Exciting things we learned from our New Domain survey

We recently asked you delightful folks to participate in a survey to help us understand your thoughts on New Domains and how they’re being used. Thanks to you, we received thousands of responses that let us know what you really think about New Domains. (Thanks survey-takers—you’re the real MVPs!)

Because we’re huge nerds over here and think surveys are cool, we thought it was only fair to share what we learned. 

What we learned

We started by asking those of you who had a New Domain why you decided to buy one (or several) in the first place. Although there was a wide array of answers, here are some of the top responses*:

• 38.5% of responders bought a New Domain because it exactly matched their business or website name,
• 34.1% said it was because a New Domain seemed more interesting and unique than a generic domain,
• 29.1% bought one to supplement an existing domain, and
• 27.7% saw a New Domain as an investment that they wanted to get in on early.

Responders also listed several other reasons for registering a New Domain: lack of .COM or .NET availability, defensive registration for a brand, or because you got it for a good deal. But what what’s even more interesting was what you all are doing with those New Domains.

A whopping 48.8% of you are planning to use your New Domain to build a new website, and 30.5% have already created one. 24.8% are using a New Domain to forward to another website and the rest of the survey takers are using it for email purposes, to resell, or just because it sounded cool and you wanted one.

Don’t worry, we didn’t leave our non-New Domain owners out! The top reasons you listed for not purchasing a New Domain were:

• Already having a primary domain and being pretty happy with it
• Believing that New Domains could confuse users
• Not seeing the use of a New Domain
• Waiting to see if they catch on

Many of our responders surprised us with a completely different reason for not having a New Domain—you’re still waiting for one that’s specific to your niche! From .BAKERY to .RADIO, there are still a slew of potential New Domains relevant to individuals and their businesses that are yet to be released.

Thanks all of our survey participants who took the time to share your thoughts with us!

*Note that survey responders could choose multiple responses and write in their own.