Namecheap Releases 2021’s Most Popular TLDs & Domain Registration Trends
Namecheap’s 2021 Top 20 TLDs, from the Namecheap Domain Insights & Trends Report (PRNewsfoto/Namecheap)
The domain name registrar Namecheap has released its annual industry report. The 2021 ‘Domain Insights & Trends Report’ features domain registration data from 2020 and 2021. The data shows insight into global TLD registration trends for small business owners, online entrepreneurs, technology journalists, domain investors and web industry experts.
Top 10 most registered TLDs of the year
Namecheap has releases their data, showing the top 10 registered domain names’ TLDs (Top Level Domains) of 2021:
1 .com
2 .xyz
3 .net
4 .club
5 .me
6 .org
7 .co
8 .shop
9 .info
10 .live
Top 10 in 2020 Vs. 2021
Namecheap also released domain name registration data comparing the top TLDs for 2020 versus 2021:
Top TLDs in 2020:
.com
.xyz
.club
.site
.net
.info
.online
.org
.live
.icu
Top TLDs in 2021:
.com
.xyz
.net
.club
.org
.online
.shop
.info
.live
.site
What’s interesting to me is the addition of the .SHOP top level domain on the list. Personally, I think this is very telling, as many new online stores are opening up, as many people are working from home now or have quit their office jobs to start their own online store or “shop”.
Also notable is that .site has gone down significantly from 2020 to 2021. It was previously number 4 in the rankings, but is now 10th.
Namecheap mentions this in their report: “Also notable is the rise in popularity for .SHOP in 2021. This could be attributed to its increased appeal to online business owners. After not cracking 2020’s Top 10 gTLDs, its 115,996 registrations in 2021 made .SHOP one of the 10 most popular of all TLDs of 2021 and seventh most popular gTLD, besting previous favorites like .INFO, .LIVE, and .SITE.”
Top 20 ccTLDs of 2021
Namecheap shows the top ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domains), which are shown below:
1 .me
2 .co
3 .co.uk
4 .us
5 .io
6 .ca
7 .de
8 .cc
9 .in
10 .org.uk
11 .com.au
12 .ai
13 .uk
14 .eu
15 .nl
16 .tv
17 .fr
18 .gg
19 .id
20 .co.in
Even though these are considered ccTLDs, many organizations (and individuals) use them as a ‘regular’ website, not really related to a particular country or location. For example, .ME is popular for personal websites, .IO is used for “input output” or Tech-related websites usually. Keep in mind that I found, in a recent study, that when using certain ccTLDs, the search engines actually think certain ccTLDs are in a particular language, such as .CO domain names, Google thinks that they’re in Spanish initially. So, it’s necessary to make sure that you use the proper language declarations on your website.
You can read the full Namecheap report here: https://my.visme.co/view/kkykzw8x-namecheap-2021-domain-insights-and-trends-report