ICANN Puerto Rico Infographic

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Joe Alagna

ICANN’s meeting in Puerto Rico was really well attended.  There are still many problems down there related to Hurricane Maria, but there was very little degradation of services that I could see while I was there.   This is not because it didn’t exist, but because they people of Puerto Rico worked very hard to make it not noticeable to us.  I was very impressed with Puerto Rico and would love to vacation there some day.

In the mean time I wanted to share this interesting infographic on the meetings held there.ICANN Puerto Rico Infographic

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Afilias selected to Provide Registry Services for .PR ccTLD

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Joe Alagna

San Juan, Puerto Rico – Dublin, Ireland – January 08 2018 – Gauss Research Laboratories, the .PR ccTLD manager, is pleased to announce that it has selected Afilias, a leading domain registry operator, to provide technical services to support Puerto Rico’s country code top level domain (ccTLD) on the Internet, .PR.

Headquartered in San Juan, Gauss Research Laboratories manages the top-level domain .PR with a goal of providing a solid registry that provides Puerto Ricans with accessible services and tools that can aid in the development of a reliable IT community throughout the island.

The technical transition was completed on January 7, 2018, and the TLD is now running on a world class technical platform under industry standard policies. Interested registrants should contact their favorite registrar to select their name; interested registrars should contact [email protected].

.PR is unrestricted, so it’s a natural address for Public Relations agencies and practitioners worldwide. Of course, it’s also great for those doing business in Puerto Rico.

Oscar Moreno de Ayala, President of Puerto Rico Top Level Domain (PRTLD) explains: “The internet operating environment for ccTLDs is increasingly complex and hostile, prompting us to upgrade our technology to better protect our domain owners. A careful analysis led us to Afilias.”

Pablo Rodríguez, Executive Vice President of PRTLD added: “We are pleased to be working with Afilias, a recognized leader in registry technology. Afilias will help us both enhance the security and reliability of the registry and expand distribution and sales worldwide.”

“Afilias is proud to be selected to provide technical services in support of the .PR TLD. Our technology will strengthen .PR to make it less susceptible to natural disasters, more reliable and secure, and more broadly available across the thousand registrars serviced by Afilias. We are looking forward to working with Oscar, Pablo and the entire dotPR team to help .PR reach its full potential,” said Roland LaPlante, chief marketing officer of Afilias.

About Afilias

Afilias is the world’s second largest domain registry, with millions of domain names under management. Afilias powers a wide variety of top-level domains, including TLDs for countries, cities, brands, communities and generic terms. Afilias’ specialized technology makes Internet addresses more accessible and useful through a broad range of applications, including Internet domain registry services, managed DNS, and mobile Web services. For more information on Afilias services, visit www.afilias.info.

About PRTLD

PRTLD is a Puerto Rican company with almost 30 years-experience pioneering the presence of Puerto Rico on the Internet. The .pr registry has been operating since 1989, when founder, Dr. Oscar Moreno de Ayala, embarked on the responsibility of managing and building .PR from its beginning. PRTLD is the only organization authorized worldwide to administer the country code that represents Puerto Rico “.pr” and its people on the Internet. For more information on PRTLD, visit www.nic.pr Twitter PuntoPR

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CENTR Releases Third Quarter Domain Report

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Joe Alagna

CENTR's Domain Wire Report for Q3 2017The Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries recently released its DomainWire Global TLD Report. The results are interesting and include the following in summary:

  • .info grew over 10%; the fastest growing of the top 15 largest gTLDs year over year
  • ccTLDs had a growth rate of 2.8% year over year
  • Legacy gTLDs had a growth rate of 0.2% year over year
  • New gTLDs had a growth rate of -7.2%
  • The fastest growing European ccTLDs (in the top 10) are .ca, .fr, .ch, and .it.
  • ccTLDs average market share in Europe is 54%
  • In absolute terms, .com grew the most with 1.9 million domains added in the past 12 months

I’ve been convinced that ccTLDs will grow quickly for some time.  This report confirms that.  They have been in existence for a long time and are now becoming more recognized and important.  Most Internet businesses are local in nature and that is where much of the growth is happening online today. There’s little reason for a local retailer, plumber, or dentist to use a global domain if all they need to attract are local clients. When a local business uses a ccTLD, they are also implying to their potential clients that they are part of the community.

(Disclosure) Since I work for Afilias, I was happy to see that .info was one of the fastest growing.  We much be doing something right.

ABOUT CENTR

CENTR is the association of European country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries, such as .de for Germany or .si for Slovenia. CENTR currently counts 54 full and 9 associate members – together, they are responsible for over 80% of all registered domain names worldwide. The objectives of CENTR are to promote and participate in the development of high standards and best practices among ccTLD registries.

Download the report (PDF)… | Source: CENTR.org | Date posted: 12/12/2017

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Domain Business, Donuts, is the #1 Fastest Growing Business According to Deloitte

Posted on November 11, 2017 by Joe Alagna

Within the domain name industry, we have continual debates about which domain name endings are best or most successful. But this announcement is exciting for anyone in the industry regardless of how one feels or whatever sector of the industry one works. Donuts grew at a rate of 59,000%! That is a phenomenal growth rate for any company and dwarfed the growth rates of many others regardless of the sector. Software companies, as a whole were the fastest growing sector but Donuts beat all of them. The next highest company was ClassPass, a software company with a 46,000% growth rate. The vast majority of companies had a growth rate less than 10,000% regardless of the sector (all still impressive)

This report confirms the overall excitement and growth that the domain industry enjoys. I believe we still have a huge upside.

Regarding our internal debates, the terms “best” and “success” can be defined many ways including;

– Best for SEO
– Best for client success
– Best for the registry’s success

I’d like address each one here.

Regarding SEO, domains are one parameter used in search. It’s a good idea to have keywords to match what you do in your domain(s). Based on good research I’ve seen the ending (top level domain) doesn’t matter that much.

Regarding client success, it’s generally agreed that using an established top level domain is best. Regardless of the ending, the key is to get a domain that is clearly memorable.

Regarding registry success, almost all registries are going to succeed. Long term success was baked into the application process. If they don’t succeed financially on their own, they are set up to be easily rolled up and consolidated with a conglomerated registry like Donuts or Afilias.

The main point however is that we all have something to be excited about. The domain industry remains relevant and continues to grow as fast or faster than many other industries. Congrats to Donuts on their success.

See the full list of companies here:

Fastest growing companies for 2017

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