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discuss Why has .net fallen out of favor?

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Lord Antares

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I know that end users and business people in general don't read up and don't care about domains (and they shouldn't).

But why has .net fallen out of favor then? How do they deem it as less valuable if they don't read at all about domaining? What prompted it to decline? Do you think an average end user would know that .nets are less valuable than a couple of years back? It's still the second most popular tld.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
IMO it is because of new extentions which are matching with brands/ business. For example, they will use ABC.Energy instead of ABCEnergy.Net, Star.Coffee instead of StarCoffee.Net...
 
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IMO it is because of new extentions which are matching with brands/ business. For example, they will use ABC.Energy instead of ABCEnergy.Net, Star.Coffee instead of StarCoffee.Net...

That makes sense. Do you think this will be potentiated once the blockchain nameserver domains start rolling in?
 
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I think 2 factors:

.NET is aggressively ratcheting up the renewal prices, to the point that it is is more expensive to hold a .NET than it is to hold a .COM. So for speculators, this is an issue as .COM routinely sells for 10X of a .COM but now the carrying costs are higher for the .NET than the .COM.

With all the new gTLDs, there is now an abundance of options for non-COM registrations. Unlike .ORG, another legacy TLD, there is no clear reason for someone to own the .NET as there is no implied brand value associated for it other than the user could not get the .COM.

I suspect Verisign is milking this cow and hoping that the drop-off rate is lower than the annual rate increase. It may also plow the road for the .COM price increases that they are wanting to push through and therefore the .NET becomes the thin edge of the wedge.
 
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I see alot of .org .net moving up lately. I think one good thing the gTLD/CCtLD has done is drive up interest in the original semi competitors to .com - I think when all is said and done it's going to be a .com/.org/.net world as it's always been, but with more business using them with some gTLD/ccTLD single keywords used in business (example buy.game). Yet what rob said above about renewals is spot on. Definitely moving too high.
 
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I think 2 factors:

.NET is aggressively ratcheting up the renewal prices, to the point that it is is more expensive to hold a .NET than it is to hold a .COM. So for speculators, this is an issue as .COM routinely sells for 10X of a .COM but now the carrying costs are higher for the .NET than the .COM.

With all the new gTLDs, there is now an abundance of options for non-COM registrations. Unlike .ORG, another legacy TLD, there is no clear reason for someone to own the .NET as there is no implied brand value associated for it other than the user could not get the .COM.

I suspect Verisign is milking this cow and hoping that the drop-off rate is lower than the annual rate increase. It may also plow the road for the .COM price increases that they are wanting to push through and therefore the .NET becomes the thin edge of the wedge.

You are talking from the perspective of domainers right? Higher price for net = more expensive renewals = less competition for the .nets = lower prices. That's basically what you're saying? If so, it makes sense.

How do you feel about .org domains?
 
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You are talking from the perspective of domainers right? Higher price for net = more expensive renewals = less competition for the .nets = lower prices. That's basically what you're saying? If so, it makes sense.

How do you feel about .org domains?

Correct.

On .ORG, there is more room for optimism there since there are many organizations that are non-profit that can signal their benevolent intentions using a .ORG domain. Also, Jon Nevett is bringing some renewed marketing intensity to the registry. We'll be meeting with .ORG at ICANN next week to explore how to add some new momentum around .ORG with an emphasis on Forever domains.
 
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.Net has simply become the ugly sibling of .com. When com/net/org first rolled out .net had a purpose for "networks" like ISP's and other networking technologies, but as time has gone on it has lost it's utility to .com. .Org has retained it's unique brand as non profit/non commercial and therefore thrived.
 
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.net used to be the logical fallback when the .com is already taken. But in the very early 1990s it was more popular.

I think another important factor is the rise of the ccTLDs. In mature markets the local extension is option #2 after .com or even #1.
 
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That's pretty funny if a price increase cuts into domainer profit so much.
If you are buying .net domains that are such low quality that you can't afford to pay bit more to register and renew, that's your problem. Renewal is $11 instead of $10. Now 500 .nets will cost you $5,500 to renew instead of $5,000. If you are making sales, the $500 is no big issue.
 
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It may also plow the road for the .COM price increases that they are wanting to push through

PLEASE express to ICANN when you visit them next that domain investors prefer to see the road stay 'as is' and a price increase will cause a dropping of low value domains that another investor or even an end user may not want. There are many formulas out there showing a price increase of 'x' amount will result in a relative loss of sales.

Sure they may want to add a dollar or more (guess on my part) eventually to .com renewals, but in my case I will cull my herd of hundreds of domains...if others in the industry do the same, it would result in a significant bottom line loss to the ICANN overlords.
 
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"that another investor or even an end user may not want"
Sounds like a good news that those are being culled then! LOL
 
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Nobody wants to own second best, or build on second best.

