Dotcom Remains Top Domain For Startups, But Usage Declines

The “.com” domain remains the top pick for new and burgeoning startups. That’s according to data collected by HackerNoon from its Startups of The Year 2023 contest.

As with all years, HackerNoon releases the unique social data gathered from Startups of The Year on GitHub and Hugging Face for valuable insights. In the 2023 version, 30,000 startups from 4,000+ cities participated to be crowned the best in their city.

Data from the contest found that “.com” predominantly remained the most popular domain pick for startups, highlighting its wide recognition and influence from the early days of the internet.

Despite its dominance, the “.com” domain was being used less in 2023 than it was in 2021 when HackerNoon first ran this analysis. Back then, 66.5% of the startups had chosen the “.com” domain, while in 2023, this number was down to 57.3%.

In 2023, the dotcom domain was followed by “.io” (11%), “.info” (10.9%), “.in” (4.3%), “.ai” (3.6%), “.app” (3.4%) and then a number of other niche domain endings used by less than 2% of the Startups of The Year 2023 participants.

This is in contrast to HackerNoon’s previous analysis that found that the dotcom domain was followed by  “.co” (6.4%), “.io (5.4%), “.ai” (1.7%), “.org” (1.5%), “.net” (1.3%) and then a number of other niche domain endings used by less than 1% of participants.

Based on the latest data, “.co”, “.org,” and “.net” were knocked out of the top five domains in use by startups and replaced by “.info”, “.in,” and “.app”. Meanwhile, “.io” and “.ai” saw an increase in the number of startups using those domain names, with the latter perhaps tied to the rise of artificial intelligence ever since ChatGPT launched.

In 2024, HackerNoon will have even more data to work with and the editorial team will be on the lookout for interesting trends in the world of startups. If you would like to view the data, HackerNoon open sources it using the following link.

About HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year

Startups of The Year 2024 is HackerNoon’s flagship community-driven event celebrating startups, technology, and the spirit of innovation. Currently in its third iteration, the prestigious Internet award recognizes and celebrates tech startups of all shapes and sizes. This year, over 150,000 entities across 4200+ cities, 6 continents, and 100+ industries will participate in a bid to be crowned the best startup of the year! Millions of votes have been cast over the past few years, and many stories have been written about these daring and rising startups.

The winners will get a free interview on HackerNoon and an Evergreen Tech Company News page.

Visit our FAQ page to learn more. Read more about this year’s design system here.

HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is a branding opportunity unlike any other. Whether your goal is brand awareness or lead generation, HackerNoon has curated startup-friendly packages to solve your marketing challenges.

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