discuss Are gTLDs affecting .Com price and growth

[Isac]

I think there is a decline in demand and price of .com domains because of new gTLDs. What's your opinion ?

 

[boker]

.com prices went up very quickly once there was ecommerce activity.

People attribute flucuations in .com value and prices entirely to nGTLDs (wishful thinking). .com sales and prices have always fluctuated. In reality after the Chinese bubble a downtrend was to be expected.

nGTLD sales are trending down as you would expect looking at .mobi or .xxx history.

People do not want nGTLDs as a first option, they only want them if they can't get a .com and if they are cheap and even then most would choose a .io or a crappy .com before they use a nGTLD.

You have to notice that there are also over 1k ngtld, so plenty of cheap options...it's hard to reach so high demand so quickly. After a few years, when all the good options are gone, then small businesses will start paying more for them. At namebio, at the bottom of the page you have a graphic with the sale trend over the years. If you choose 2007-2017, you will notice that the trend it's all down, except for around 2015, with the chinese bubble. You can't compare mobi and 2017 ngtls, because everything else it's changed, social media, blogs, online businesses and much more.

 

[dordomai]

You have to notice that there are also over 1k ngtld, so plenty of cheap options...it's hard to reach so high demand so quickly. After a few years, when all the good options are gone, then small businesses will start paying more for them. At namebio, at the bottom of the page you have a graphic with the sale trend over the years. If you choose 2007-2017, you will notice that the trend it's all down, except for around 2015, with the chinese bubble. You can't compare mobi and 2017 ngtls, because everything else it's changed, social media, blogs, online businesses and much more.

the good options are all reserved or premium. Naming basics are more less the same. There is no reason why a nGTLD would work better in 2017.

why would a business pay money for a nGTLD when they can buy a .com instead? No one can answer this question so far.

If you choose 2007-2017, you will notice that the trend it's all down, except for around 2015, with the chinese bubble.

yes exactly. you see a downtrend even before the new extensions existed, somehow people want to convince themselves if .com is selling for less that must mean the nTLDs are killing .com.

As I said people attribute fluctuations in values exclusively to nGTLDs instead of other more probably causes.

In reality, if .com sells for sell nGTLDs will do even worse. As an nGTLD investor I would be worried about that even more.

Crypto will not help nGTLDs, neither will the stock market help nGTLDs. If the market goes down they will be hit more than .com

AI and millennials won't help either.

 

[boker]

the good options are all reserved or premium. Naming basics are more less the same. There is no reason why a nGTLD would work better in 2017.

why would a business pay money for a nGTLD when they can buy a .com instead? No one can answer this question so far.

I've just showed you a few examples where the com is parked or not used and they've paid xxxxx for the ngtld....I found 6 out the first 25 examples, so there are hundred of examples like these. I can tell you what was the response of some guys starting some new tech startups from Europe...they are mostly young, around 20 years old and they are saying that for them .com is classic, old fashion and they need something new...so they go for .io, .co an now because they have ngtld, they have tons of choices. Of course that they will not pay xxxxxx for a domain( maybe not even xxxxx), but they choose to pay xxxx for a ngtls than for a com. This is not something general, but it's a trend and it will be harder and harder to convince the young generation to invest xxxxx in com. Probably, in 5 years you will see the result. Com will never die, but it will not be ever what it was. Also, I think that it's to early to invest in ngtls, probably 2-3 years will be the best time, but maybe for some who invest earlier in this will be more costly for them and hard to make a good ROI, but they will have the advantage that they can choose what to buy.

 

[dordomai]

I've just showed you a few examples where the com is parked or not used and they've paid xxxxx for the ngtld....I found 6 out the first 25 examples, so there are hundred of examples like these. I can tell you what was the response of some guys starting some new tech startups from Europe...they are mostly young, around 20 years old and they are saying that for them .com is classic, old fashion and they need something new...

despite that most startups use .com which contradicts what you say.

we heard this for 4 years and nothing has changed.

 

[boker]

despite that most startups use .com which contradicts what you say.

we heard this for 4 years and nothing has changed.