End user demand for them is at a all time low, and many are sick of carrying them into higher renewals, with lower sell thrus, in the end it makes no sense, other than the short, or generic names.
 
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Sounds like a good news that those are being culled then! LOL

True that. I, like many others, get attached to a name and keep renewing it for years...I just dropped a useless domain I have kept dragging along for a decade. It was not easy...some tears and light sobbing, but I let it go. It still has not found a new home...
 
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Correct.

On .ORG, there is more room for optimism there since there are many organizations that are non-profit that can signal their benevolent intentions using a .ORG domain. Also, Jon Nevett is bringing some renewed marketing intensity to the registry. We'll be meeting with .ORG at ICANN next week to explore how to add some new momentum around .ORG with an emphasis on Forever domains.

That brings up another point. Would you feel comfortable selling a domain to a charity? Milking money from a charity or a non-profit (i.e. beneficial to society) organization doesn't really appeal to me. That's why I've been staying away from .org personally.
 
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That brings up another point. Would you feel comfortable selling a domain to a charity? Milking money from a charity or a non-profit (i.e. beneficial to society) organization doesn't really appeal to me. That's why I've been staying away from .org personally.

Actually, we are looking at model that will allow private donors to "endow" domains, i.e. fund the Forever registration of the non-profit so that this entity can secure their digital presence once and for all. I have done enough charity fundraisers to believe this has legs so we'll explore how to implement it. Anyway, I think that solution addresses your concern. That being said, I am not advocating for .ORG speculation other than for the 2, 3 and 4 letter and dictionary word .ORG names that could be considered generic.
 
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A lot of sensible posts in this thread. Especially thanks to @Rob Monster.

In my mind in addition to points made, such as if you can't get .com there are now more other choices, I think part of it has to do with the fact that even though there are as many networks as ever, it is no longer in fashion to emphasize net as in internet because well that has been now around for a long time.

As mentioned, to me the renewal rates are slowly killing it. The cheapest renewal rate for .net and .info should not be more than for .com (and indeed higher than many ngTLDs) but they are. The numbers under registration should be high enough that the per domain registry cost low. The market reality should relate renewal cost to desirability of the extension.

Bob

PS Edit - I also meant to add that even though most prices are modest, I do see a brighter future for .org. As well as having a more defined role, surveys show that consumers trust the TLD, and that is justified, even accounting for registration numbers .com is phished more than .org.
 
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I think really good .net's are rising. 477.net just went for $12k.
 
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Not very popular but .com will never die
 
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That brings up another point. Would you feel comfortable selling a domain to a charity? Milking money from a charity or a non-profit (i.e. beneficial to society) organization doesn't really appeal to me. That's why I've been staying away from .org personally.
Some 'charities' are well-endowed. They are not all struggling. Many foundations hosted on .org domains have comfortable operating budgets. Icann is non-profit too, and they pay good salaries. This kind of non-profit is not eligible for a discount with me. Remember, we all pay them a tax... so it's our money. And what do we get in return ? More profits for VRSN.

.org domains can command good prices.
And .org is even used by commercial entities for side projects. Again, no reason why they shouldn't pay.

Maybe another factor leading to disaffection with .net is that it is strongly associated with techie stuff eg speedtest.net, boingboing.net or php.net.
But the perception varies from one territory to another. csdn.net is big in China, gmx.net is popular in Germany, ukr.net in Ukraine etc. Surely, there must be at least one .net site we all use regularly or even on a daily basis.
 
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That brings up another point. Would you feel comfortable selling a domain to a charity? Milking money from a charity or a non-profit (i.e. beneficial to society) organization doesn't really appeal to me. That's why I've been staying away from .org personally.
I guess it's different strokes for different folks.

I see no problem selling to a nonprofit. There are a lot of nonprofits out there. i.e.

UN
WHO
World Bank
Wikipedia
IMF
WIPO etc.

So, if any of these organizations approaches you for a domain name, will you have a problem selling to them?
 
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For me, this is rather obvious and has been so since 2014, when the release of all these new extensions started:

All these hundreds of new gTLDs have caused domain inflation, or even hyperinflation. The only gTLDs that haven’t been (so much) effected are .com and somewhat.org.
 
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Still sells at ok level for endusers, too many other options though in terms of 2nd rate extensions. They are all competing for the same small piece of the pie.
 
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To add to the possible reasons, I believe Google is responsible for the decline of .net.

If my memory serves me, some years ago there were indications that Google algorithm made it harder to rank with a .net versus .com.

Anyway, I do believe Google serps played a role in the decline in use of .net starting some time ago.

That is a big factor, it is much harder to now rank a keyword name and SEO was one of the biggest appeals of .net in the past.
 
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