new gtlds Pull up your sleeves, you new G's

[HotKey]

For the 3rd time in 6 months, watching the ol' tee-vee and wouldn't you know, on comes a Go Daddy commercial, with surprise surprise, promoting .guesswhatyesdot-com

I have yet to see another registrar or registry produce something like this for new G's, or anything for that matter.

So essentially, what we have here, is the maximum exposure on prime time television. 3 times in 6 months. Resulting in Mom and Pop knowing only three things:

- to buy a domain
- and there is only one extension
- all at one registrar

GD.

Soo, what the heck is every other registry and registrar doing to combat this monopolization? Nothing. No sleeves being pulled up, nothing being invested in main-stream television advertising by them.

I mean, comeon, get to work people. Investors pulling up our sleeves, but we seem to be the only ones. We have limited resources in educating the masses. To generate mass appeal on new products, we need exposure from the source, or even places like talk shows. Eg. Ellen or Jimmy Fallon. Else we're looking at a 50 year adoption rate. I mean slow and steady winds the race, but that slow??

When you have prime-time exposure, you don't have to worry about the distractors sitting around in circles singing kum ba yah and moaning and groaning how the non-coms don't get traffic, there's no comparables and oh no they are soo confusing. We don't need this mantra as new G investors. I would prefer if you're not willing to be educated, at the very least offer something constructive that improves to what we're building.

I realize Verisign is pooping cash, which helps them inject funds to, well, help them poop more cash, but surely the people who run new extensions had more than just the initial capital of 180k to acquire the new G?

They can't make something on the magnitude of a domain extension and expect people to just know about it. Particularly when up against an almost 40 year old behemoth.

So what's the problem? Are there vested interests that are attempting to bury new adoption? Or are these new registries really that cash-strapped? Whatever it is, looks like it continues to be up to us to roll up our sleeves and plug on. But until more excitement is generated, my weight will be on current stock rather than new acquisitions.

 

[offthehandle]

Search is complex, and would be greatly simplified if the extension meant something consistent with the content.

That might ruin Googles revenue stream too since might be easier to rank for competing search and bring it back to a relevant directory as Yahoo was at first. You might want to look into .XXX as a case study, since it was introduced, yet how did that work out? I have wondered why it didnt fly, except obvious was the $99 pricing. Great idea, for filtering children from being exposed.

If the content were honest and checked like DMOZ used to check and matched the extension, it would be great actually for SEO and all search engines could compete with the Google beast.

Search results are far from relevant in certain niches. Mine never have the largest, most successful companies organically ranked 1st page, btw. If there were an extension, then the playing field would be more level in small niches. Amazon ranks for niche stuff better than the manufacturers themselves even.

 

[oldtimer]

There are also branded or private New gTLDs that are not for public use and are being used by some companies themselves , if a few of these big companies start using their own New gTLDs to advertise their products or services then that will give a huge boost to all New gTLDs perhaps more than anything that the Registries could do on their own. I have heard that Apple is using their own branded New gTLD to promote some of their products and that they have recently created “ hello dot apple” which if advertised on their website and or on TV could have big effects on showing people how to use New gTLDs.


A word of caution:

As people are debating (fighting) over the potential and viability of the New gTLDs it might be wise to also consider the fact that regardless of whether you are pro legacy extensions or want to take your chances with the New gTLDs we are all taking a gamble as an Industry on how things are going to turn out in the future specially if the whole Domain Industry , Search habits, and what we have come to know as Websites could all be affected as AI evolves and becomes more prominent in our lives. So I go back to what I had already mentioned earlier that it might be wise to keep a small diversified portfolio of some good domains in old and new extensions and not to get too deeply involved in one particular area since the future is pretty much unknown at this time and everything could get upended by AI.

IMO

 

[NameLlama]

What does AI have to do with old vs new extensions

 

[Kate]

There are also branded or private New gTLDs that are not for public use and are being used by some companies themselves , if a few of these big companies start using their own New gTLDs to advertise their products or services then that will give a huge boost to all New gTLDs perhaps more than anything that the Registries could do on their own.

