Dot-travel domain names have reached 20,000 registrations worldwide in just over 12 months despite a number of teething problems with local internet service providers. Tralliance, the US company behind the initiative, said a string of high profile companies and organisations had bought a dot-travel domain name since the service launched in May 2005. Speaking exclusively…
Dot-travel registrations reach 20,000
Dot-travel domain names have reached 20,000 registrations worldwide in just over 12 months despite a number of teething problems with local internet service providers.
Tralliance, the US company behind the initiative, said a string of high profile companies and organisations had bought a dot-travel domain name since the service launched in May 2005.
Speaking exclusively to Travolution at the launch of the Mongol Rally in London, which Tralliance is sponsoring, chief executive Ron Andruff said around half of the domains bought had been “activated” with fully functioning sites.
“But there are a lot of companies that are sitting on the fence and waiting to see what will happen,” he added.
However Andruff said these companies would be foolish not to use their new dot-travel domains immediately.
He added: “Any manager that has bought one of this but has not activated it should be fired.”
Andruff admitted the company had been aware of criticism recently from a number of organisations that had experienced problems since they launched sites with a new dot-travel domain name.
Select World Travel, a Worcestershire-based travel agency, which recently launched its Selectworld.travel blog, discovered some users were having problems viewing the site.
Blogosphere directory Technorati also admitted recently that its systems would not identify dot-travel domain names.
Andruff said problems with some users not being able to see dot-travel websites stemmed from code embedded in the foundations of the internet and created during the previous roll-out of domain extensions.
The code is still used by some internet service providers around the world and has caused a number of problems for dot-travel domain names and other websites, Andruff said.
“This is a problem and a big issue for the internet,” he admitted. “The code is still there but in some cases nobody knows where it is – it is endemic of the internet itself.”
The company is now understood to be liaising with ISPs that are having problems with dot-travel domain names.
“All we can do is educate and work with the ISPs to fix it,” Andruff added.