I think that you are referring to US startups mostly. If you come in Europe, most startups are using .cctlds, if you go in Japan or China or other developing countries they are not using mostly .com as well, so now all of them have something general in common-ngtld's. It's exactly like youtube, facebook or twitter, it's enough for a few startups using ngtld's to catch up and it will become viral and it will be hard to stop the trend, until something new will come and take the first place. Com will always have his buyers, but it will never be the same number of buyers and the same amounts. Exactly like petrol once, or stock markets or anything else, it will come a time when something new it will take the first place, nothing dies, everything is changing.

 

[Kate]

You're thinking way too small.

Technology and the internet is growing exponentially!!!! Not to mention a growing global population thats tripled since 1980.

Always the same flawed reasoning.
No, the Internet is not growing exponentially. Growing yes, but not exploding.
There is no direct correlation between growth of Internet usage or world population and demand for domain names. People don't need domain names to access the Internet, they just need IP addresses.
Even in developed countries, the vast majority of people are not interested in owning a domain name, unless it's for business, or if they run a blog or want a vanity E-mail address.

It's not like we have billions of potential buyers in the future. Much less than that.

And the fact that english continues to grow as the universal language, thus more ppl switching off cctlds.

Incorrect.

I think some domainers have seriously failed at putting themselves in the end users shoes.

I am an end user too.

But indeed, I think some domainers have seriously failed at putting themselves in the end users shoes. Because they are trying to sell nTLDs to end users even though they haven't used any for a real business.

Truth is consumers DIDNT need this many extensions but regardless - many ntlds will thrive for future generations (.shop / .llc etc) and as those ntlds shed more light on new possibilities for consumers - this will 100% affect .com growth and values!!!!! There is no other answer to this question!!!!

Based on what ? Wishful thinking ?

Im personally on the other side of the spectrum. For instance, I have a lot of [keyword]storage.com domains... and im scared i wont ever sell them now that .storage is here......and in all honesty why would any new storage company want to to purchase the equivalent .com - do you honestly think the .com will help their marketing?

Maybe your portfolio is not diversified enough. But let's consider the opposite approach: would using a .storage help their marketing ?

Dont forget casino.online sold for xs $200,000. Not casinoonline.com

Don't forget that the registries are pretty much the only ones making notable sales in nTLDs. But good luck with your nTLDs.

 

[dordomai]

I think that you are referring to US startups mostly. If you come in Europe, most startups are using .cctlds, if you go in Japan or China or other developing countries they are not using mostly .com as well

Yes it is either ccTLD or .com but almost never nGTLD.

China is usually using .com, or .cn. Not much different than from the US. Not sure about Japan but I would guess it is like in China.

I don't think there is any part in the world where nGTLDs are popular.

 

[boker]

Yes it is either ccTLD or .com but almost never nGTLD.

China is usually using .com, or .cn. Not much different than from the US. Not sure about Japan but I would guess it is like in China.

I don't think there is any part in the world where nGTLDs are popular.

At least in most european countries is like 85-90%cctld-10%com. I'm not saying that ngtld's are more popular than com or cctld's in any country, just that they are catching up...

 

[dordomai]

At least in most european countries is like 85-90%cctld-10%com. I'm not saying that ngtld's are more popular than com or cctld's in any country, just that they are catching up...

not seeing any of this happening. Startups are often at the cutting edge of innovation and it's been 4 years and they still don't use them much.

investors mostly got sold bags by the registries and still holding on to them hoping the next year will be the year they will finally take off. They will renew forever without getting good results.

 

[boker]

not seeing any of this happening. Startups are often at the cutting edge of innovation and it's been 4 years and they still don't use them much.

4 year for a few of them, but mostly they started from 2015. Around 10% of my portofolio are ngtld, but believe or not, I get more offers for them than for net and org, so that should say something. Also, people are asking about them, most of them are not aware that ngtld are used, so want to know more. I've tested outbound for 10 ngtld, and received inquirires/offers for 3 of them, so much higher response rate than usual. Mostly, they are xxx offers, but for me it's a good sign for the future. Try to make outbound for com and check the response rate, people are aware of .com, it's nothing new, so it's hard to capture their attention.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

There are many similar threads...
I don't understand why to start them again and again...

