NameSilo

analysis Median Top 10 Trends Indicator: What It Means and Results Through End 2024

Spaceship Spaceship
A few months ago I introduced two indices to spot extensions trending up or down: Top Ten Index as Measure of Domain Extension Strength.

While the article presented early results, 2024 sales were incomplete at that time. This article reports data through the end of 2024.

Note that two indices were defined in the earlier article, but I will only be using the median one here.

I also look at additional extensions, using data from my year-end analyses to suggest extensions worthy of study:

Why A New Index?

There are various ways you can look at the domain name market, either globally or by extension:
  • One could look at number of sales. but that is a really poor indicator, at least if using NameBio data. as the vast majority of reported sales are wholesale acquisitions, from places like expired auctions, rather than retail sales to end users.
  • Average price is also a very poor indicator because of the mixed wholesale-retail population.
  • Number of high value sales can be a worthwhile indicator. I do report that data in the annual reports (e.g. Top 100 NameBio-Listed Domain Sales of 2024), as well as the extensions mentioned in the top 100 reported sales.
  • Total dollar volume is a better measure, since it tends to be dominated by the retail sales. Retail represents a minority of the number of reported sales, but a majority of the total dollar volume, in most cases. That is why it is the main indicator I report in my annual look at domain name sales, e.g. 2024 Domain Name Market Volume Trends. The one problem with using dollar volumes is that a few significant outlier sales can have a big impact.
If we seek an indicator of strong retail sales, I think the case can be made to look predominantly at the high-end of the market. If the high end is strong, odds are the overall aftermarket is doing well. But I wanted to not let one huge sale overly influence results, so I decided to use the median value of the top 10 sales, in that extension, for each year. I call this the Median Top 10 Index, and explain how to calculate it in the next section.

Calculating the Median Top 10 Index for an Extension

The Median Top 10 Index will normally be computed for a particular extension and year. If you have a membership at NameBio, even at Collector or Domainer level, it is fast to get the data needed for the calculation. Here are the steps:
  1. After signing into NameBio, set the Extension and Date Range. Normally that will be one of the years from the pull down list.
  2. Do not enter a name in the Search box, or other parameters like a price range or pattern, just leave blank. Press the Search to generate results.
  3. Unless already presented in decreasing price order, press the Price in the header with Search Results. Repeated pressing will switch from ascending to descending order – you want descending, i.e. the top prices first.
  4. In Results select 10 records per page – the default is normally that. From the 10 sales reported count down and take the average the the fifth and the sixth value, which will represent the median of the top 10 sales in that extension for the year. Record the value.
  5. Switch to a new year, leaving extension unchanged, and repeat the process, eventually covering the period of interest.
  6. If studying more than one extension. change the extension, and then repeat the steps.
It is important to understand how the Median Top 10 value depends on a list of sales values, and I explain that with a hypothetical example below.
Image-Example-ComputationCases.png

The Median Top 10 is obtained by the midpoint between the 5th and 6th of the 10 highest-price domain name sales for the year. This shows the value (Median 10) for six hypothetical distributions. Note that the value does not depend on the specific highest sales values (e.g. case D). Also, if there are not at least 6 sales, then there will not be a median value for the top 10 (Case E), even though there are a few sales.

Summarizing aspects of the Median Top 10:
  • A very high-value outlier sale has no impact on the Top 10 Median value. See Case D.
  • Even a couple of high-value sales, will still have no impact, see Case C.
  • With 5 or fewer sales, no nonzero median of the top 10 sales exists (Case E).
  • A distribution with many moderate value sales can have a higher median than one with a high outlier but other sales lower (Cases A, B).
  • The Median Top 10 reflects if there are multiple strong sales in an extension, but is not impacted by the specific highest values.