There are already companies doing just that. But not many.
And just because I see a bank using their corpTLD doesn't mean I want to do the same, it's not like I can easily get my own extension, for cheap. I'm not going to buy a .horse either just because they are using a non-com.
So you see, this won't move the needle.


Everything depends on the registrars, because this is where people are going to buy names.

I have noticed that registrars push nTLDs a lot, because they probably get higher margins on some nTLDs (but I can't imagine they are making big commission on $1.99 regs). Anyway, they are always going to suggest some alternatives.

Right now, I just searched for the string webdesign at Dynadot. Major extensions are of course taken. Available alternatives are:

• webdesign.co $34999.00 Renewal $22.99
• webdesign.tech $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00
• webdesign.tech $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00
• webdesign.online $12000.00 Renewal $12000.00
• webdesign.site $3000.00 Renewal $3000.00
• webdesign.store $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00

Now put yourself in the shoes of a normal person, this is a put-off. The pricing is designed to drive people away.
The same test at Godaddy yields similar results, very high prices. A few TLDs are very cheap but absolutely not relevant, for example .glass.

In 5 years, nothing has changed.
I am surprised that people are still figuring out what registries should do to win the hearts and minds of developers. Domainers are slightly detached from reality.

At some point, I think the registries should just let the names go, even in small batches. Or price them more intelligently, for example by using a Dutch auction setup. Then there is a chance some of these names will be developed and contribute to building a healthy ecosystem. It's not worth sitting on a pile of good keywords (note I didn't say good names ) that nobody is going to buy and use.

I repeat, the pricing is ridiculous and registries are to blame for the dismal failure. It's already hard enough to convince people to buy them at regular price. If people can't get good names at good prices, then the purpose of new extensions is defeated and people will shun them since they are deprived of the opportunities they expected.

 

[Brands.International]

Right now, I just searched for the string webdesign at Dynadot. Major extensions are of course taken. Available alternatives are:

• webdesign.co $34999.00 Renewal $22.99
• webdesign.tech $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00
• webdesign.tech $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00
• webdesign.online $12000.00 Renewal $12000.00
• webdesign.site $3000.00 Renewal $3000.00
• webdesign.store $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00

Now put yourself in the shoes of a normal person, this is a put-off. The pricing is designed to drive people away.
The same test at Godaddy yields similar results, very high prices. A few TLDs are very cheap but absolutely not relevant, for example .glass.

Well, some good points @Kate, but when it comes to "rudiculous pricing" and alternatives, I disagree. For example, for the string you chosen as an example "webdesign", in a time of writing, following alternatives are available to end users (visit uniregistry.com to check it out":

webdesign.delivery (first year discounted price $9.88 only)
webdesign.coach (first year discounted price $9.88 only)
webdesign.forsale (first year discounted price $9.88 only)
webdesign.foundation (first year discounted price $9.88 only)
webdesign.exchange (first year discounted price $14.88 only)
webdesign.care (first year discounted price $19.88 only)
webdesign.direct (first year discounted price $19.88 only)
and tons of other alternatives.

So for string "webdesign", sure, if you desperately need .tech with it, then you need to pay price/renewal you mentioned in your post. But you can easily go with .direct in this particular example, and you will pay only $19.88.

So what happened here: I have choosen some examples from cheaper end of new gTLD space for that string, while you have (I am not surprised of course) choosen examples from most expensive end of new gTLD space for that string.

This is exactly same what some people are doing with new gTLD stats as well. Both sides, new gTLD lovers and new gTLD sceptics, can turn and spin numbers any way we want - it is basically an never ending story.

Or in another words: we all see what we want to see: you see "rudiculous prices" for new gTLDs, while I see tons of very cheap available alternatives for end users, and we see all that for the exactly same string

 

[Brands.International]

What does AI have to do with old vs new extensions

The more advanced AI, the better it will understand complex semantic meaning of text, and thus also of domain names.

So for example, it will be possible that it will understand nicely some of domains or domain hacks, which can not be traditionally parsed into keywords.

Take for example one of mine domain names: newhomesfor.sale

At the moment, human can understand what it is, and maybe some existing form of AI as well, who knows.
But many bots will still parse it as "newhomesfor" and "sale". This can dramatically change in future, at least that is my personal bet

 

[offthehandle]

https://www.bluecorona.com/blog/are-exact-match-domains-effective-for-seo

So you believe SEO value on EMD in search is going backwards?

Take for example one of mine domain names: newhomesfor.sale

In fact if there were extensions for all niches, and search went back to directory accuracy, where every product had its own tld, no need for search or google for finding certain things. In fact, domains would be even less valuable and search more accurate.

 

[Kate]

So what happened here: I have choosen some examples from cheaper end of new gTLD space for that string, while you have (I am not surprised of course) choosen examples from most expensive end of new gTLD space for that string.

Contrary to what you are thinking there was no cherry picking on my end. I simply quoted examples returned to me by the two registrars. I behaved like an ordinary, naive customer. Forgive me for picking a string that might be in demand (?).

And most of the extensions you mentioned are simply not relevant. These are not viable alternatives, with the exception of .direct.
Of course if you look hard among the hundreds of TLDs available you will probably eventually find something but who has the inclination to do so. At this point people are discouraged and why settle for a NTLD if all you can get is a fifth or sixth choice.

But the registrars could have done a better job of selecting more affordable extensions.

Domainers are thinking too much like domainers and not enough like end users.

 

[Brands.International]

Contrary to what you are thinking there was no cherry picking on my end. I simply quoted examples returned to me by the two registrars. I behaved like an ordinary, naive customer. Forgive me for picking a string that might be in demand (?).

And most of the extensions you mentioned are simply not relevant. These are not viable alternatives, with the exception of .direct.
Of course if you look hard among the hundreds of TLDs available you will probably eventually find something but who has the inclination to do so. At this point people are discouraged and why settle for a NTLD if all you can get is a fifth or sixth choice.

But the registrars could have done a better job of selecting more affordable extensions.

Domainers are thinking too much like domainers and not enough like end users.

Actually @Kate, when you visit uniregistry.com and sort the names (by price) in one direction, you get the examples you posted.

When you do the same sort but in another direction, you get the names I posted.

Anyone can test that.

There is no advantage of .tech, extension which you provided as an example with the string "webdesign", comparing to extension .direct which I provided as my example of cheap alternative.

Maybe you did not do it by purpose, but this is a prime example of what in psychology is named "confirmation bias"...

I admit I have it partially because I notice lot of positive things regarding new gTLDs, but it would be nice if you admit you have it as well, but simply in opposite direction.

 

[jmcc]

@jmcc , you have been providing valuable stats and analysis here on NamePros for over 10 years now and your efforts are appreciated, but some people here have been tossing numbers around and making certain assumptions and judgments about certain extensions based on the face value of certain stats without even being aware of the types of domains that have been dropping or being added in certain New gTLDs.

That's the worrying thing, @oldtimer ,
They are making decisions based purely on quantity rather than quality. There's a metric that might make it into the ICANN gTLD Marketplace Health Indicators report that deals with a very important thing that most people, including domainers don't see. That's the Churn and Burn rates. It takes the number of active domain names in the current zone and compares them with the total number of domain names ever registered in the gTLD. The aim is to measure the number of domain names that are continually active and the numbers that are registered and then deleted. For a discount driven gTLD, it is not unusual to see most of a gTLD zonefile being replaced over the space of a year or so. That's a very bad indication for any TLD. The continually reregistered domain names in a TLD are an indication of registrant confidence in a TLD and possible development or brand protection activity.

When it comes to the New gTLDs we have to analyze them with a new mindset as some of the metrics that have been used in the past such as the total number of registrations or number of reported sales do not make an accurate representation of the viability, and potentials of some of those New gTLDs.

The hard part is coming up with the new metrics and then testing them to see if they stand up to analysis and provide useful indications. Sales are not a robust dataset for this kind of work because there are private sales and there's also, especially with newly launched TLDs, fake sales. Anyone working with sales data has to combine the data from a number of sites but there's also a nagging doubt about whether the data is accurate and verifiable. With the statistics from zonefiles and the registry reports, it is hard data which can be verified independently.

When it comes to measuring usage in a TLD, that's a far more difficult problem than even dealing with sales data because it involves many human languages and character sets. What may appear to be a genuine site could actually be a templated content site that's been built purely for advertising/PPC revenue from the content from other websites. The webscape of a TLD changes along with the registered domain names in a TLD. With .COM, about 44% of domain names registered today will not renew. Most of them will not have any active websites during today and the drop. Some will. Comparing the usage survey from a year ago against a current one will show these sites as being gone from the current survey. With ccTLDs and COM, there's some stability but with some new gTLDs, it is not unusual to see over half a million or so websites disappear in a quarter. It is bloody hard work keeping up with all these changes and with .COM, these changes happen on a far larger scale. About 2.2 million domain names in .COM are deleted each month and another 2.8 million new domain names appear each month.

A New gTLD that has targeted use with only 30k registrations might be a better choice to add to one’s portfolio than one that has general use with over a million registrations. So in my opinion total number of registrations should not be used as the only metric when selecting which New gTLD has long term potentials.

There's another aspect that a lot of domainers with only US .COM experience miss and that's TLDs have their own geography. If anyone has ever wondered why their English language single keyword domain name in .BIZ or .INFO is so hard to sell, it is because the geography of new registrations in these gTLDs has changed. The new registrations are no longer an English language market because a lot of the new registrants are in the Asian markets. If that hypothetical 30K gTLD is targeting the predominantly English language markets (US/CA/IE/UK/AU/NZ) then it might be a lot easier to sell a domain name to that market. It comes down to knowing one's customer.

The number of drops should also not be used as a metric for those New gTLDs that have targeted use, because there are only a certain number of domains that make sense for each one of those New gTLDs and any thing above that should not have been registered in the first place.

Renewal or retention rates provide a better metric than drops on their own.

Also it should be understandable for everyone that sooner or later the number of new registrations for the targeted use New gTLDs are going to slow down and perhaps even plateau at some point in the future since there are only a certain number of domains that make sense for each one of those New gTLDs.

The land rush phase of a newly launched TLD is always abnormal in terms of the rate of new registrations. They seem to gain thousands or tens of thousands of registrations per day but then the rate of registration falls to what is the normal registration rate. With some of the legacy gTLDs, that land period lasted approximately six months before the rate stabilised. The problem with the new gTLDs is that the registries were allowed to self-deal and hold back potential premium registrations. That killed the land rush period so that the major burst of new registrations never happened. After a few weeks, rather than months, these new gTLDs then stabilised at the normal rate of new registations. For some, it wasn't pretty. For others, it was a bloody disaster that led to hundreds or less new registrations per month. The theory was that a registry would need to get to about 10K registrations to be financially viable. A lot never got that high. But if they were part of a portfolio of gTLDs, that was not critical. The real problems happened with the single operator new gTLDs with no registry expertise and little or no marketing budget.

Conclusion: numbers and stats can give us some idea as to the performance of certain extensions, but when it comes to New gTLDs that have targeted use you are better off ignoring a lot of these stats that are being tossed around and just use your common sense to find a few domains that have good keyword/extension correlation at low renewal charges. I didn't use a lot of stats when registering SmartHomes.forsale and HomeMortgage.loan , just one look at them and I knew that they had potentials.

