CENTR released their latest TLD report. One of the things I thought that was interesting in the report was toward the bottom as it discussed how ChatGPT and A.I. overall could affect search and also domain names.

From the report:

The ChatGPT Effect – LLM Challenger to Search?

As Large Language Models (LLMs) continue to become more widespread, understanding their impact on domain names will become increasingly relevant to registries and registrars. Tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity provide human-like answers to queries that people might otherwise have searched for on the web. Just as Google’s page ranking technology propelled web search in the late 1990’s, AI chatbots are already having a profound impact on the distribution and discovery of information on the internet. As these tools continue to attract new users they are likely to divert web traffic from Google and other traditional search engines. This has the potential to impact Google’s entire business model of revenue generation from search ads and, in turn – domain names themselves.

Highlights from the report​

• In the first half of 2023, domain growth among European ccTLDs showed signs of a recovery from a record-breaking low at the beginning of the year to reach a high of 2.2% by September. The year however closed with a median of 1.4% across the top 30 largest ccTLDs in the region.
• Demand ratios averaged 1.1 meaning on average more domains are being registered than deleted.
• European ccTLDs are estimated to have around 54%2 (median) market share based on their locally registered domains.
• The median registrar price to buy a European ccTLD decreased over 2023 and recently was recorded at 9.4 EUR. The same registrars sell .com at 12.5 EUR.
• DNSSEC adoption rate is at 10.5% and is continuing to grow consistently.
• The rate of developed websites using SSL has been increasingly consistent and was recently recorded at 77%.