Opening Day
After many months of preparation, with the Sunrise period as a test-run, your TLD is finally ready to throw open its doors. When you get to “steady state” the prevailing rule is “first come, first served” but the Landrush period is a window during which time stands still.
Minds + Machines Landrush Strategies
During a Landrush period, you establish a “window” – a time during which applications can be made. Just as in the Sunrise period (but with no trademark validation this time), customers go to any registrar offering your TLD and make their application.
Once you have all the applications in, you will need to apply your allocation scheme — who gets what name? In the past, a round-robin scheme was often used, so that one name was picked from Registrar A, the next from Registrar B, then C, and so on until you came back to Registrar A again. This sounds fair, but it was gamed by registrars who created hundreds of shell companies and got them accredited with ICANN just so they would have more turns in each round.
More recently, companies have turned to what are termed “collision auctions,” where two or more contenders for the same name are sent to a closed auction to determine which of them gets the domain name. There are other methods as well. Which method you use depends on the number of expected customers, the type of TLD you have, and the community (if any) that you serve.
A Landrush is not just a technical thing
The Landrush sets the tone for your business for years to come. It’s Opening Day. It’s when you go live, it’s when you begin life as a real TLD registry. Your renewals will be based on how many names are registered in the Sunrise. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not properly promoting the Landrush. Studies have been done on prior TLDs and it’s clear that the size and financial health of a registry is closely correlated to how well they did during the Landrush.
Each TLD should be marketed in a manner that works for that TLD; there isn’t one size fits all. If you think your TLD should be marketed the same way as someone else’s, that should tell you that maybe you don’t have a unique offering. But however you do it, this is a great place to spend time, money, and resources — it’s that important.
