Data is an extremely important part of domain investing; it drives what you buy, and how much you buy it for. In this series, called Domain Data, we delve into sales data provided by NameBio to help you make more informed decisions about your domaining activities. This week, we ask: "Which is the best new gTLD based on aftermarket sales?"
The word "best" can be ambiguous, but in this instance we use the term best to help rank new gTLD sales based on both the volume and average price. Thanks to NameBio, we have data from 181 different new gTLDs and 1,874 sales to process. The total dollar value of all 1,874 sales is $6,670,678.
Before we go into detail, there are two things that we should point out. Firstly, this data doesn't differentiate between end user sales and sales to investors. Secondly, a couple of registries did provide sales reports directly to NameBio. These sales reports naturally contain a higher volume of sales, so the data could be skewed by the sales reports from .TOP and StartingDot, who run .ARCHI, .BIO and .SKI.
The Highest Individual Sale
Publicly available data shows that the highest new gTLD sale to date was a .XYZ domain that sold in April 2016. The domain in question is 1.xyz, which sold for $181,720 on the West.cn Chinese domain auction platform. WHOIS suggests that this sale was to an investment client of West.cn.
The second highest sale was also a .XYZ. The domain 9.xyz sold for $175,166 in December 2015, again on the West.cn platform. This was also sold to an investor, but still redirects to a .XYZ landing page.
Of the top ten new gTLD sales, four are .XYZ and three are .TOP. The extensions .CLUB, .WORK and .ROCKS have one sale each. Out of the top ten, eight names have three characters or less, with five being one-character numeric domains. Five of the top ten sales occurred at a Chinese domain marketplace.
The Highest Volume of Sales
NameBio has recorded 704 .TOP domain sales with a total value of $2,106,057. As we said earlier, .TOP did provide NameBio with a sales report, so there are bound to be more confirmed sales for this new gTLD. In second place, as you may expect, is .XYZ, who recorded 317 sales with a total value of $1,554,042.
This is followed by .CLUB with 194 sales and .GLOBAL on 85. These four new gTLDs are the only ones to display over 50 sales, with eight other extensions recording between 10 and 45 sales. Incredibly, 169 new gTLDs have nine or less publicly recorded domain sales. These extensions include .LINK, .WORK and .NYC.
The Highest Average Sales Price
For this data, we will only be considering data from those extensions that recorded higher than ten domain sales or more, as data from below this point is likely to be inaccurate. For example, the .ROCKS extension shows an average sales price of $100,000 due to one sale for this amount, which was autism.rocks.
The highest average sales price for a new gTLD with over ten sales is .CLUB. Even with 194 sales, .CLUB has an average sales price of $5,581. This figure is helped by sales such as wine.club for $140,000, c.club for $50,000 and vip.club for $40,000. Overall, the extension has recorded 21 sales of $10,000 or higher.
From the data available, it looks like .CLUB has attracted quite a few end users. The domain eat.club was sold to an end user at Sedo for $20,000, and joy.club was sold at the same venue for $10,000, again to an end user. In fact, Sedo was responsible for 101 out of the 194 total recorded sales of .CLUB domain names, with 95 of those sales being $1,000 or higher.
In second place was .XYZ with an average sales price of $4,902 from a total of 317 sales.
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What is your opinion on the data from the new gTLDs? It's very difficult to determine which of the biggest new gTLDs is being supported mostly by investors, rather than end user sales. However, from some WHOIS searches and by looking at sales venue data, I would suggest that .TOP is being traded amongst investors, with the majority of .TOP's sales occurring at eName.
Going back to our question of the best new gTLD, it's very difficult to determine a winner. Amongst investors, .TOP and .XYZ could be considered the best due to their sales of short and numeric domains at popular marketplaces in China and the West.
For end users, it could be argued that .CLUB has attracted the most activity. With 101 of .CLUB's 195 sales occurring at Sedo, it's likely that a number of these are to end users, based on statistics from Sedo's past popularity with end users.
