One of the current featured polls at NamePros asks What non-com extensions have you sold so far in 2024?.
The poll, started by @Leo2k, has produced some interesting results. Just over 170 had voted at the time this article was written, and, beyond the ‘other’ category, the most popular choice is .net, with 25 people indicating an early 2024 sale in the extension. It is relatively close for the next position, with .xyz (19), .org (18), .co (14), .io (13) and .ai (12).
It seemed to me that on social media as well, more .net sales were being reported recently. I decided to do a little experiment to see if broader data supports that view. Along the way I also investigated other extensions receiving quite a few votes.
The Experiment
I only used sales reported on NameBio. The NameBio interface makes it easy to search for sales by extension and time period. I found the number, average sales price, and total sales volume for the following periods of time:
To concentrate on retail sales, I only included sales of $1000 or more. I included sales over all venues, so there would be a few high-value wholesale acquisitions in the data.
To make it easy to visualize sales volume rates, I adjusted all data to the corresponding dollar volume for a one year period.
Is .NET on Upswing?
Below is the data for .net. It is up in dollar volume compared to the previous one and three year periods, but the increase is fairly modest. The .net sales volume for the most recent three months is up 11.6% compared to a three year period, and up 20.5% when compared to the most recent year.
Calibrating with .COM
But maybe what we were seeing is simply a trend in the overall domain market. To check that, I did the same calculations for .com sales only, obtaining the data below.
We see that overall market sales do not explain the .net results, as the .com volume for the most recent 3 month period is down 16.7% compared to the 3 year period.
Keep in mind, though, that the 3 year period includes the boost during the pandemic related shift to digital selling and services.
Also, note the very different scales on the graphs in this article. The sales dollar volume ($1000 plus sales) for .com is more than 36x that of .net for the 12 month period.
Is .IO Back?
Anecdotally, there have been a number of impressive .io sales of late, prompting at least one investor to say “.io is back”. Both .co and .io had strong sales during the pandemic related business shift, but dropped off last year. So let’s look at whether .io is on the rise again.
The NameBio data shows that indeed the last 3 months have been strong in .io, whether compared to the previous 12 months or the most recent 3 year period. The most recent 3 months have seen .io sales volume (sales of $1000 and more) up 32.8% compared to the 3 year period, and up 40.4% compared to the most recent 12 months.
AI Keeps Surging
The rise of the .AI extension has been impressive, tied to the business disruption generated by adoption of artificial intelligence. I wondered, are we at peak yet, or is it still rising?
There seems no pause yet in the .ai sales volume rise, up 57.9% compared to the previous 12 months, and up more than 280% compared to a three year average.
What About XYZ?
Many of the end users for .xyz domain names are in decentralized applications and services. Sales in the extension are somewhat synchronized to strengths in cryptocurrency markets. I show the trend for .xyz using the same methodology as for the other extensions.
The sales volume for .xyz is not only up strongly compared to the last year, which had seen some pullback, but the 3-month volume rate in .xyz sales is also up 16.6% compared to the rate for the most recent 3 years.
Keep in mind that any changes in venues reported to NameBio, or in how many sales are privately reported, could influence these results.
Why not head over to the poll and share extensions, in addition to .com, in which you have made sales so far in 2024?
Also, consider reporting your sales, if not already done, in the NameBio Report A Sale, and in the NamePros Report Completed Domain Name Sales Here. That thread, with more than 26,000 replies and a similar number of reported sales, has been viewed more than 6 million times! The thread was started by @RJ, who also is the founder of NamePros. See also the article Reporting Domain Name Sales.
Sincere thanks to NameBio. Their superb interface makes it easy to do analyses such as this, and their wealth of recorded domain name sales, currently over 4.9 million sales totalling more than $2.6 billion, does so much to help inform the domain community.
The poll, started by @Leo2k, has produced some interesting results. Just over 170 had voted at the time this article was written, and, beyond the ‘other’ category, the most popular choice is .net, with 25 people indicating an early 2024 sale in the extension. It is relatively close for the next position, with .xyz (19), .org (18), .co (14), .io (13) and .ai (12).
It seemed to me that on social media as well, more .net sales were being reported recently. I decided to do a little experiment to see if broader data supports that view. Along the way I also investigated other extensions receiving quite a few votes.
The Experiment
I only used sales reported on NameBio. The NameBio interface makes it easy to search for sales by extension and time period. I found the number, average sales price, and total sales volume for the following periods of time:
- most recent 3 months
- last 12 months
- past 3 years
To concentrate on retail sales, I only included sales of $1000 or more. I included sales over all venues, so there would be a few high-value wholesale acquisitions in the data.
To make it easy to visualize sales volume rates, I adjusted all data to the corresponding dollar volume for a one year period.
Is .NET on Upswing?
Below is the data for .net. It is up in dollar volume compared to the previous one and three year periods, but the increase is fairly modest. The .net sales volume for the most recent three months is up 11.6% compared to a three year period, and up 20.5% when compared to the most recent year.
Calibrating with .COM
But maybe what we were seeing is simply a trend in the overall domain market. To check that, I did the same calculations for .com sales only, obtaining the data below.
We see that overall market sales do not explain the .net results, as the .com volume for the most recent 3 month period is down 16.7% compared to the 3 year period.
Keep in mind, though, that the 3 year period includes the boost during the pandemic related shift to digital selling and services.
Also, note the very different scales on the graphs in this article. The sales dollar volume ($1000 plus sales) for .com is more than 36x that of .net for the 12 month period.
Is .IO Back?
Anecdotally, there have been a number of impressive .io sales of late, prompting at least one investor to say “.io is back”. Both .co and .io had strong sales during the pandemic related business shift, but dropped off last year. So let’s look at whether .io is on the rise again.
The NameBio data shows that indeed the last 3 months have been strong in .io, whether compared to the previous 12 months or the most recent 3 year period. The most recent 3 months have seen .io sales volume (sales of $1000 and more) up 32.8% compared to the 3 year period, and up 40.4% compared to the most recent 12 months.
AI Keeps Surging
The rise of the .AI extension has been impressive, tied to the business disruption generated by adoption of artificial intelligence. I wondered, are we at peak yet, or is it still rising?
There seems no pause yet in the .ai sales volume rise, up 57.9% compared to the previous 12 months, and up more than 280% compared to a three year average.
What About XYZ?
Many of the end users for .xyz domain names are in decentralized applications and services. Sales in the extension are somewhat synchronized to strengths in cryptocurrency markets. I show the trend for .xyz using the same methodology as for the other extensions.
The sales volume for .xyz is not only up strongly compared to the last year, which had seen some pullback, but the 3-month volume rate in .xyz sales is also up 16.6% compared to the rate for the most recent 3 years.
Keep in mind that any changes in venues reported to NameBio, or in how many sales are privately reported, could influence these results.
Why not head over to the poll and share extensions, in addition to .com, in which you have made sales so far in 2024?
Also, consider reporting your sales, if not already done, in the NameBio Report A Sale, and in the NamePros Report Completed Domain Name Sales Here. That thread, with more than 26,000 replies and a similar number of reported sales, has been viewed more than 6 million times! The thread was started by @RJ, who also is the founder of NamePros. See also the article Reporting Domain Name Sales.
Sincere thanks to NameBio. Their superb interface makes it easy to do analyses such as this, and their wealth of recorded domain name sales, currently over 4.9 million sales totalling more than $2.6 billion, does so much to help inform the domain community.