Use To Predict Trends – .IO Results

In my early work on the Median Top 10, I discovered that several extensions, now regarded as high-value, had multiple years of modest but consistent growth in the Median Top 10 index. For example, I present the values for the .IO extension below.
Image-IO-NotedTrend.png

From 2014 through 2020 the top sales of .IO were modest, but the median of the top 10 sales grew year by year. Then in 2021 high-value sales in the extension took off.

It seems that the slow consistent growth in this indicator could have predicted major sales in subsequent years.

.COM Reference

I wondered if the index could also be useful to see if the top end of a long-established extension is still growing or decreasing. Below are the results for .COM. We see that overall it is fairly constant over many years, with the 2021 domain boom the only exception.
Image-COM-2024-Median10.png

.NET Updated

I had presented .NET results in the first article, but here is the data updated through the end of 2024.
Image-NET-2024-Median10.png

.AI Median Top 10

When we add in sales through to the end of 2024, the top end of the market for .AI continues to grow, although not at the same relative leap we saw in 2023.
Image-AI-2024-Median10.png

For this extension, From 2015 through 2022 the top sales were modest, but there was a pattern of consistent year-to-year growth, as we saw for .io. An astute investor could have read the signals in that pattern for a subsequent major rise, as we saw in 2023. Of course in .AI it was the Open AI release of Chat GPT that pushed interest in .ai domain names.

.XYZ Irregularity

The case for .XYZ is complex. In the early years, the registry sales of high-value short names pushed high Median Top 10 values. Then the penny registration program largely killed the aftermarket for a few years. Starting in 2020, the top of the market grew, explosively in 2022, and has remained strong since then.
Image-XYZ-2024-Median10.png

Bet on .BET?

I mentioned in 2024 Domain Name Market Volume Trends that .BET had a strong 2024 in terms of dollar sales volume. The last three years have produced strong growth in the Median Top 10 Index.
Image-BET-2024-Median10.png

Regulatory changes helped drive interest in this extension.

The .APP Pattern

The .APP extension had a period of strong and consistent growth in the index, although now the extension has reached a more stable pattern. .APP is routinely, along with .XYZ, one of the strongest new extensions.
Image-APP-2024-Median10.png

The .NETWORK Results

Other indicators indicate recent strength in .NETWORK, so I wanted to see the pattern in Median Top 10.
Image-Network-2024-Median10.png

.GG Pattern Hard To Interpret

The .GG extension, repurposed for gaming, has long been a darling of some domain investors. The Median Top 10 is not easy to interpret for this extension, with steady growth from 2017 through 2021, then a drop. I don’t know the .gg extension well enough. It should be noted that the dollar volume trend in the extension is not completely consistent with the median index.
Image-GG-2024-Median10.png

Final Thoughts

It must be kept in mind that many retail sales do not end up reported in NameBio. If there is a systematic change, for example a major seller in an extension starting or stopping reporting private sales, then it could skew results.

I would not depend only on the median top 10 index as an indicator, but I think taken along with trends in dollar volume, the index can help to spot extensions possibly trending up, or down. Keep in mind it is consistent growth that seems more important than actual dollar values in the early years.

I have maxed out the number of allowed image attachments for this article, but may publish in the comments below additional results for other extensions I analyzed.


Sincere thanks for NameBio, the source of the sales data used in the computations reported in this article.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Bob Agent at it again. Thank you
 
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.io looking good. I know I've dumped some in recent years, but thinking about adding a few available ones I have my eyes on.
 
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I know I've dumped some in recent years, but thinking about adding a few available ones I have my eyes on.
I've done and feel the same. I only wish that the renewal costs were not so high, even higher than a few months ago.
 
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very insightful and data based thanks for sharing
 
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I've done and feel the same. I only wish that the renewal costs were not so high, even higher than a few months ago.
Yup. I manage to buy they with somewhat reasonable price, but never no the renewals. I just bought one at Sav for $26.95. Spaceship has a one-time use only coupon (IO85) for $14.98. If you know of any others that have good deals, let me know.
 