 

[Kate]

At least in most european countries is like 85-90%cctld-10%com. I'm not saying that ngtld's are more popular than com or cctld's in any country, just that they are catching up...

Your observation is correct, in Europe, at least in mature markets ccTLDs are dominant.
However, I am not convinced nTLDs are 'catching up': even if the number of registrations is increasing in absolute terms, it is not overtaking and not even keeping pace with that of legacy extensions. So if you look at market share, they become even more marginal over time. At best they become niche TLDs, but not mainstream TLDs.

 

[JB Lions]

Check these out: shop.link; star.house; sherpa.group; token.sale; learn.wine; op.media, all xxxxx sales (and others over 1500 xxxx sales, over 200 xxxxx sales and other xxxxxx sales like these) where the equivalent .com stays parked, or a blog or not revolving at all....if you still think that they are not affecting sales, you should think about it. I've hand regged com where the equivalent ngtld was used by companies with xx or xxx employees...that should say something as well.

Are you kidding me. First 5 I checked. 3 are parked, the other forwards to the .net, one nothing is happening. You think that's going to move the needle forward?

Catching up on thread, dordomai already pointed that out.

"I've hand regged com where the equivalent ngtld was used by companies with xx or xxx employees...that should say something as well"

That you're regging company names? Are these generic? Give me some real examples of the names you hand regged in .com that are being used by companies on a new gtld.

 

[boker]

Your observation is correct, in Europe, at least in mature markets ccTLDs are dominant.
However, I am not convinced nTLDs are 'catching up': even if the number of registrations is increasing in absolute terms, it is not overtaking and not even keeping pace with that of legacy extensions. So if you look at market share, they become even more marginal over time. At best they become niche TLDs, but not mainstream TLDs.

By 'catching up' I mean that peoples start talking about them and by 'peoples' I mean young online business owners as drop hipping, online shops, blogs and others....so these are the first steps, it's like a trendy discussion between business owners at a beer, everybody bragging about what they have( regarding ngtld) and for what they will use them. So, it's not about the top business players, but still is a trend which is starting from the base. Also, 'com' is viewed mostly as something for the big businesses, so startups are using mostly cctld. By start using ngtld's, they make the connection between the local cctld and the international .com, so it's the perfect middle solution. It's also replacing some .io , co( and net), so probably it will start be used as a niche tld( new, young startup owners, who need something catchy).

 

[boker]

Are you kidding me. First 5 I checked. 3 are parked, the other forwards to the .net, one nothing is happening. You think that's going to move the needle forward?

Catching up on thread, dordomai already pointed that out.

"I've hand regged com where the equivalent ngtld was used by companies with xx or xxx employees...that should say something as well"

That you're regging company names? Are these generic? Give me some real examples of the names you hand regged in .com that are being used by companies on a new gtld.

So you really think that somebody it's paying xxxxx for ngtld just to be parked. Probably the reason is that the first 5 you've checked are bought in the last 1-2 months and they need time to develop something. Yes, I have 3 com which were available to reg and were used as ngtlds and there are at least two more related names available at the moment, one of them a media company working with Lego, Disney and other big companies.

 

[dordomai]

By 'catching up' I mean that peoples start talking about them and by 'peoples' I mean young online business owners as drop hipping, online shops, blogs and others....so these are the first steps, it's like a trendy discussion between business owners at a beer, everybody bragging about what they have( regarding ngtld) and for what they will use them. So, it's not about the top business players, but still is a trend which is starting from the base.

I don't know why people think they are a trend. I don't see any of this neither did I hear anyone (media) viewing them as a trend. They are just domains, they are not even new. Lot's of wishful thinking here IMO.

Just domains that few people want or need.

