In the last year, the company that runs the Turkish Domain Registry has made many changes to how the extension is run. First, it has a brand new portal for registrars to interact with, liberalizing the extension .COM.TR, so registrants are no longer required to meet local presence rules, and it has launched a new dispute process to help brand holders recover domain names. The latest change from the registry is the launch of the top-level extension .TR.

Turkey in numbers

• Population – 85 million¹
• GDP per capita – $10,674²
• Number of domains registered – 1,009,832³
• Number of disputes filed – 243³

What do you need to know?

This launch will be phased—with the next phase lasting three months being the most important one for brand holders. If a company has an existing .COM.TR or .NET.TR, that gives them priority to secure the top level .TR. To qualify for this priority phase, brands need to have registered the .COM.TR or .NET.TR etc. before August 25, 2023. From around mid-June 2024, the registry will release the domain name into a general availability phase where anyone can register this new extension on a first-come first-served basis.

Reasons to act now

As mentioned, the Turkish Registry has made some significant changes that will help companies secure their domain names and be able to recover ones taken by third parties. However, like with many other country-code top-level domains with a lack of restrictions, it comes at a price. This can further encourage domains to be registered for use in fraud and other cybercrime activities. Turkey is the fourth largest country, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data, where counterfeit goods are seized. Even if a company is not operating in Turkey, someone may set up a local website to sell counterfeit goods off their brand name. Not securing top-level domain risks redirection to the wrong location and furthers confusion among users, negatively impacting a brand’s search engine optimization (SEO) ranking.

Additionally, there have been a number of these launches over the last few years, such as .UK, .AU, and .NZ. CSC has tracked the number of brand holder domains taken after the priority phase is completed, and has seen a large number registered, for example, in .UK it was seven percent. Third parties looking to use an established brand’s equity keep a close eye on these launches, which is why we always recommend registering the top-level when it’s launched.

Not covered in Turkey yet?

We’re aware many brand names have already been registered under the existing domain extensions; however, with the new dispute process companies do have an avenue to get domains back under their management. Also, be aware that many franchisees could have taken domains, so checking franchise agreements or even updating them to include domain names is a wise housekeeping exercise. If names are available now, it will save brands time and money to simply secure the domain names rather than potentially having to recover them down the road.

If your company has an existing .COM.TR or other extension, we highly recommend you secure the corresponding .TR. If your company has any current or potential future expansions into the Turkish market, we also recommend securing the .COM.TR now and applying for the .TR as soon as it goes into general availability.