for registrars and registry operators to use to really do a deep dive into new gTLD stats.

namepulse-site

While $500 might sound like a lot of money to you, if you’re a registrar or registry making millions of dollars a year this really is a drop in the bucket for access to all this data. If anyone from NamePulse is reading this, I would of course be happy to have a “Media/Bloggers” version that I might be able to use to share some of the awesome data you guys are putting together, but I know this might be a bit of a pipedream given the complexity of running a service like this.

So if you want to do a deep dive into how the new domain name extensions are performing you have two options, one that’s free and offers plenty of great data, and another that’s not free but looks like it goes a bit deeper. Either way, there’s not excuse to not stay well-informed about how the new domain extensions are doing.

Let me know if there are other services out there you would recommend? I can’t say I’ve done a lot of searching since nTLDStats has been my go-to for a while now and I just heard about NamePulse this weekend. Is there anything else out there that my readers should know about?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton