Wednesday, Aug 8, 2012    Text size: 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — ICM Registry, operator of the .XXX top-level domain, says it has logged to date 140,000 actual and 80,000 defensive registrations.

With 220,000 domains under management, ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley said that the top-level registrar has beat stats forecasted before last December's .XXX rollout.

"Our original projections called for 125,000 at the end of Year 5, so we are very much ahead of plan," Lawley told XBIZ.

On Tuesday, ICANN released numbers that jibe with ICM Registry's accounting. ICANN said that in April, .XXX had 134,994 actual registrations. In March, 132,579 actual registrations were recorded.

Next month, ICM Registry plans on launching Search.xxx, which aims to steer specific traffic to .XXX sites, Lawley said.

Taking one year to develop and costing $1 million to develop, Search.xxx will co-exist with .XXX's smaller directory, XXX.xxx.

"Its functionality, depth and speed should produce a significant level of traffic for .XXX site owners," Lawley said.

Full public relations and advertising campaigns targeting the consumer are planned, he said.

"[Search.xxx] will be presented at the Sex on the Beach Expo in Miami at the end of September, a consumer show, of which we are the headline sponsor," Lawley said.