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I've done and feel the same. I only wish that the renewal costs were not so high, even higher than a few months ago.
Fascinating analysis, Bob,
The renewal fees seem to be having a major impact even on .COM. I don't track the sale prices, but I do track renewal rates and .COM has had retention problems in 2024. This is beyond the Covid bubble of 2021-2022. The weird thing is the performance of .ORG compared to .COM. It is like .ORG is a ccTLD in terms of registrants identifying with it as being *their* TLD.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Fascinating analysis, Bob,
The renewal fees seem to be having a major impact even on .COM. I don't track the sale prices, but I do track renewal rates and .COM has had retention problems in 2024. This is beyond the Covid bubble of 2021-2022. The weird thing is the performance of .ORG compared to .COM. It is like .ORG is a ccTLD in terms of registrants identifying with it as being *their* TLD.

Regards...jmcc
I love .org. But only for organizations and similar type applications. Many organizations will buy a .org before they will buy a .com. It fits better.
 
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I love .org. But only for organizations and similar type applications. Many organizations will buy a .org before they will buy a .com. It fits better.
That's the same kind of dynamic with strong ccTLDs. People and companies identify with it as being their TLD. That leads to a higher renewal rate (first renewals are over 60% for .ORG and around 50% for .COM.

Regards...jmcc
 
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The weird thing is the performance of .ORG compared to .COM
I love .org. But only for organizations and similar type applications. Many organizations will buy a .org before they will buy a .com. It fits better.
The aftermarket sales dollar volume increase for .org is one of the most steady trends over the last 5 years – not surprised that the renewal rate is strong in .org, thanks for the data. I definitely think as you mention that there is price sensitivity, and .org are keeping prices more constant than .com or .net, and way more constant than .info.

Here is the median of the top 10 .org sales of each year. It shows especially starting in 2020. a modest but positive trend.
-Bob
Image-ORG-2024-Median10.png
 
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@NameGroove asked about 3 other extensions. I compiled the data for one of them, .vc. Pretty consistently up!

Image-VC-2024-Median10.png
 
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Does anyone think .si names will have some growing success as SuperIntelligence names, similar to .ai for Artificial Intelligence?

Relatedly, does someone know where to drop catch dropping .si names?
 
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Does anyone think .si names will have some growing success as SuperIntelligence names, similar to .ai for Artificial Intelligence?

Relatedly, does someone know where to drop catch dropping .si names?

I don't think .si or .ml have much success possibility (although it surely isn't zero). However, many others do - and there is a whole thread about .si here on NP. That said, nothing wrong with taking measured risks and a few fliers

Also

 
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I don't think .si or .ml have much success possibility (although it surely isn't zero). However, many others do - and there is a whole thread about .si here on NP. That said, nothing wrong with taking measured risks and a few fliers

Also

I think that .SI would have more credibility. The .ML ccTLD was one of the Freenom ccTLDs and it still has a lot of baggage from that. (The ccTLD was redelegated from Freenom a few years ago.) For decades, domainers have been losing money on ccTLDs because theyt don't know the markets. The .SI is the ccTLD for Slovenia. Most of the European ccTLDs tend to dominate their local country markets and often have a higher web usage rate than the legacy gTLDs in those countries. Also, English is not the first language for most European countries. With a strong ccTLD, many good English language keyword domain names may be unregistered. That's because the keywords in the local language are more valuable.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Really appreciate the insights, Bob! Thanks for sharing. ❀️
 
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The aftermarket sales dollar volume increase for .org is one of the most steady trends over the last 5 years – not surprised that the renewal rate is strong in .org, thanks for the data. I definitely think as you mention that there is price sensitivity, and .org are keeping prices more constant than .com or .net, and way more constant than .info.

