Tag archive
legacy-gtld
5 articles
.mobi: The Mobile TLD Tim Berners-Lee Warned About — 964K Peak, Identity Digital, and a Namespace Responsive Design Killed
ICANN's 2005 mobile-only gTLD peaked at 964,115 (Sep 2008), sits near ~322K resolving (Jul 2026), and lost its sponsored mobile standards in 2017. mTLD → Afilias → Identity Digital; Tim Berners-Lee called it harmful; responsive design made it redundant. Verified roofs: ferrari.mobi, amazon.mobi redirects. Delete the old guide's unverified Fortune-500 list, "mobile-first TLD" pitch, and AIO boilerplate.
.biz: The Business gTLD Nobody Picked — 2M Peak, GoDaddy Registry, and a Zone Still Shrinking
ICANN's 2001 "business-only" gTLD peaked above 2M (June 2008), sits near ~1.2–1.5M in 2026, and Harvard's six-month audit found 74%+ empty and ~25% defensive. NeuLevel → Neustar → GoDaddy Registry (not Identity Digital—that's .info). Verified roofs: gamesindustry.biz. Delete the old guide's unverified $35k sales, AlexMakeup.biz filler, and AIO boilerplate.
.name: ICANN's Personal Namespace That Never Scaled—and Verisign Is Ending the firstname.lastname.name Era
~96K names under Verisign management (2026), down from 232K in 2012; $6.60 wholesale; third-level registrations and legacy tiered WHOIS slated for discontinuation. Verified roofs: cavin.name, lemire.name, jarekq.name. Delete the old guide's about.me fiction, unverified NameBio sales, and AIO boilerplate.
.info Promised Information, Delivered Spam: 7.6M Peak, Identity Digital, and a Reputation That Never Recovered
ICANN's 2001 "informational" gTLD peaked at 7.63M (Oct 2012), troughed near 3.96M (Dec 2024), rebounded to ~5.56M on promo churn—and Interisle lists .INFO in the top phishing cohort five years running. Afilias → Donuts → Identity Digital; wholesale $21 → $23.50 Jan 2027—and why the old guide's Mad Lib notables and AIO boilerplate failed audit.
.pro: Licensed Professionals Only Until 2015 — Identity Digital, ~1M Names, and Few Real Roofs
ICANN's 2002 credential gTLD peaked near ~1.02M zone names (Feb 2026), opened unrestricted 16 Nov 2015 after a decade of verification theater, and shares Identity Digital's $21 wholesale (→ $23.50 Jan 2027). Verified roofs: dorian.pro, poker.pro, video.pro. Delete the old guide's 300–500k fiction, European-freelancer Mad Libs, E-E-A-T AIO boilerplate, and invented premium tiers.