new gtlds Most selling new TLD in Aftermarket is .TOP

[News]

Just about four years ago, .TOP was made available for registration by ICANN and as of Feb 2019, this new TLD has clocked over $7.2 Million in aftermarket sales, a staggering 200% more than .Club that stands at $2.4 Million as per the latest data on NameBio.

.TOP is the second most registered new gTLD ever. It has been enthusiastically adopted by small and large companies establishing themselves as a top brand in their industry including the likes of Amazon, Apple, Chanel, Google, Lego, Yahoo and more, who all have their brands registered in .TOP ...

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[Jurgen Wolf]

Those sales are mostly to Chinese buyers.
Aftermarket demand outside CN is very weak...
+ Registry can't sell good English premiums even at mid $xxx.

 

[Brands.International]

Those sales are mostly to Chinese buyers.
Aftermarket demand outside CN is very weak...
+ Registry can't sell good English premiums even at mid $xxx.

Hmm, but dollars from Chinese buyers are the same as dollars from any other buyers, imo.

I think many investors from EU/US missed a train on this one a little, and I am unfortunatelly one of them
(I have 0 .top domain names, and I remember there were nice opportunities, oh well)

@DOMAIN ILLUMINATI that seems like great news for your investments

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

His investments are into English/Deutsch keywords where ~0 demand.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I have even own experience with hundreds of .TOPs...
Sold the only one for $850 to the buyer from Moscow.
So I know - what I'm saying.

 

[Furquan]

Sometimes its look me fake sales but who know

 

[bmugford]

Those numbers are really skewed by (81) 1 & 2 character sales.

While they made up only 4% of the total sales, they accounted for more than 58% of the total dollar volume.

Brad

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

I am not surpriseddd
This is still the beginning of a global adoption / demand of .top in my viewww
We have to use the power of patienceee

 

[Fancy.domains]

I think this list from Namebio says it all:

https://namebio.com/?s==UzNyAzN3AjM

Obviously a lot of Chinese words, with English transcription. But also a lot of short English words. Ten examples of sales in 2019:

- Smartphone.top: $121
- Perfume.top: $821
- Miracle.top: $897
- Marketing.top: $915
- Humanity.top: $887
- Madrid.top: $884
- Barcelona.top: $884
- Tumeric.top: $676
- Event.top: $6672
- Amino.top: $736

 

[barman]

I'm shocked that there's even been 10 sales.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Not much new or in depth in the article but it does draw attention to the fact that month after month .top leads (or very near top) the ngTLDs in sales volume and number of sales, and often places several of the top few sales of month.

As has been noted the registration base is more China focussed than any other extension by far (well I guess .cn would be more). This means NameBio is probably missing many sales.

I was about to point out that a number of English words do sell, but @Fancy.domains has nicely provided evidence.

The fact that Afternic do not handle the extension (at least now, surely with setting up a Chinese office they would reconsider? I have no insider information just speculating) skews Western sales prospects.

The names I have held personally, a few of which were decent, never get any offers and I only sold one for a trivial amount. I have let many of mine drop, but each month when I do stats I am impressed by how strong the market seems to be.

It is true as @bmugford points out that the sales volume in the extension has been strongly skewed by major registry sales of 2 and 3 character names. Although really, even in well developed extensions like .com in the last year 0.1% of sales accounted for 27% of the total volume in .com. Nevertheless I predict we will see a modest decrease in coming year in .top just because so many of the short premiums have now gone to end users or long term investors.

I also find the extension unusual in that the number of meaningful websites in it is much lower than for example xyz or online or club or many others. It seems to me a higher percentage are being held as investments, perhaps. It also has way worse abuse characteristics than most of the other major ngTLD extensions, another negative.

I did have a look at the NameBio data for under $100 sales in the past year. There were 138, probably a reasonable number, but mainly at low values. Most were at Dynadot. I suspect some off the registrar marketplaces that don't report also have many sales. Only 7 of the 138 were above even $25 though.

The extension perplexes me somewhat.

Bob

 

[Fancy.domains]

I'm shocked that there's even been 10 sales.

According to Namebio, .top is currently selling equal to (or even a little better than) .info.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Geos and such singulars are Premiums in .TOP in 95% of cases, then standard renewal...
Domainers don't earn anythnig with those names.

 

[Fancy.domains]

Geos and such singulars are Premiums in .TOP in 95% of cases, then standard renewal...
Domainers don't earn anythnig with those names.

Also a very important factor!

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

And Yes, .info aftermarket since 2015 degraded significantly...
The same silence as with standard .TOPs...

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Just about four years ago, ... [...]

The article says that .top is the second most registered new TLD but thats wrong - because it is the most registered new TLD ever.

And it has the potential to become the most registered TLD of all timeee

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

[...] I think many investors from EU/US missed a train on this one a little, and I am unfortunatelly one of them. [...]

The train is rolling already, yes - but not yet so fast that you couldn't jump uppp

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

His investments are into English/Deutsch keywords where ~0 demand.