Here is the median of the top 10 .org sales of each year. It shows especially starting in 2020. a modest but positive trend.
-Bob
Show attachment 269889
The .ORG stopped using discounting offers to drive registrations a few years ago. These discounted registrations often didn't renew well after the first year. This helped bring a kind of stability to the reg free for .ORG and got rid of a some of the low quality registrations. The first year renewals are important and .ORG is currently stronger than .COM in that respect (approx 60% to 50% and it varies by month and season). The registries typically quote the blended renewal rate which is the renewal rate of all domain names up for renewal in a period. That's often much higher than the first renewal rate because domain names that have been registered for more than a year often keep renewing until the registrant decides to drop them.

The .COM is the top global gTLD and that's unlikely to change in the short term. The .ORG generally has a lot of good branding and recognition. That helps with resale prices.
These are the .ORG websites by top ten country counts for January 2025.
Country - .ORG sites - Hosted sites - % of .ORg sites
| United States | 9,429,860 | 6,677,819 | 70.8157 |
| Germany | 9,429,860 | 1,056,077 | 11.1993 |
| France | 9,429,860 | 249,272 | 2.6434 |
| Canada | 9,429,860 | 189,193 | 2.0063 |
| Virgin Islands (UK) | 9,429,860 | 161,191 | 1.7094 |
| Netherlands | 9,429,860 | 156,689 | 1.6616 |
| United Kingdom | 9,429,860 | 128,634 | 1.3641 |
| Italy | 9,429,860 | 83,306 | 0.8834 |
| Australia | 9,429,860 | 78,104 | 0.8283 |
| Japan | 9,429,860 | 67,910 | 0.7202 |

The US accounts for most of the sites. Some of that is down to Amazon's AWS as is some of the share for Germany. The Virgin Islands is often used for PPC parking and sales. What all those countries have in common is that they have relatively strong economies.

This is the Top 10 for .COM:
| United States | 133,055,165 | 90,847,181 | 68.2778 |
| Germany | 133,055,165 | 10,699,492 | 8.0414 |
| Canada | 133,055,165 | 4,693,393 | 3.5274 |
| Hong Kong | 133,055,165 | 3,092,015 | 2.3239 |
| France | 133,055,165 | 2,546,622 | 1.9140 |
| Japan | 133,055,165 | 2,188,554 | 1.6448 |
| China | 133,055,165 | 2,143,007 | 1.6106 |
| Netherlands | 133,055,165 | 1,584,194 | 1.1906 |
| United Kingdom | 133,055,165 | 1,578,215 | 1.1861 |
| Virgin Islands (UK) | 133,055,165 | 1,305,891 | 0.9815 |

China uses a lot of US flagged IP addresses with due to some large Cloud hosting operations. A lot of the Hong Kong websites use IP addresses that were officially allocated to African countries. Some new China and Hong Kong registrations are discount driven. Renewal rates are strongly linked to web usage and the economy of the registrant's country. A domain name with a developed website is more likely to be renewed than one on a holding page or parked on PPC. The one category with the highest attrition (non-renewal) rate is the Sales category. If a non-premium domain name registered at a discount isn't sold in its first year, it is unlikely to be renewed. Premium domain names renew strongly.

The .INFO has become two TLD markets. There's a lower reg fee market of new registrations and a market of previously renewed domain names. These are often brand protection registrations and the renewal fee for .INFO is much higher than the reg fee. Afilias invented much of the discounting model. Some other registries tried to use it with varying levels of success. It might appear that registries are in the sales business. In reality, they are in the renewals business because that's where they make the most money.

Regards...jmcc
 
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The aftermarket dollar volume for year 2024 showed a significant increase for the .one extension, although still not that high. Anyway, I decided to look at the Median Top 10 values for .one, and paste them below. There is a somewhat consistent multi-year rise, but the absolute values are still very low.

