Four questions for .XYZ about getting approved in China

China

Exciting news rippled through the domain industry today as .XYZ, .CLUB, and .VIP were all approved by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (“MIIT”). This is big news because it marks the first time a new domain name extension (or three) have been approved by MIIT for domains to be hosted in China.

As you guys know by now I always like to go deeper and see if I can get more information when something like this happens. So I reached out to Daniel Negari, the founder of .XYZ and asked if it would be okay for me to send him a few questions. Here’s the skinny, direct from the source, enjoy and thanks Daniel for taking the time on such a busy day!

What does this move mean for .XYZ as a whole?
Most importantly, accreditation means that businesses and individual end users can now build and host their websites locally in China. As the domain extension for every website, everywhere, our mission is to offer choice, flexibility, and affordability to help these registrants get online.

Usage of .xyz in China will also positively impact new registrations and aftermarket activity/sales. More end users will begin registering .xyz domains through the registrar channel now that they can immediately host them in China. If the domain they want is unavailable, they are more likely to pursue the domain in the aftermarket now.

How can startups in China benefit from this?
The global startup community is already using .xyz domains, such as MIT’s startup accelerator, Engine.xyz, Product Hunt and The Next Web standout GetSerendipity.xyz, and Sling.xyz, which was just acquired for 8-figures. We expect this trend to rise now startups in China can use their .xyz domains.

As we have done with startups and businesses in other parts of the world, we will begin featuring .xyz use cases in China in our weekly #WebsiteWednesday blog posts, as well as highlight them in our regular WeChat and QQ posts, to provide additional visibility to these new businesses.

By giving startups an affordable international platform, they can connect with their audience all over the world without the limitations of ccTLDs or long domains that can pose as a problem to non-English speakers.

Why do you think .XYZ was one of the first new TLDs to be approved?
We have taken big strides to be an industry leader all over the world, including China. XYZ is the only foreign registry operator to receive approval from ICANN for our dual backend solution to operate in China. Our Chinese business entity, Beijing XYZ Technology Co. LTD opened an office Beijing earlier this year and brought on Mason Zhang to head our expansion in China. We also proactively monitor and mitigate abuse, resulting in under 1% abuse in the entire zone, according to nTLDstats.

In addition to all of the above, .xyz is one of the most popular new domains in China, with very good relationships with every registrar in the region, such as Alibaba and Chengdu West. We believe China took all of this into consideration when they decided to make .xyz one of the first gTLDs to be accredited.

Anything special you can share with our readers?
We have already seen an uptick in registrations in China since the news broke late last night. He Xiaojiang, the CEO of Chengdu West said in a statement that they are expecting their daily .xyz registration volume to “grow by a factor of 10” while “auction sale prices rise dramatically in the coming months.” Your readers may be interested to know that there are still millions of highly desirable .xyz domains available for hand registration, including Chinese phrases, 4-character, 5-letter, and 6-number combinations. We provide near-realtime lists of availability, dropping names, and other search tools at www.gen.xyz/premiums.

Photo Credit: Kentaro IEMOTO@Tokyo Flickr via Compfight cc
Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton