XYZ 1c Promotion Renewal Rates

In June 2016, the .XYZ registry launched its 1 cent promotion where people could register .XYZ domain names for 1 cent. It was a massive success and the new registrations from 01 June 2016 to 01 July 2017 were 3,373,359 domain names. The bulk of that increase was from the promotion. But now, in July 2017, many of those domain names are coming up for renewal. As of the latest available zonefile (15 July), 3,012,418 of those domain names are no longer in the .XYZ zone file. There are still 360,941 domain names from that period in the zone. There are still domain names to be renewed or deleted but the 10.7% of the domains have survived so far. It is expected that more domain names will be deleted from the zone in the next few weeks.

In terms of marketing, the promotion was successful and it gave the XYZ gTLD a visibility that it would not otherwise have had. Nobody had expected a 100% renewal rate on these promotional registrations. With heavily discounted registration fees in established gTLDs, the renewal rate on deeply discounted registrations can be in the region of 5%. It is, at registry and registar levels, a numbers game. The XYZ gTLD is the new generic gTLD on the block and it had to distinguish itself from the other gTLDs. The initial Network Solutions deal grew the gTLD rapidly and caused a lot of discontent in the industry. Most of those domain names from that promotion dropped without being renewed. But some were renewed.

The danger with overusing discounting is that it locks a TLD into a kind of Boom and Bust cycle where there is a spike in discounted new registrations followed approximately a year later by a spike in deletions. It can damage the registrar and enduser confidence in the TLD and create an expectation of more discounts to come. However, as a marketing tool, it is very effective at creating short-lived growth in a TLD. While .XYZ is not a .COM killer, it has created a kind of niche for itself and there is usage and development in the gTLD. It is not all doom and gloom for the .XYZ gTLD. Since 01 July 2017, there have been 30,001 new registrations.