Paul Stahura a co – founder of Donuts, just published an article on Circle ID with regards to renewal rates on new gtlds. Stahura listed the factors he felt drove renewals such as age, semantic value and price to name a few.
The article is fairly lengthy and touches upon several topics. It is worth the read imo whether you are pro or negative on the new gtlds.
From the article:
If history is any guide, however, we have good reason to anticipate renewal figures that are impressively strong.
Several key factors drive renewal rates:
- Age and size of the TLD;
- Semantic value of registered names;
- Price; and
- Demographic and geographic distribution of registrants.
On each of those factors, new gTLDs in general (except, perhaps, any that are offering outright free names) and Donuts gTLDs specifically present a strong case for renewal.
Age and Size Are More than Just Numbers
The age and size of a TLD are important factors in renewal rates because the better names in a TLD are registered first. Put simply, TLDs with fewer names registered in them have a higher renewal rate because the 20,001st name registered (example: GreenBay.PIZZA) is of better semantic quality than the 100,000,001st (example: Samza-OrderIn.COM). Comparing the median Donuts new gTLD zone file size of 11,054 (for gTLDs launched prior to May 31 of this year) to .COM’s more than 100 million, it is reasonable to anticipate strong renewals on that factor alone.
A qualitative analysis of new gTLDs further supports this point. Looking at the zone file for .PHOTOGRAPHY, for instance, one sees a gTLD dominated by short, descriptive names that are directly related to photographic content or the photography business. More than half are keyword domain names, and the remaining typically are small business company names. An examination of the market dynamics of existing TLDs reveals that domains of this type are renewed at the strongest observed rate.
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