IT.COM

analysis Types of .IO Domain Names That Sell and Where

NameSilo
Last week I looked at sale statistics for the .io domain extension, as well as the history and regulatory framework. In this post I analyze the types of names that sell in the extension, plus sales venue statistics. I also take a look at current status of major .io domain name sales.


What Type of Name Sells in .io?

I used NameBio to look at the more than 5300 sales (above $100) in the .io domain extension.
  • The majority of names are English single words, generally common nouns. As NameBio classify them, 52.9% of sales in extension are single English words and an additional 5.5% single Spanish words.
  • A few multiple-word domain names sell in .io, but they are rare. About 11.2% of sales are two-word names, and only 0.4% are three-word names. The higher value two-word sales include CoinPay ($22,500), TheWaller ($10,000), TheWallet ($10,000) and CryptoMarket ($5,525).
  • Short acronyms can sell and more than 24% of .io sales are 2 or 3 characters long.
  • Hyphenated domain name sales are very rare in .io. Only 7 of the 5358 names contained hyphens, all selling at prices less than $500. This is significantly less than for .com or .org and dramatically less than in .de.
  • As far as i know, it is not possible to definitively identify plural names using NameBio. Therefore I used the following approximate method. I searched for names that ended in s, but not in ss using the command s!ss. This will identify most plurals, but not include names like dress or kindness. This method is not perfect, as it does not include plural names that do not end in s, but does include names like Pegasus and DNS that end in s but are not plurals. I found about 14.8% of .io sales are plural names. The true figure is likely slightly less.
  • The highest value plural .io sales were esports ($40,000), worlds ($25,000), payments ($11,000), sports ($11,000), analytics ($10,000), groups ($10,000), casinos ($10,000), tanks ($10,000), tickets ($6700), lenses ($6200) and systems ($5500).
  • While I look at domain length in more detail below, most major sales are quite short. 47.1% of names sold are 5 characters or less. These short domains represent an even larger amount of the sales dollar volume, about 55.7%.
  • Only 4.6% of the sales include one or more numbers. By sales dollar volume, numbered and alphanumeric names represent just 1.9%.
  • There are occasional sales of domain hacks, but not many. The name aud.io sold for $6750 and fol.io for $2000.
  • There are a few alphanumeric sales. For example, there were 66 NL structure names sold, two of them above $1000, and 78 sales of LN format names, with four above $1000. By comparison, there were 45 LL sales and just 19 NN sales.
  • Using the NameBio classification system, there were 109 sales of names in the crypto category, 24 of them above $1000. Crypto names represented quite a few of the higher value two-word sales.
I also went through by hand all .io sales of $6500 and more. My hand analysis suggested the following.
  • The vast majority of high value sales are common dictionary word nouns. Names like cook, home, voice, tile, music, call, kid, food, privacy, studio, gate, bundle, idea, concert, traffic, taxi, beauty, and many others.
  • There are also many sales of common verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Examples include crawl, give, charge, fast, pure, swipe, give, etc. Many words can be used as both nouns and verbs, and sometimes as adjectives or adverbs.
  • There are quite a few major sales related to payment systems. For example, names like swipe, pay, payment, payments, payable, entrust, bid, billing, bank, CoinPay, etc.
  • Not surprisingly math and tech keywords are popular, with major sales including matrix, FN, cloud, library, DB, tech, cipher, robot, wireless, doc, and many others.
  • I noticed a number of astronomy and space terms among the significant sales, including nebula, Pegasus, Titan, orb, pulsar and others.
  • For an extension so popular with coders, there are relatively few high value sales including the word code, only coders and CodeCamp sold at prices above $1000.
How Long Are Most .io Domain Names?

The graph below shows the number of NameBio listed .io sales (above $100) according to length of the domain name. Less than 7% of names sold are longer than 10 characters, and only 0.7% are 15 characters or more.

GraphIOLength.png


I also plotted the average price for each domain length. It should be kept in mind that these are a mix of wholesale acquisitions and retail sales. Prices trail off for .io names longer than 7 characters.

GraphIOPriceLength.png


Sales and Acquisition Venues

Park.io dominates the .io aftermarket with 64.8% of all sales. Keep in mind that sales from marketplaces such as Afternic, DAN, many registrar markets, Efty sites, and the brandable marketplaces are not normally reported to NameBio, but it is still surprising that more than 95% of all reported .io sales are at Park.io, Flippa, Sedo and Dynadot. Note that these are by number, and the Sedo share is higher if reported by sales dollar volume, where they have 18.5%. The venues shown here are the ones available in NameBio venue list. They account for most, but not all, of NameBio-listed sales in extension. A number of sales not plotted were at Uniregistry.

