Since 1994, CentralNic, Ltd. has provided alternative domains, starting with UK.COM. We have co-existed with country codes around the globe for over 14 years.
Domain Names Countries / Regions Represented
We don't keep exact segmentation statistics because our sales are made primarily through Registrars and our Channel. Anecdotally, our registrants are segmented as follows:
Types - Percent Examples
SMBs - 55% HealthCareAdvisors.us.com or CaliforniaBailBonds.us.com
Enterprise - 10% IvoclarVivadent.us.com
Personal - 15% CarlsCorner.us.com
Non-Profit - 10 % CCA.us.com or SCES.uk.com
Speculators - 10% Berlin.de.com
With all the gTLDs end users have plenty of choices today, however, the Internet is only beginning to grow from the perspective of domain names. There is still a vast opportunity for growth in the domain business.
It is also evident that end users are no longer interested in jibber jabber for domain names. Typos, strange acronyms, and "e" domains are not popular. Consumers and businesses are looking for domains that make sense or that clearly mark their names or purposes online.
Speculators and experienced domain name registrants control the market on easy to remember generic names and trademark owners register the new variations on new domains. So the typical new online entrant/registrant faces a shortage when searching for domains. Here's an example of what they see now and what they would see if you offer our domains along with the status quo domains:
Domain Status Price Term Reg?
apples.com taken $15 1 year [ ]
apples.net taken $15 1 year [ ]
apples.org taken $15 1 year [ ]
apples.tv available $500 1 year [ ]
apples.ws taken $35 1 year [ ]
Or (with CentralNic domains in the whois query result…)
apples.com taken $15 1 year [ ]
apples.us.com taken $59 1 year [ ]
apples.eu.com available $59 1 year [ ]
apples.uk.com available $59 1 year [ ]
apples.net taken $15 1 year [ ]
apples.org taken $15 1 year [ ]
apples.tv available $500 1 year [ ]
apples.ws taken $35 1 year [ ]
Please... Read the above examples and think about them.
Which whois query response offers more value to an end user? Which are easier to understand? Unlike some domain endings, US.COM requires no explanation. It is intuitive. It is recognized instantly on a worldwide basis. Let's face it... It ends in dot.com. That's what people want!
Many registrars that sell the .ws domain must add a parentheses to define what it means for visitors. With no disrespect to .ws, it proves that the domain is not as intuitive to end users. Offering the us.com alternative adds value and is desirable for registrars and for end users.
Out of 100 randomly chosen samples from a group of 1000 actual registrations
Number (& Percent ) of CentralNic Domains Chosen When Other Tlds Were Available
2 CentralNic domains were registered when 5 other Tlds were available
11 CentralNic domains were registered when 4 other Tlds were available
15 CentralNic domains were registered when 3 other Tlds were available
7 CentralNic domains were registered when 2 other Tlds were available
17 CentralNic domains were registered when 1 other Tlds were available
48 CentralNic domains were registered when 0 other Tlds were available
100 Total in Sample
Specific Tlds That Were Available When End Users Chose CentralNic Domains
0 Number of registrants who chose CentralNic Domains when a .com was available
9 Number of registrants who chose CentralNic Domains when a .net was available
26 Number of registrants who chose CentralNic Domains when a .org was available
29 Number of registrants who chose CentralNic Domains when a .info was available
30 Number of registrants who chose CentralNic Domains when a .biz was available
40 Number of registrants who chose CentralNic Domains when a .us was available
100 Total in Sample
What does this data suggest?
Since 1994, CentralNic has registered many hundreds of thousands of domains. Most of those registrations came from UK resellers, so the US and the rest of the world are still largely untapped. Many great generic terms are still available as well.
New Businesses Coming Online That Want Descriptive Domains
(e.g., CheapUsedCars.us.com or PoolConstruction.us.com)
Corporate Entities to Protect Their Digital Brands
(existing customers are Amazon.us.com, ATT.us.com, & VolvoGroup.us.com)
Existing Businesses That Want To Shorten Their Domains
(e.g., Fountain of Life International Church.com >> FOLIC.us.com)
Online Businesses That Want Rare Keywords in Their Domains
(e.g., NameRegistration.us.com or OnlineStores.us.com)
Personal Users That Didn't Get to Own Their Surnames
(e.g., Sterling.us.com or Dagwoods.us.com)
Without a shadow of doubt, the retail registrars who are most successful with CentralNic domains give them prominence on their home page, right next to .com, checked by default and in bold. Please see one example:
We are told by our registrars and resellers that us.com regularly and repeatedly outsells every TLD except .com but including .net in the U.S. and that the domains are especially Google and yahoo friendly.
Additionally, registrars with direct relationships with registrants have fantastic success by emailing their registrants advising them that they can now get their name in the .us.com and .la namespaces. Because compared to .com the CentralNic ‘mines’ are relatively un-mined, good, appropriate, short names are available which is obviously a huge selling point.
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Hi NAME, this is YOUR_NAME from YOUR_REGISTRAR, How are you?
We've set up a special program for CentralNic domains through YOUR_REGISTRAR. CentralNic is the company that operates us.com, uk.com, eu.com, and about 20 other domains like those. Are you familiar with them?
(Regardless of familiarity, it's a good idea to remind them of the following)...
The idea is... If you have a customer that comes to your site and lets say... they want to sell wall maps on-line... Of course, they want "wallmaps.com" which won't be available in com, net, org and probably not even .info or .biz), however, with these domains in your portfolio, you'll still be able to sell them "wallmaps.us.com".
Registrars and resellers have grown their domain revenues by at least 10% providing these additional domain name choices to their customers. They provide a higher profit per domain, they increase upsells like hosting, etcetera, but most important, they increase conversions. Our research has shown us that end users don't see these domains as any different than top level domains. The uptake has been even better than many ccTLDs.
Registrants are given the same kinds of rights that they're given when they register ccTLDs and we operate standard whois service for these domains so that registrant rights can be verified just like any other registry. You also control the DNS so you can host these sites and profit from the recurring revenues. Their renewal rates are very strong so you can benefit from the increased renewals as well.
In an effort to grow channel sales, we've decided to pass through our discounts to our resellers. We sell a lot of these domains and we get the best prices offered so by adding these to your sales mix through us, you're going to get lower prices than if you went directly to the registry.
The suggested retail price for us.com and eu.com is is $49 per year in two year increments and you'll recieve a 40% discount, so you'll earn $19.00 for each two year registration taken... and if the trends continue as in the past, you'll likely see a nice jump in sales as soon as you expose them to your customer base on your web site.
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It's not getting any easier to compete in the domain business and many Resellers are finding that CentralNic domains help them to differentiate themselves and to earn more.
As a profitable ongoing venture, CentralNic is here to stay and they've run a successful registry for over 13 years now.
Although they're a private registry, the domains are part of ICANN sanctioned roots (dot.com & dot.net).
What they do is no different than companies like Earthlink or Verizon. In other words, Earthlink and Verizon are not ICANN accredited registrars, yet they are ongoing concerns and they sell email addresses to their customers using the domain names that they control (ie. larry@earthlink.net or joe@verizon.net). Basically, CentralNic does the same thing, and they've built a multi million dollar business using the domains that they control, except for the fact that they sell sub domain names (larry.us.com or joe.uk.net) instead of email addresses. In fact, what they sell is much more valuable than an email address alone.
Of course, they were fortunate enough to have this collection of short Slds that are instantly recognizable world-wide. Remember end users have already accepted this practice. They don't know what you mean when you say tld, cctld, or sld. All they care about is getting a name for their web site that is easy to remember. CentralNic gives you another way to provide that for them and to make money in the process.
The product is a great cross-selling opportunity for anyone that helps people put their businesses or interests online. It's also well aligned with the top markets in the world; The U.S, (us.com), Germany (de.com), the U.K. (uk.com), and now even China and Korea (cn.com and kr.com). Take a look at :
http://www.zooknic.com/Domains/international.html
* Grow Your Revenues & Profits
* Partner With A Stable & Profitable, Global Partner
* Easy Registration & Automation Process
* Its a Proven Method to Grow The Domain Space
* Uses Existing Internet Resources
* Ensure Your Future Growth
* Offer Great Savings To Your Corporate Customers
* Larger Inventory of Products to Sell
* Increase Your "Take Rate" for Auxiliary Services, Hosting, Etc.
* Make Your Program More Attractive For Your Customers
* Be Early to Market
* Not a Commodity - Get Revenues That Your Competitors Will Miss
Your company is missing business opportunities by not offering CentralNic domains. This includes:
* The chance to keep a customer from going to competitive registrars
* The chance to cross-sell that customer
* The chance to up-sell to that customer
* The chance to earn recurring revenues from that customer
You have not only missed business opportunities by being less competitive when compared with other registrars who offer more choices, but also the chance of building a larger customer base who could use other value add services that you offer.
Because their results in North America have proven it. If you add US.COM to your offer you will increase your domain revenues by at least ten percent right away. Here are more reasons why.
1. Higher Profit Per Each Registration
2. Customers Like Having These Choices
3. Domains Are Available When Many Others Aren't
4. No Plug-Ins Required
5. Works With All E-mail Programs
6. Gives You a Unique Selling Advantage
7. They Require No Explanation (People know their country names)
8. Appeals to The World's Largest Markets (US, EU, DE, etc.)
9. They Work With All ISPs
10. Takes Advantage Of Global Growth Trends
The U.S., Germany, U.K., China, Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden (all the E.U.), Russia, Brazil, and Argentina are amongst the top global countries with the largest promise for e-business growth. These regions are all covered by CentralNic domains. More important, unlike many ccTlds, CentralNic domains are unrestricted. They are an attractive incentive for your largest customers as they save them money and can cost considerably less than some of the more restrictive country code domains.
CentralNic Domains Are A Global Solution Covering Two Thirds of the Civilized World…
Will registrants buy US.COM domains?
Within the industry, we sometimes forget to think like consumers. Think through this example...