Image-ONE-2024-Median10.png
 
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Thanks for all your data and insights, @jmcc. I found this comment interesting – I had never quite thought about it that way, that the discounting really started with .info before the new gTLD releases, or that the primary job of the registry is to secure renewals, not initial registrations.
Afilias invented much of the discounting model. Some other registries tried to use it with varying levels of success. It might appear that registries are in the sales business. In reality, they are in the renewals business because that's where they make the most money.
Thanks again.
Bob
 
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Thanks for all your data and insights, @jmcc. I found this comment interesting – I had never quite thought about it that way, that the discounting really started with .info before the new gTLD releases, or that the primary job of the registry is to secure renewals, not initial registrations.

Thanks again.
Bob

Agreed. I have never thought about that. Now it stiumlates another wonder -

was there any occasion in history when a Registry decided to lower its renewal cost in order to secure retention rate?
 
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Agreed. I have never thought about that. Now it stiumlates another wonder -

was there any occasion in history when a Registry decided to lower its renewal cost in order to secure retention rate?
I think that registrars offer a renewal discount based on the number of years for which a domain name is renewed. Not sure if it is a registry based thing with most gTLDs. It is possible to see the numbers of multi-year renewals in the ICANN registry reports. Most renewals are one year renewals.

Once a TLD gains critical mass, the majority of its domain names are renewals rather than new registrations. Thats why the renewals become important for a registry and also for registrars. Registrars have to keep marketing a TLD so that it keeps replacing deletions and also growing the number of domain names registered. The registry keeps marketing the TLD and emphasising the quality of the TLD's brand.

Discounting is a very dangerous thing from a registry viewpoint. Done well, it can help grow the zone. Done badly, it causes the numbers of developed websites on the TLD to fall. The discounting is often done with the best performing registrars and sometimes on a rebate basis. They have to sell enough to qualify so the registrars have to market it. Heavy discounting is a very cynical business model that assumes that most new registrations will not renew. The non-renewal rate for these offers can be as high as 95% for some gTLDs. However, that remaining 5% will renew at a fee that is often multiples of the initial reg fee.

Bob mentioned price senstivity above. That may affect the resale prices in an indirect manner. Most gTLDs are a set of country level markets with a much smaller global market. That means that the reg fee and resale prices are driven by the economies of those countries. For some developing countries, the reg fee and renewal fees for a .COM are relatively higher than they would be for developed countries. For .ORG and .COM, their main markets are the US and Europe. The .COM is the top global TLD and it is important for export.

ICANN's registrar accreditation also has an impact and many countries have no ICANN registrars but have very strong ccTLDs. Brazil would be one of the best examples. This is the breakdown of registrars by ICANN region for the September 2024 registry reports:

Region - Registrars - gTLDs
AF 13 187,666
AP 616 39,941,560
EUR 188 33,698,426
LAC 11 969,182
NA 2,044 157,070,357

AF is the African region. AP is the Asia-Pacific region. EUR is the European region. LAC is the Latin American/Carribbean region. NA is the North American region.

Countries with no ICANN accredited registrars have to use registrars in other countries and the larger registrars have reseller programmes with thousands of resellers each. Some of these resellers use their own DNS. Others use the registrar's DNS.

The blended renewal rates (renewal rate of all domain names up for renewal in a period) have some surprises. The .ORG is a high quality gTLD and renews well.

gTLD - Blended renewal %
com 72.03
net 76.61
org 80.36
info 68.99
biz 78.69

From a domainer viewpoint, .INFO and .BIZ aren't great for sales. They both use discounting. Most of their registrations are brand protection registrations that have been registered for years. The .NET has a higher blended renewal rate than .COM and it also has a significant brand protection element. The commonest registration pair for new registrants over the years was .COM//NET. The quality of .ORG makes it a very stable gTLD.

A higher renewal fee can work in the registry's favour with brand protection registrations and where the registrant has a developed website. Both sets of registrant keep renewing their domain names.

Regards...jmcc
 
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I've done and feel the same. I only wish that the renewal costs were not so high, even higher than a few months ago.

.IO is currently half price at Porkbun.
 
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