VenueIO.png


I also looked at sales less than $100 using NameBio membership data. There were 7215 sales in this price range, supposedly all wholesale acquisitions, with almost 98% of them are at Park.IO, Flippa, Dynadot and Sav.


A Brief Look at End Users

Sometimes looking at how the high-value sales are being used in an extension provides insights on good investment niches. I looked at use of the 20 highest value.io sales, $20,000 or more.
  • A full 45% of the sites were unused the day I checked, including 20% listed for sale again. Names for sale again include bang, CoinPay and studio. The names FN, cook, tank and matrix were unreachable or yielded a bad request, while esports is parked but not obviously for sale.
  • There is a cyptocurrency site at swipe.io.
  • The name lucky.io is not surprisingly an online casino site.
  • Library.io is used for 3D printing documents related to Autodesk.
  • A workplace and process auditing company uses ease.io.
  • The name worlds.io could be used in many ways, but there is an artificial intelligence company at the site.
  • Home.io is another cryptocurrency site, which surprisingly did not use https the day I checked.
  • I wondered what I would find at doc.io and it is a site for Microsoft documents.
  • Manual.io is a versatile name that is being used for a digital manual service.
  • Another cryptocurrency company is at gate.io.
  • FB.io redirects to another .io site FirstBlood.io which is a gaming site.
It is difficult to conclude with certainty from such a small sample, but it seems .io is finding major use in the cryptocurrency and payment sectors, and is also popular for online document delivery.

Those seeking a broader look at companies using the .io extension are referred to this study by James Iles 7% of 2020 startups are using .io, as well as the one at the Dofo Blog that found 5.8% of Y Combinator companies use a .io extension domain name.


Final Thoughts

In a way, investing in .io domain names is simple: seek out relatively short, common dictionary words that might serve as a brand. However, the vast majority of such words are already registered, so finding dropping names, or purchases from other domain investors, are the normal acquisition routes.

Do you feel that, as more names become registered in .io, we will see a higher percentage of multiple-word domain names, and also made-up words as brands will become more common in the extension?

One positive is that there are not, as I understand it, registry premium names. However, registrations and renewals are relatively expensive for all .io domain names, so it is critical to make good acquisition choices.

I urge readers who invest in .io domain names to share where you acquire your names, and the types of names that you think are most likely to sell.

While please don’t list your entire portfolio, feel free to share a few names you hold that you think represent the sort of .io names with sound investment prospects.

It would also be interesting to hear where you list your .io names for sale, and what venues have resulted in sales.

If you missed part one, it covered sales statistics, history and possible warning signs.



Special thanks to Michael and NameBio for the database that makes analyses such as this one both possible and relatively easy.
 
Last edited:
77
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Thanks for another great article and follow-up to your previous .io article! I've got the following and they're going to be held long as my experience with .io (as with other extensions) has been that its worth waiting for the buyer.
upload_2020-6-12_7-7-17.png
 
2
•••
Very thorough and vey insightful analysis of .io domain names.

Also enjoyed the quality and variety of .io names in the portfolios of NP members.

Another well reasoned and well documented article Bob, thanks!
 
6
•••
Amazing Insight about .IO Domains! Thanks for sharing it!
I sold few domains and right now hold only one single word domain just like Worlds.io ! Hope I would find potential end user for my domain as well!
cover[1].png
 
4
•••
Thanks BOb for for the article,, don't have any .io names currently
 
1
•••
Thank you, Bob. Great Work.

I have 2 .io domains.

1- Digital.IO - 10 years old premium generic domain

2- som.io - 7 years old LLL.io domain.

Like Freddie Compier says:

".io domains have recently become so popular with businesses, individuals, and shrewd domain investors…They’re short, sound good, and .io domains perform well in Google’s search results…"
 
3
•••
Thank you, Bob. Great Work.

I have 2 .io domains.

1- Digital.IO - 10 years old premium generic domain

2- som.io - 7 years old LLL.io domain.

Like Freddie Compier says:

".io domains have recently become so popular with businesses, individuals, and shrewd domain investors…They’re short, sound good, and .io domains perform well in Google’s search results…"

Digital is a great name for the .io extension!
 
1
•••
I own Rummy.io
I'm looking at developing it for now.
It is listed at DAN for now.
 
2
•••
2
•••
Me
HotBet. io Mike Mann own the .com
Nacional.io
 
2
•••
2
•••
I have PCC.io which is my only .io domain name for the moment.
 
