According to the results of a new survey released by Sedo.com today, showing that 63% of small and mid-sized businesses are unaware about new gTLD’s
More than 600 managers and owners of SMBs were surveyed in January 2013, revealing that:
- 63% are unaware that new gTLDs will start being released this year;
- 40% felt that there was no advantage or were unsure what the advantage of a new gTLD would be; and
- 94%said they were not currently planning to purchase a new gTLD.
“Despite the fact that many large brands have applied for gTLDs and intend to use them, there is a lack of gTLD awareness among small and mid-sized businesses. Some 62.7 percent of respondents said that they were unaware that new gTLDs were going to become available in 2013, while over half of respondents said they felt that new gTLDs will only make the internet more confusing.”
“This research makes it clear that more education is needed if new gTLDs are to be successful. ”
Other findings by the Survey:
- Over half of respondents (52.3 percent) felt that new gTLDs would only create confusion. Just over 5 percent said new gTLDs would make things less confusing.
- Confusion is a recurring theme in the research: When asked what they felt the biggest problems were for gTLD adoption, more than half said “confusion” (51.2 percent), followed by “awareness” (19.7 percent) and “cost” (8.2 percent).
- That same lack of awareness and understanding can be seen in the findings that 54 percent of respondents would be hesitant to click on domain names ending in something other than .com, .net or .org. Of this group, 22.7 percent were worried about the potential security issues of uncommon domain names.
Here is who those who participated in the survey thought would be the most and least successful new gTLD’s:
- Respondents were asked to rank the 10 most commonly applied for new gTLDs in order of chances for success.
- “.llc” was described as having the most potential for success, followed by “.design,” “.music,” “.movie,” and “.home.”
- The one expected by respondents to be the least successful was “.app,” which ironically received more applications than any other gTLD, with 13 companies vying for control of the extension.
Before anyone gets too concerned or excited about the findings of the survey depending on your position on the new gTLD program its important to note that only 63.7% of respondents to the survey had purchased a domain name in the past.…
