Dot-com 'to lose dominance' by 2020

Dot-com domains currently make up 42 per cent of all web addresses, and have been the main driver for the exponential growth of the internet in the last 20 years, but domain name specialists are predicting that .com could lose dominance by 2020, as hundreds of new web address endings come online.

The internet is currently undergoing one of the biggest changes since its inception, with over 1,000 new web address endings coming onto the market this year – ranging from شبكة. (.web in Arabic) to .sexy, .technology and .singles. As a result, the web in 2020 will be a very different place to the one we know and use today.

Before this whole process began, there were only 22 so-called generic top-level domains (gTLDs), including well-known ones such as .com, .net and .org. The internet was rapidly running out of usable space, and valuable .com 'real estate' was shrinking.

The vast range of new addresses being launched, including geographical domain endings such as .london, .nyc, and international suffixes using Chinese, Russian and Arabic characters, will not only help to address this issue, but will also make the web more accessible to users worldwide.

As a result, .com, .net and country code top-level domains like .co.uk may well go out of fashion in favour of more descriptive, search-friendly and geographically-neutral web addresses.

According to NetNames' Internet 2020 report, 92 per cent of large companies in the US, Britain, France and Germany are planning to invest in new domain names over the next three years, and 46 per cent say they already have begun to invest in this area.

Although .com will remain popular, registrations of new domain names will significantly overtake new registrations of .com and .net, as these established domains become saturated, according to NetNames.

Driven by the increase in internet adoption in emerging markets, a significant proportion of these new registrations will be made up of non-Latin characters, such as Cyrillic, Arabic and Chinese. Without the restrictions of keyboard entry, a .com extension could actually become a hindrance to attracting local traffic to a website.

"The introduction of thousands of new domain name endings, ranging from .football to .shop and even .dog is set to dramatically change the way we search and navigate the web," said Gary McIlraith, CEO of global domain name specialists NetNames.

"For a start, the descriptive nature of new domain name suffixes will help internet users to memorise web addresses more easily. As a result, our research shows that the vast majority of users will be more likely to enter a domain name in one of the new web suffixes into their browser bar, making them less reliant on search engines to find a website."

McIlraith added that over one million domain names with new web suffixes have already been registered, and before long new registrations in the new suffixes will overtake those in .com.

"We are starting to see the emergence of communities of interest on the web with domain names that are much more relevant to those interests and the content of the websites they support," he said.

However, with over 1,300 new domain names expected to be introduced, a new host of opportunities have been created for cybersquatting – the practice of registering domain names which infringe trademarks – and brand owners are now seeing new risks and challenges when protecting their online IP.

Cases of cybersquatting have rapidly increased since the launch of the new domain names, with many global brands already falling victim to this practice, including IBM (ibm.ventures, ibm.guru), Burberry (Burberry.clothing) and Lufthansa (lufthansa.email).

Law firm Hugh James said that there have already been 48 disputes arising out of web addresses using one of the new domain names adjudicated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. However, that number is expected to rise rapidly.

“UK businesses are having to spend time and money fending off cyber-squatters and rival companies who managed to register one of the new generation of web addresses with their company name in it,” said Tracey Singlehurst-Ward, Senior Associate at Hugh James.

“The worry is that businesses’ customers will be confused by the rival web address. Online brands are absolutely vital to most businesses now and the web address is an important part of that.”

Netnames predicts that by 2020, brand holders will have adopted more holistic trademark protection strategies to ensure their trademarks are proactively protected across all new domain names.