2
•••
Thank you @Bob Hawkes , your articles are always such a good read. I love data crunching and really feel lucky you share all your work with us!!

I started only recently to enter the .io field, so your article is right in time.

I realized that some good names I couldn't dream of in .com were affordable in .io so I got:

CoinMiners
Datafile
Fiver
Sharding (Big Data Method, also used in crypto)
Napalm

Have some listed on Brandbucket

Xanadu
AppCloud
BusinessCloud
Hayloft
Newsday

Some French

litchi (French for lychee)
courtier (French for broker)

and 4L/Brandables which potential I'm less sure of but I can afford to keep a few years to see if this field takes off.

ordr
paca
hoto
 
2
•••
Very interesting...we are seeing an increasing amount of interest in .io each month
 
1
•••
Thanks Bob. I just got Solely.io it could be used as a domain registrar that specializes in .io domains solely. Sell, park and auction .ios
 
2
•••
Thank you so much for the info. In-depth and informative (y)
 
1
•••
Just a clarification, while I think it would be interesting for those with .io portfolios to list a few of their better names, if they so wish, possibly with comments, please don't use the comments thread as a way to try to sell your domain names. Sorry if this was not clear earlier.

Thanks to those who have shared small selections of their best names, and accounts of sales success (or not) in the extension.

Bob
 
1
•••
have around 100 solid ones.. u could reg those mainly off expired 2-3 years back.. since then forget it... everything goes to catchers for bidding..... and sells for insane prices considering some of the crap there... i hope the buyers aren't resellers in most cases cause those prices leave zero room for profit.

for io its basically 1worders.. the more common the better... sometimes u get lucky with brandable.... even less 2word.... really.. 1word only.
 
2
•••
Thanks again Bob !!
Whats your opinion about these .IO domains ,if I may ask ?
FZP.io
ZZZS.io
CUFS.io
PRAM.io
AllAmerican.io
TrainingSolutions.io
 
1
•••
Thanks again Bob !!
Whats your opinion about these .IO domains ,if I may ask ?
Thanks for your kind comment :xf.smile:.

I liked to research and analyze the .io situation for these articles, but I have not invested in them personally, yet, so really can't offer a very meaningful assessment, and probably should not in any case.

I would say, though, that I really like pram from your list, it has both a general meaning (at least in parts of the world) but also a technical meaning, is near the optimum length, easily pronounced, no spelling error possible, etc. I see that Dofo show it is registered in 52 TLDs. According to Open Corporates the word pram is part of the name of 320 active companies, which surprised me, although it looks like some have it as a person's name, perhaps? I did not look into acronym ones beyond the obvious one (just had to reset my PRAM yesterday when encountered computer problems!) Anyway, I see lots of potential in that name, but remember I am no expert and just about to acquire my first .io name, I think.

The very best wishes for all of your names.

Bob
 
Last edited:
3
•••
Thank you Bob for part 2 of the .io education.
One more thing I would like to add is - Apart from single words and tech, .io also sells in the brandable segment of the market. Lot of sales have been reported with made-up words, misspells and words ending with ly.
And speaking of words ending in "ly", my wife used in scrabble tonight the word "gnarl" and later when it was my turn I added a "y" making it "gnarly". While I knew the word, I just hadn't seen it spelled out in a while so the first thing i checked was for the domain gnarli.com and discovered it's owned by Chinese? So having seen Bobs thread, and running into a local business guy a few days ago whose business domain is SparkFactory.io I decided to check to see if Gnarl.io was for sale and it was. Gnarlio.com is also available. "gnarl" and "gnarly" are pretty unique words in my opinion making Gnarlio:xf.wink: pretty unique as well.

Another observation, my wife tried to make a play with the word "Deli", however she spelled it Delli thinking I wouldn't challenge it, but I did. Scrabble is a game every domainer should play to sharpen their skills. I haven't done this before, but I think you can play scrabble online....anyone do this?

btw, thanks Bob Hawkes. I had no idea how big a deal the .io extension is.
 
3
•••
Forging.io

forging have a broad range of uses across a variety of industries ranging from heavy trucks, medical supplies, automotive parts, to aerospace, etc.
 
Last edited:
2
•••
3
•••
Oh nice, I never knew this amount of information regarding .io domains. Thanks!
 
1
•••
I have one -

GORY.io

Not sure where to sell this.
 
1
•••
I own

CoinBid.io

Still thinking where the end users will come from.
 
0
•••
Back