 

[JB Lions]

So you really think that somebody it's paying xxxxx for ngtld just to be parked. Probably the reason is that the first 5 you've checked are bought in the last 1-2 months and they need time to develop something. Yes, I have 3 com which were available to reg and were used as ngtlds and there are at least two more related names available at the moment, one of them a media company working with Lego, Disney and other big companies.

What are the names?

They are just parked at this point.

And xxx offers give you hope?

And this:

"I'm not saying that ngtld's are more popular than com or cctld's in any country, just that they are catching up."

Based on what exactly? Half China. Other countries don't really seem to care for them.

https://ntldstats.com/country

After China and US, it's a sea of 1% and under.

 

[boker]

What are the names?

They are just parked at this point.

When I catch some offers and reg the other names I will be able to give them as example, because if I say it now they will be gone in seconds. Yes, they are parked but we should use some common sense, accepting that somebody paid xxxxx for them to make money...not just to brag about them.

 

[JB Lions]

When I catch some offers and reg the other names I will be able to give them as example, because if I say it now they will be gone in seconds. Yes, they are parked but we should use some common sense, accepting that somebody paid xxxxx for them to make money...not just to brag about them.

That happens across the board. Plenty of .coms that just stay parked. Some sales are marketing sales, not real.

 

[boker]

That happens across the board. Plenty of .coms that just stay parked. Some sales are marketing sales, not real.

Let's take some examples over 5k:
retail.global- some blockchain company
shop.link- shopping app with bonus points
web.media- some russian advertising company
pocket.watch-some kids related company with some known investors
act.today- some non profit company related to civic activities
op.media-some Finland based media company
innovation.group- UK based company
There are hundreds if not thousands of ngtlds used by companies (not only blogs and stuff) so that should say something. Also, the fact that all the big players( google, amazon, facebook) have invested hundred of millions in them should say something. Sure, you will not see 50% of the ngtls used in 1-2 years, but probably in 5-7 years the big picture will be completely changed.

 

[JB Lions]

Let's take some examples over 5k:
retail.global- some blockchain company
shop.link- shopping app with bonus points
web.media- some russian advertising company
pocket.watch-some kids related company with some known investors
act.today- some non profit company related to civic activities
op.media-some Finland based media company
innovation.group- UK based company
There are hundreds if not thousands of ngtlds used by companies (not only blogs and stuff) so that should say something. Also, the fact that all the big players( google, amazon, facebook) have invested hundred of millions in them should say something. Sure, you will not see 50% of the ngtls used in 1-2 years, but probably in 5-7 years the big picture will be completely changed.

Don't really see that having a negative affect. ActToday.com is a developed site. That some other company went with act.today, why would they care? Doesn't affect them at all. How about pocketwatch.com. If I owned that, I would be happy somebody developed on pocket.watch. I'm probably getting some extra traffic, the more popular it gets. They probably will come knocking on my door sometime in the future. You're just making the .com more valuable.

As far as big players investing. It just says they're doing what they've always done. They've invested in different extensions in the past. Some are literally selling new gtlds, Google.

And that has resulted in what? Overall numbers going down, you getting xxx offers.

"5-7 years the big picture will be completely changed."

Stuff we went over many times. If you have a unique name, you probably can get the .com. The good generic names aren't even available now.

 

[Alex Domain]

they took away value? How much ? 0.1% 1%, 10% ?

The data here shows that they are dying not thriving. No real adoption by startups, no significant % of Alexa Top 1 M, no positive net growth in the past months (.com is still growing!)

https://namestat.org/s/newgtld-summary
https://www.namepros.com/blog/domain-data-ycombinator-startups-love-com.973209/



So if a domain contains a keyword it is automatically valuable? like sexcrm.com is a great domain because it has a million dollar keyword in it?

I think a keyword doesn't make a domain automatically valuable, anyone can have a domain with 'supply' in it even under .com

I think it is simply a poor naming choice not the result of good decision making, happens all the time.



One of the recent switches I remember was from monkey.capital to monkey.com. as soon as they could afford it and a suitable name was available, they left. One does hardly ever see the reverse of it. What does this tell us?



