IT.COM

analysis How Many TLDs In That Domain Name?

Spaceship Spaceship
A domain name, such as example.com, has the top level domain (TLD) .com combined with the second level example to make the complete domain name. This post considers situations when the structure of the domain name is TLD1.TLD2, that is both halves of the domain name are TLD terms. I am not familiar with a formal name for domains with this structure. In this article I will refer to them as dual TLD domain names.

The idea for this article was sparked when I noticed that the domain name com.review recently sold for $13,996. I wondered how often such names sell for good amounts.

Last year I wrote a NamePros Blog post on the topic of domain twins, domain names with structure TLD.TLD, where the same TLD is on both sides of the dot. Domain twins are a special case of the dual TLDs considered here.


Highest Value Dual TLD Domain Sales

To find cases of dual TLD domain names, I used the exact term search at NameBio, and then manually scanned the list of sales. I did this for the primary legacy TLDs .com, .net and .org, a selection of the generic alternative extensions including pro, .info, .biz and .mobi, as well as all of the top 30, by registration, new domain extensions, plus a few others. I also checked numerous country code extensions, including .co, .me, .io, .tv, .ai, .gg, .uk. .de, .us, .in. There are many new and country code extensions I did not check, so the data I present here is incomplete. Hopefully readers will add in the comments significant sales that I have missed.

I found several hundred sales of domain names with the structure TLD1.TLD2. Here is the list of the highest-value ones, along with the sales prices.
  1. casino.com $5.5 million
  2. shop.com $3.5 million
  3. VIP.com $1.4 million
  4. website.com $750,000
  5. casino.de $625,060
  6. biz.com $625,000
  7. online.casino $510,000
  8. top.com $464,750
  9. me.com $460,000
  10. best.com $331.561
  11. tv.se $265,149
  12. casino.ro $253,268
  13. IT.co.uk $235,007
  14. casino.online $201,250
  15. shop.app $200,000
  16. shop.cn $160,320
  17. me.cn $147,200
  18. website.de $141,610
  19. casino.mobi $135,000
  20. live.chat $125,000
  21. co.ltd $115,000
  22. net.net $100,000
  23. net.work $100,000
  24. net.tv $100,000
  25. co.net $100,000
It is not surprising that .com extension domain name sales dominate the list, with 8 of the 25 sales.

The high-value word casino appears 5 times to the left of the dot, and another time on the right.

The pair online.casino and casino.online is the only case where both orders have 6-figure NameBio-listed sales.

The word shop appears twice left of the dot, while net is on the list three times left of dot.

I also had a look at how the 25 domains in this list are currently being used. Only 10 of the names go to a developed site, with another showing a ‘coming soon’ message. The day I checked, 12 of the sites were not in use, with another 2 listed for sale.


Additional Observations

While the list above is restricted to $100,000 and up sales, my original search looked at all sales above $1000. Here are a few observations from that broader search.
  • The exact word com appeared only a few times left of the dot. In addition to the recent .review sale for $13,996, com.nu sold for $30,056.
  • Net appeared to the left slightly more often, 3 times at $100,000, as well as in .nl for $13,136 and .fi for $3721.
  • org only appeared left of dot in one sale above $1000.
  • Only 3 of the TLD words that I checked did not appear left of the dot in any sales above $1000: icu, monster and gdn.
  • Not surprisingly, shop is very popular left of the dot, with 25 sales of $1000 or more, including 8 above $20,000.
  • Although cloud did not make our $100,000 plus list as a left of the dot term, there were 24 sales on the exact word cloud above $1000, including 10 at $10,000 or more.
  • The word top appeared to left of dot in 14 sales of $1000 or more.
  • Clearly some of the TLDs are better suited for use left of the dot as part of a phrase. However, even those that do not seem well suited, such as io, appeared 10 times at prices of $2500 or more.
  • Some of the country codes are popular left of dot, with de appearing with 19 different TLDs (in a total of 24 different sales with some repeats).
How Are The Great Combinations Used?

Whether they had a sale recorded in NameBio or not, I had a look at how some of the most valuable combinations are used.
  • com.com is used for a monetized sales directory.
  • net.com did not resolve the day I checked, while com.net is for sale.
  • shop.com is used for a shopping rebates program.
  • casino.com is in use.
  • website.com, as expected, is used for a web development and hosting service.
  • online.casino is a monetized directory to online casino sites.
  • shop.app is used by Shopify.
  • The superb combination net.work is not currently in use.
  • VIP.com is used for online shopping.
  • live.chat is in use.
What Does This Mean To Domain Investors?

While it is interesting to look at sales of domains where the single keyword is itself also a TLD, that knowledge probably does not significantly enhance a domain name investment strategy.

It is not surprising that domain extension words appeared so often as keywords in major domain name sales. The new extensions were introduced after extensive research by the registries on what terms appeared often, particularly at the end, of domain names that had sold frequently and for good amounts.

This suggests that one strategy might be to piggyback on that research, and search for legacy domain names that include extension words.

Some argue, though, that use in a domain extension may make that word less desired because of possible domain confusion. For example if someone tells you the domain name is online casino that might mean online.casino or OnlineCasino.com. Of course, for those who secure both options, this is not a problem, as one can be directed to the other.

What do you think? Is it good to hold domains with keywords that are also extensions?

In the October 2020 Dofo Domain Industry Report, 9 of the 10 most frequent domain keywords were also domain extensions: shop, online, home, group, life, world, tech, store, pro, and services. Only home is not a domain extension, and there is a homes TLD. The previous month’s analysis had an almost identical list of popular keywords, except that design was on the list instead of world.

I did a bit of search on both the aftermarket and registration stream for available domain names with the structure TLD1.TLD2. There are a few, although not at inexpensive prices. Some show as available at some registrars, but are not truly available.

If you do go searching and have success, or if you already own some dual TLD domain names, please share in the comments section.


Request

Thanks to everyone who has responded to the polls linked to last week’s NamePros Blog post. If you have not, it is not too late, and I would appreciate more responses to help inform the follow-up article. Here are the links to the polls..
I will be summarizing the results in a NamePros Blog post in the next couple of weeks.


Thanks to NameBio for such a valuable database and interface that makes analyses such as this one easy to do. I appreciate the nice work being done by Dofo in their monthly domain industry reports.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
ty Mr. Bob, happy thanksgiving!
 
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Thanks @Bob Hawkes for your research and analysis on this topic and all your previous topics.

I always find them very interesting and worthwhile.

The time and effort you take to do all this is simply amazing and I know I would never be able to come close to matching any of it.

Now we all can benefit from what you've done. We can take this knowledge and hopefully use it to grow our own domain businesses.

So on this Thanksgiving, I want to say I'm personally very thankful that you're part of this community and that you continue to freely share your wisdom and passion with us all.

P.S. As a fellow Canadian, I know Thanksgiving for you was several weeks back but since I live in the US, I now celebrate it today.
 
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And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We actually celebrate it in mid October here in Canada, so it is not Thanksgiving per se here, but with the closeness to USA it seems like it. We get to celebrate it twice!

I hope that everyone has a great holiday, and thank so many people for their kind comments all year round. NamePros is a truly wonderful online community, and I am thankful for it.

I hope we will hear some views on whether domain names with a keyword that is also an extension is a plus or a minus, or no difference.

Bob
 
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Thanks @Bob Hawkes !
Enjoyable to read, very informative and extremely useful. Top stuff as always!
 
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Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates this holiday and to all those around the World who share in the spirit of giving thanks during these difficult times.

And thanks to you Bob for yet another great article.

"dual TLD domain"

Bob you might have invented a new term for the domain Industry. :xf.wink:

As far as I know technically everything on the right of the dot is called a TLD and the keyword on the left of the dot is called SLD

TLD = Top Level Domain
SLD = Second Level Domain

(If you have a subdomain I guess it could be called Third Level Domain).

So the same keyword can be a TLD or a SLD depending on whether it's on the right of the dot or whether it's on the left of the dot .

It's no coincidence that the most popular keywords are also TLDs since most New gTLD applicants went after the top keywords considering that most of them were already active in the domain Industry and were familiar with what keywords had the best potentials. (although some people made some bad choices for their New gTLD which I still can't figure out why since they had to pay $250k application fee and 25k per year to maintain each New gTLD).

Also from what I understand there is an invisible Dot to the right of each TLD which is the Main Domain or the Root which all other TLDs are a subdomain of.

As far as if a keyword is better as a TLD or as a SLD I guess it depends if the left of the dot and the right of the dot complement each other in a grammatically correct way which doesn't sound backwards. So no matter how you go about it the top keywords are good to have both as TLD and SLD as long as they make sense whether as New gTLDs or whether as Legacy and ccTLD domains.

It's also worth noting that the reason that some people pay top dollar for some domains like "com dot TLD (or ccTLD)" is perhaps because they want to sell subdomains for them.

IMO
 
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Thank you Bob for the great article, and for the introduction of new terminology!

"Dual TLD domain names" - I admit I have a similar concept in my mind when registering or buying domain names - just investing in names where both sides of the dot are strong keywords, and in addition, they go well together - as seen from you examples above you gave, such names are typically winners when they sell.

Some examples of dual TLD domain names from my portfolio:

realty. rentals
sex. link
express. news
new. properties
business. place
insurance. hosting
work. coach
tech. link
sex. surf
bio. red
beer. click
cars. click
homes. center
mortgage. international
and probably a few more, but I am lazy to check now.

So basically - using the new terminology: if you can get Dual TLD domain names with low renewal fees, where both keywords make sense together, always strongly consider it, IMO :)
 
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Thank you very much Sir @Bob Hawkes Your articles are very much informative and we are all indebted to your esteemed efforts to provide us valuable information about domain names and domain industry. :xf.smile:
 
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How Many TLDs In That Domain Name?
Just 1 TLD of course, always, no exception, no matter which domain name.

There is no "TLD.TLD" - structure in the DNS of the WWW.

However, I got your point.

 
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Just 1 TLD of course, always, no exception, no matter which domain name.

There is no "TLD.TLD" - structure in the DNS of the WWW.

However, I got your point.

Actually it took the post to get head around it.
 
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As far as I know technically everything on the right of the dot is called a TLD and the keyword on the left of the dot is called SLD
Yes I totally agree that the one to the left is the SLD, and I am talking about when the SLD also happens to be a TLD. I was trying to be eye catching with the title, but think I may have simply introduced a bit of confusion.

I guess it depends if the left of the dot and the right of the dot complement each other in a grammatically correct way which doesn't sound backwards.
This is a critical point, and I totally agree. I should have stressed that point. Thank you!

Some examples of dual TLD domain names from my portfolio:
Wow! Totally impressive that you have so many! I am envious. I particularly like tech .link, business .place and new .properties!

I hope others will share examples from their portfolios, even if they just have one or two.

Bob
 
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cafe.app
be.app
ceo.app
rio.app
 
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Like ninja.plus and plus.ninja
 
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com.nu sold for $30,056.
They are giving away free .com.nu domain names. That can be a good thing in any extension. I got jo.com.nu.
 
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This was interesting, thanks Bob!
 
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