Since 2012, ICANN’s new gTLD program has released hundreds of new top-level domains into the wild. .xyz, .online, .site, .club, .world, .fun — splendid names arrived in rapid succession, yet many have followed a pattern of initial registration surges followed by quiet decline.

The majority of early registrations for new gTLDs were never intended for building actual websites. Speculative registrations (acquired for resale, never developed), defensive registrations (secured for brand protection, never used), and promotional registrations (claimed during free first-year campaigns, abandoned at renewal) — these three patterns form the “graveyard.” The gap between registration counts and actively operating sites is a metric registries prefer not to publicize. The true measure of a TLD’s health is not its registration volume but its renewal rate.

What distinguishes the survivors from this wasteland? .dev and .app carved out ecological niches through Google’s backing, a clear target audience (developers, app makers), and technical differentiation via mandatory HTTPS. Successful new gTLDs possess something beyond a catchy name — a defined habitat. .shop and .store, too, have achieved a degree of establishment by serving identifiable inhabitants: e-commerce operators.

By contrast, generic new gTLDs like .fun, .club, and .world continue to struggle for differentiation against .com. An expansion of namespace does not necessarily yield a flourishing of diversity. The mere existence of open land does not guarantee a city will rise upon it — the new gTLD graveyard stands as a record of natural selection within the domain ecosystem.