Yes because people will remember the domain and emails won't end up in spam filters.
Over 9 out of 10 companies will want a .com over a storage for their main web presence.
.storage is an unknown extension and word+storage.com works very well.

I agree with you in many ways but fyi my comments answer a very general question of whether or not ntlds are affecting GROWTH and VALUE - and the simple answer is yes. Whether 0.1% dent in .com growth or .00001% - its still competition.

I always thought and still think .com is king - and i always chose .com's for my companies once they would go global (cctld first). But i've taken notice of a lot of shifting and start ups on ntlds these days because its a lot easier to get premium keywords and popular two word phrases that can have positive impact on seo.

For instance, a Qatari buyer paid upwards of $150,000 for a handful of premium .market domains like job.market which is live.(and a commonly searched term) And others like art.market that may be in development stages... i bet you these rank much better in google than artmarket.com etc....

I own job.supply and it ranks better than jobsupply.com

The popular generic two word phrases can show high value in the future as more people switch to mobile too. Often on mobile phones the "period" is next to the space bar - and when people are typing the two word phrase quickly they hit "period" by mistake inbetween the two-words - redirecting you now to a webpage rather than search results page. And some of these two word phrases have serious marketing value/power behind them.

 

[JB Lions]

I own job.supply and it ranks better than jobsupply.com

C'mon. jobsupply.com is a parked page. I would hope you rank better than a parked page.

And - https://www.google.com/search?q=job+supply&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

You can rank with any extension, that's not news.

Hold up, I just checked. job.supply is a Uniregistry lander. What are you ranking for exactly?

 

[Alex Domain]

C'mon. jobsupply.com is a parked page. I would hope you rank better than a parked page.

And - https://www.google.com/search?q=job+supply&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

You can rank with any extension, that's not news.

Hold up, I just checked. job.supply is a Uniregistry lander. What are you ranking for exactly?

Point being on even playing field where two registered domains have no content. The ntld ranks hire on googles search pages organically. However even amongst 1000+ ntlds its not easy to find the right ntld word combos that can outperform .com but they exist and while most ppl are switching or starting with ntld for creative branding purposes (dxc.technology).. there are others who have found ntld to be useful for organic traffic.(ebay.com with shoe.supply)

Big fortune 500 companies may never switch off their 2-3letter precious .com's - but many of these F500-2500 companies have actually rolled out projects and webpages that redirect to a domain hack or ntld.( meaning the decision was made not to use a .com -thus effecting growth) For short globally relevant extensions - people/companies will find use for them...

Once the public becomes more aware of the ntld program - its a possibility choosing an ntld could become the norm for american small-businesses/brick and mortar shops and even other countries around the world.

In 2017 i have personally seen an exponential increase in the amount of ntlds i see on advertisements/ billboard/tv/etc just since 2016..

.com will most likely always have its luster but to say that ntld ARE NOT and/or WILL NOT affect growth of .com is just silly. There are clear examples of it happening.... even if progress has been slow from ntlds and even if it will eventually cap off at some point... there will be always be percentage of companies using ntlds that was chosen over a .com (likely either their preferred .com is not available, too expensive or being used) so now theres a bigger opportunity to get creative.

 

[JB Lions]

Point being on even playing field where two registered domains have no content. The ntld ranks hire on googles search pages organically.

with this

"I own job.supply and it ranks better than jobsupply.com"

You're just making stuff up.

You didn't not give me a search term where it ranks higher. First, parked pages generally aren't ranking for anything besides maybe a search on the exact url. They're both parked pages. Both have the same keywords, job supply. The .com would probably rank higher in your scenario anyway.

Then you go on with other examples, I have no idea what you're talking about:
"there are others who have found ntld to be useful for organic traffic.(ebay.com with shoe.supply)"

shoe.supply? It's an expired page -
shoe.supply has expired
http://domain-registrar.storage.googleapis.com/expired.html?shoe.supply

So how is ebay finding that url useful for organic traffic exactly?

http://www.shoe.supply -
404. That’s an error.

The requested URL / was not found on this server. That’s all we know.