If you own a cookie bakery and want to put your business on-line, which of the following will you prefer? If you run a search for "cookies.com" here is a typical example of what will happen:
You search for a "cookies" domain.
The results are:
cookies.com - taken
cookies.net - taken
cookies.org - taken
cookies.co.uk - taken
cookies.tv - available ($150/1yr)
cookies.cc - taken
cookies.us.com - available ($120/2yrs)
cookies.uk.com - available ($120/2yrs)
Which available domain would make most sense to you for your bakery? Really. Go back and put yourself in the position of this customer, who owns a small bakery and wants to put his business on the web. Would cc make sense to you? We think that people prefer a domain that ends in .com, and if you couldn't get it, US.COM would be a close second!
Aren't Centralnic domains too expensive?
With Centralnic domains, there are still many valuable, easy-to-remember, generic possibilities. Some registries charges a high premium on those types of domains, even similar to resale-market pricing (as seen in the above example). CentralNic prices are consistent across the board. Centralnic domains were priced using the following considerations:
a. To discourage mass cyber-squatting of undeveloped domains
b. To create a good margin of profit for resellers
c. To make a profit based on the value of these premium domains.
Another consideration is that corporations today are paying tens of thousands of dollars to register domains in ccTlds. It is not uncommon for these types of domains to cost hundreds or thousands of dollars because of complex rules within those countries and registries. Relatively speaking, our domains are a bargain. Ask us for examples. We'll be happy to show you.
Will these third level domains work for hosting, e-mail, etc?
Registering at the third level is a common practice in two-thirds of the world's domains. It increases available options for end users. Most of the newest registries around the world have learned a lesson from how fast sensible .com domains have disappeared.
In Australia (com.au), The UK (co.uk), Japan (co.jp), and in Canada (bc.ca), registries and registrars have created and registered numerous second level categories to make more options available to end users. The .us registry has accepted 2nd and 3rd level registrations for years with no impact on hosting or e-mail.
SLDs like US.COM work exactly the same as Top Level Domains (TLDs) such as .COM or .NET and are supported by all existing e-mail systems. In his testimony to congress on 2-8-2001, A. Michael Froomkin, an expert on the Internet, testified that, "there is no technical difference between the root file containing the information about TLDs and a second-level domain file."
It is quite common for us North Americans to "exclude" or ignore the world view, but the truth is that SLDs are fine for hosting and for e-mail. They are used today all over the world.
Don't some companies give away third level domains?
No one is giving away third level domains after US.COM or uk.com.
Dot.biz, and Dot.info, and Dot.us are out now. Why do we need more choices?
This is true and registrars should carry them, but just like in the toll-free business, the first entrant stays in people's minds forever. When referring to a toll-free number, people don't think of 877 or 888 even though they are toll-free. They think of "800 numbers".
People will always want a domain that ends in dot.com (including us.com). It holds a high level of comfort and recognition in their minds.
What resources, time, or money are involved?
There is no cost to become a reseller for CentralNic The application will take about 5 minutes to fill out and fax. If you use enom it will have no impact on your existing systems and should take no more than one day to set up.
A more important question is "Will it be worth it?". Consider the fact that US.COM is only one of 15 countries and regions that CentralNic can provide for. Many of these are the fastest growing countries online. Examples are eu.com for Europe, de.com, for Germany, br.com for Brazil, cn.com for China, uk.com for the United Kingdom, and ru.com for Russia. All of these are very exciting emerging Internet economies that you will want to be a part of.
How do we know that CentralNic will stay in business?
CentralNic is a profitable company and along with it's predecessor, Nomination, has been registering these types of domains since 1996. In actuality, we were operating a registry before they actively registered .co.uk domains. We have a strong and proven commitment to the industry. In fact Centralnic is financially stronger than most Top Level Country Code operators. We have a recurring revenue stream that will only get stronger as the Internet grows throughout the world. Our domains actually cover two thirds of the civilized world.
Is CentralNic ICANN Accredited?
CentralNic does not offer Top Level Domains (TLDs) and therefore does not need to become an ICANN accredited registrar. ICANN only deals with registrars that issue TLDs. It is important to understand however, that CentralNic domains work within the existing Internet structure using sub-domains under a system that is fully approved by ICANN. Over half of the ICANN approved country code TLD operators already do the same thing within their ccTLDs.
In contrast, there are some companies today that are actually trying to compete with the ICANN accredited system of registrars. These are companies that operate what amounts to a large private network that connects to the Internet but requires either special software downloads or connection through certain ISPs to work. Domains that are issued by these companies are reachable by less than 1 in 8 Internet users today. Another problem with this approach is that it is regulated only by market demand. There is no legal or even technical body to regulate it. The result is that in some cases, 4 registries compete for the same domain ending. It's a free world. They can do this, but our opinion it is not the best approach to increasing the domain space.
The Bottom Line Is That Centralnic Domains Are Good For Your Business!
Head Office: CentralNic, Ltd.
Email: info@centralnic.com |
In the United States: Joe Alagna E-mail: joe@us.com |
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