All the data reported here is available at NameBio.com and can be found by using the various filters available there. Thanks to @Michael for providing the data.
The word "best" can be ambiguous, but in this instance we use the term best to help rank new gTLD sales based on both the volume and average price. Thanks to NameBio, we have data from 181 different new gTLDs and 1,874 sales to process. The total dollar value of all 1,874 sales is $6,670,678.
Before we go into detail, there are two things that we should point out. Firstly, this data doesn't differentiate between end user sales and sales to investors. Secondly, a couple of registries did provide sales reports directly to NameBio. These sales reports naturally contain a higher volume of sales, so the data could be skewed by the sales reports from .TOP and StartingDot, who run .ARCHI, .BIO and .SKI.
The Highest Individual Sale
Publicly available data shows that the highest new gTLD sale to date was a .XYZ domain that sold in April 2016. The domain in question is 1.xyz, which sold for $181,720 on the West.cn Chinese domain auction platform. WHOIS suggests that this sale was to an investment client of West.cn.
The second highest sale was also a .XYZ. The domain 9.xyz sold for $175,166 in December 2015, again on the West.cn platform. This was also sold to an investor, but still redirects to a .XYZ landing page.
Of the top ten new gTLD sales, four are .XYZ and three are .TOP. The extensions .CLUB, .WORK and .ROCKS have one sale each. Out of the top ten, eight names have three characters or less, with five being one-character numeric domains. Five of the top ten sales occurred at a Chinese domain marketplace.
The Highest Volume of Sales
NameBio has recorded 704 .TOP domain sales with a total value of $2,106,057. As we said earlier, .TOP did provide NameBio with a sales report, so there are bound to be more confirmed sales for this new gTLD. In second place, as you may expect, is .XYZ, who recorded 317 sales with a total value of $1,554,042.
This is followed by .CLUB with 194 sales and .GLOBAL on 85. These four new gTLDs are the only ones to display over 50 sales, with eight other extensions recording between 10 and 45 sales. Incredibly, 169 new gTLDs have nine or less publicly recorded domain sales. These extensions include .LINK, .WORK and .NYC.
The Highest Average Sales Price
For this data, we will only be considering data from those extensions that recorded higher than ten domain sales or more, as data from below this point is likely to be inaccurate. For example, the .ROCKS extension shows an average sales price of $100,000 due to one sale for this amount, which was autism.rocks.
The highest average sales price for a new gTLD with over ten sales is .CLUB. Even with 194 sales, .CLUB has an average sales price of $5,581. This figure is helped by sales such as wine.club for $140,000, c.club for $50,000 and vip.club for $40,000. Overall, the extension has recorded 21 sales of $10,000 or higher.
From the data available, it looks like .CLUB has attracted quite a few end users. The domain eat.club was sold to an end user at Sedo for $20,000, and joy.club was sold at the same venue for $10,000, again to an end user. In fact, Sedo was responsible for 101 out of the 194 total recorded sales of .CLUB domain names, with 95 of those sales being $1,000 or higher.
In second place was .XYZ with an average sales price of $4,902 from a total of 317 sales.
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What is your opinion on the data from the new gTLDs? It's very difficult to determine which of the biggest new gTLDs is being supported mostly by investors, rather than end user sales. However, from some WHOIS searches and by looking at sales venue data, I would suggest that .TOP is being traded amongst investors, with the majority of .TOP's sales occurring at eName.
Going back to our question of the best new gTLD, it's very difficult to determine a winner. Amongst investors, .TOP and .XYZ could be considered the best due to their sales of short and numeric domains at popular marketplaces in China and the West.
For end users, it could be argued that .CLUB has attracted the most activity. With 101 of .CLUB's 195 sales occurring at Sedo, it's likely that a number of these are to end users, based on statistics from Sedo's past popularity with end users.
All the data reported here is available at NameBio.com and can be found by using the various filters available there. Thanks to @Michael for providing the data.
