Press release
[home.businesswire.com...]
Report
[afilias.info...]
In many countries where a strong ccTLD exists, the main domains are either .com or the cctld. The .net would be a secondary choice, followed by .org. The .info would be a poor fifth choice. Without ccTLD usage in the equation, a rather rosy picture of .info emerges. The critical test for .info would be in high ccTLD usage countries like .uk, .de, .nl etc.
I also have reservations about the 65% active figure. Just because a domain is parked or redirected, it does not necessarily mean that the domain is active. An active domain would have an associated website or mailserver rather than a 'coming soon' parking page.
The concentration of .info in Europe ties in with the Nth best choice concept. Some European ccTLDs are very expensive (the .ie for example is approximately $50 per year). Many new businesses having missed the .com rush, are stuck with either going for an expensive cctld or getting the nearest domain name to their business name in a cheap and relatively uncontested gtld. While .info does not have the broad appeal of .com, it is doing better than could be expected.
Regards...jmcc
[1] The cctlds are ignored by webhosting.info in favour of a simplistic counting of domains on nameservers. While webhosting.info claims to monitor the top 35K hosting firms, there are over 500,000 hosting firms hosting domains in the .com/net/org/biz/info gtlds. This would give a cut-off of approximately 60 hosted domains. Any hoster firm hosting less than 60 domains is not included in webhosting.info's reports. Some hoster firms may specialise in ccTLD registrations or have significantly more ccTLD registrations than com/net/org/biz/info.
