All About The .win Top-Level Domain

Are you thinking about getting a creative, new gTLD for your website? A wave of alternatives to the popular .com domain extension flooded the internet around 2014. The purpose of these new domain extensions was to enable billions of new users to easily find their niche. One of these cool, new domain extensions is the .win top-level domain.

The .win gTLD has grown in popularity generally amongst gaming websites and communities. Everyone wants to win, right? In any case, if you’re thinking about launching your own .win website, let us give you a tour of the history, purposes, and popularity of this gTLD.

What Is .win? When did it launch?

.win is a generic nTLD – new top-level domain. In 2012, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a non-profit organization that manages the global Domain Name System (a directory of all domains and their IP addresses) figured it’s time to shake things up a bit. They instituted a program for new gTLDs, asking companies worldwide to apply with new domain suggestions and short exposés on how those domains would function. 

One of the proposed new domains that got the green light from ICANN was .win. It was approved by ICANN, delegated to the Root Zone on March 26, 2015, and made available to the general public on August 5 that same year.

.win is a gTLD, i.e. generic top-level domain, which means that it’s about as likely to pop up in a Google search in any country. Generic top-level domains, as opposed to country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) don’t target any geographic locations. This makes .win a good choice for websites looking to reach a global audience.

Who Administers the .win Domain?

The .win domain’s administration is a bit complex, in the sense that it’s a partnership. While Famous Four Media has been the sponsor for the domain, they’ve partnered with Neustar as the backend registry, which also dealt with technical requirements regarding the gTLD. Famous Four Media registered lots of domains during the nTLD program under ICANN, which quickly made it a giant in the domain game.

Why Should You Register a .win Domain? What Is It Used For?

The .win domain is aimed at gamers, gaming platforms, game sellers, and anyone with gaming affinity. Overall, it’s a perfect domain extension to create an online gaming hub or community.

You should consider the .win domain because it will give an air of success to your website – after all, yes we play for fun, but we also play to win.

How Popular Is the .win gTLD?

As of 2020, .win accounts for 0.22% of all registered domains, with 77,186 .win registered domains worldwide.

How Do You Get a .win Domain?

The .win domain is quite affordable, and it’s available from us here at Domain Name Sanity. Find your new .win domain name today!