Can Domain Registrations Provide An Indication Of A Trend Gone Mainstream?	3.3/5.0 (9 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Anand Srinivasan December 08, 2014

Is it possible to study a trend merely by analyzing the number of domain name registrations containing the name of the trend? A recent Verisign blog post points out that the number of newly registered domain names that contain the term 'Bitcoin' directly correlated to its dollar value. The reports says, “domain registrations increased when the price jumped up and slowed down soon after the price fell. There were 4,572 registration in 2011, and only 1,734 registrations in 2012. This seems to be the first time the correlation between Bitcoin price and Bitcoin domain name registration is clearly visible.”

This begs the question – did the price of Bitcoin rise as the cryptocurrency got more popular, or is it the other way round? A careful analysis of the trend will show that every time Bitcoin rose in value, it caused a subsequent increase in the press coverage it received. The extensive media coverage of a subject is an indication of a 'mainstreaming' phenomenon – an increase in the number of domains registered is a by-product of the media coverage.

Let's take another example like 'Ebola'. Between August and September of this year, only close to 1200 domain names were registered with the keyword 'Ebola'. But by the end of October , 5965 new domain names were registered. This number has since waned and in November 2014, only 688 new names were registered. If you correlate this with news coverage, you will notice that although the first reported case of Ebola was back in December 2013, it was not until August 2014 that news websites really started covering the outbreak extensively. It was on September 26 that the World Health Organization announced Ebola as the “most severe acute public health emergency” of modern times. The subsequent media coverage correlates to the increase in the number of domains registered in October of this year.

In both the cases above, one would notice that extensive media coverage about the phenomenon being the next big thing makes the marketers believe they have to get on to this early to cash in. However, what they actually end up with is registering a new domain name after it has gone mainstream.

The increase or decrease in the number of domain names registered do not always correlate to the evolution of a product or a trend. Take the example of a B2B product like business internet. The purchasing decisions for a product as this depend more on the annual budget and business needs. AllStream, one of the leading providers of business internet services offers sports sponsorships to reach out to businesses. Their lead generation trend may thus be centered around their marketing initiatives and not completely determined by media coverage of the industry. However, the growth and movement of domain registrations correlate more to media announcements.

So what do we make of this? If you are a marketer who wants a metric to analyze evolving trends and phenomena, studying domain registrations may not prove effective. As the above examples show, the growth in registrations come after a phenomenon has gone mainstream, and not before it. As a result, using these trends to make your business decisions may not help you be an early-adopter of a trend which is key to making your website an authority on an evolving subject.

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