You do not know the demand that my domain names generateee
Its correct that I have english / german keywords - but not only, I also have chinese domain names, this is one for example:

顶.top

IDN: xn--r05a.top
english meaning: top.top

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Those numbers are really skewed by (81) 1 & 2 character sales.

While they made up only 4% of the total sales, they accounted for more than 58% of the total dollar volume.

Brad

Correct but namebio (is great but) does (can logically) far not reflect all sales.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

I'm shocked that there's even been 10 sales.

I'm not shocked but surprised that you are shocked about that...

BTWWW
There are not only 10 .top sales hahaahaaa

 

[Cyril.Best]

.Top Number of Registrations :

March 2017 : 4.5M Domains
March 2018 : 1.8M Domains

From the .Top to the Bottom : Totally Collapsing !

Honestly, I would not be the Domainers that bought this 3M .Top domains for nothing !

For the ones that don't know, the market in China is so totally collapsing that many ngtlds in China has decided to pay and invest for the renewals of their own domains !

Since 3 years for instance Daniel (.xyz) is supporting the renewals in China putting +$10M in the renewals to help west face the renewal of the .xyz in China : https://news.west.cn/5766.html

I spoke with .club recently and he confirm me that the chinese market was also down on their own.

Now .top is back to +3.8M Live domains.

So, Betting on the .TOP seems like the Russian Mountains - Well the Russian Roulette i would say.

But the killer stat is this : According to namestat, there is actually +3.8M .Top live domains registered BUT ONLY 80K Domains registered in the United States !

My friends, I say it clearly for the ones that did not get it :

"80K Domains ONLY registered in the United States in 4 years (since Jan 2015 !) "

And you want to make it a serious competitor of the .com ? Seriously ?

Now You get it : Run fast and far away before it goes "again" to the .Bottom !

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

This is because GoDaddy doesn't provide .TOP registrations.
So unknown TLD in North America since the beginning.

 

[Cyril.Best]

This is because GoDaddy doesn't provide .TOP registrations.
So unknown TLD in North America since the beginning.

Exactly - so it makes me laugh when someone could imagine competing with .com without Godaddy.

Most of the .top registrations are done for scams in majoriry and it reminds me the story of the .tk.

We all know what happened to the .tk : From the Top to the Bottom - Blacklisted by Google !

End of the game.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Exactly - so it makes me laugh when someone could imagine competing with .com without Godaddy.

Most of the .top registrations are done for scams in majoriry and it reminds me the story of the .tk.

We all know what happened to the .tk : From the Top to the Bottom - Blacklisted by Google !

End of the game.

While I like that you are active on here @Cyril.Best , and wish we had other registry CEOs, I think you should be cautious on your statements. Yes, .top has had an abuse problem but I am pretty sure your statement about "scams in majority" is not accurate. If you go to evidence, something you remind us, correctly, to do, the experts in abuse (Spamhaus) currently have .top at a score of 1.93 (it has been much higher at times of past year) which is slightly better than both .info and .us and is much better than .biz for example. Will it go up again? Perhaps (although .xyz was high at one point but has been much better than .com consistently for last two years). Comparing it to an extension which was given away and often was on the top of the worst TLD list is simply unfair in my humble opinion.

Bob

 

[Cyril.Best]

While I like that you are active on here @Cyril.Best , and wish we had other registry CEOs, I think you should be cautious on your statements. Yes, .top has had an abuse problem but I am pretty sure your statement about "scams in majority" is not accurate. If you go to evidence, something you remind us, correctly, to do, the experts in abuse (Spamhaus) currently have .top at a score of 1.93 (it has been much higher at times of past year) which is slightly better than both .info and .us and is much better than .biz for example. Will it go up again? Perhaps (although .xyz was high at one point but has been much better than .com consistently for last two years). Comparing it to an extension which was given away and often was on the top of the worst TLD list is simply unfair in my humble opinion.

Bob

Hi Bob, Thanks for moderation - I agree - it was probably too pushy from my part to compare with the .tk.

But here are the stats :

March 2017 : 4.5M Domains
March 2018 : 1.8M Domains

Where do you think this domains gone ?

As for .xyz, I know that they took radical decisions to also avoid and try to eradicate this problem.

One big difference between myself and the majority of domainers is that I spent the last 5 years to discuss in details with all existing registry owners coz I was trying to buy one.

So trust me, I am probably one of the few that know exactly the dark side of the registry part.

And I am really honest on this. For instance, I really like the .club - I think the .club string is strong and they have a good strategy on the long term too.

But I think we are entering a new era in the ngtlds, most of them are simply dying because their string have no value for the users or simply no potential usage.

So when I hear generic registries trying to convince domainers that their TLD will replace the .com - I cry of laugh.

And it's a guy that just put all is money in to enter the party that say it.

But I am 100% honest on this even with the .best : .Best will never replace the .com (simply because .best is not competing with .com - it's a different usage)

Difference is : the usage !