Sometimes, you've got to trust your instincts. The problem with the way that numbers and stats are being thrown about is that that people are not doing any real analysis and are just repeating Social Science numbers. They look good but are often completely meaningless. The complete rubbish that ICANN used for its projections on the number of new gTLD registrations before launch was laughable. The problem was that a lot of gullible people believed it and thought they were going to make millions with their registry ventures. Neither ICANN or the people doing this Numerology realised that the market conditions had changed and the demand that existed when the new gTLD programme started had disappeared by the time that the first new gTLDs launched. This was because the artifical scarcity created by Domain Tasting and Domain Kiting had been eliminated when ICANN was shamed into enforcing a kind of restocking fee for deleted tasted domain names. Previously, any registrar was able to tast domain names and delete them within the five days Add Grace Period without any cost. At the peak of Domain Tasting, approximately 40 million domain names were being tasted each month.ICANN and its "experts" should have reevaluated the projections and so should have the registries.

Applying stock market analysis techniques to domain names is a very dangerous thing because the value of stocks applies to stocks. With domain names, the set of domain names in a TLD is continually changing. In stockmarket terms, it might have started out measuring IBM stock but the stock changed to being IBM, Google, Apple and a load of penny stocks when nobody was paying attention. You've got to know what you are measuring and why you are measuring it.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Henry Y]

Buffett owns real businesses that churn out earnings and dividends. That’s a lot different than owning an item with an intrinsic value of $1 (replacement cost), no earnings and no higher comparable sales.

You don't understand fundamental analysis and I guess you rely heavily on historical records (technical analysis). Fundamental analysis applies to all investments (equities, debts, properties, collectibles, domains, etc) because everything has instrinsic values. To get an intrinsic value a domain, we have to look at many factors related to it. One of the largest factors is the size of pool of potential end users. Intrinsic value of a domain may vary by individuals, but because of it, there is investment opportunity. Someone think a domain is worth $1, but end users may think it is worth $x,xxx or even $xx,xxx. An investor is successful when he sees value of a thing that other investors cannot see. There were high domain sales that many people thought the buyers were silly to buy at high prices. But indeed the sellers saw the values of the domains and were successful.

Also, ngTLD investment is a long-term investment and not for fast selling that is different from .com investment. Fundamental analysis is a better way than technical analysis to find future values because historical records only reflect past performances and has no power to predict future values. So, fundamental analysis is more suitable for ngTLD investment.

No comps means no market = no supply and/or no demand. Supply is plentiful so ...

It is not logical to say that no comparisons mean no market. Take an example, if there is a new house that has no comparable aftermarket sale records, does it mean the house has no market, no demand and no value? Every ngTLD has its own product life cycle (i.e. introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage and decline stage) . It needs time (several weeks, several months, several years or never) for a ngTLD to have its first aftermarket sale record, depending on the quality of the gTLD and promotion by registries.

 

[bmugford]

It is not logical to say that no comparisons mean no market. Take an example, if there is a new house that has no comparable aftermarket sale records, does it mean the house has no market, no demand and no value? Every ngTLD has its own product life cycle (i.e. introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage and decline stage) . It needs time (several weeks, several months, several years or never) for a ngTLD to have its first aftermarket sale record, depending on the quality of the gTLD and promotion by registries.

Limited sales = limited market. Do you like that better?
If nothing, or very little, is ever sold then it is pretty hard to establish a market.

If I built say tens of thousands of houses (domain registrations) and only a handful sold, then I would say that indicates a severe lack of end user demand.

Brad

 

[johnnie018]

What does AI have to do with old vs new extensions

Absolutely nothing, but some get bees in their bonnet on one specific thing.

 

[johnnie018]

There are already companies doing just that. But not many.
And just because I see a bank using their corpTLD doesn't mean I want to do the same, it's not like I can easily get my own extension, for cheap. I'm not going to buy a .horse either just because they are using a non-com.
So you see, this won't move the needle.


Everything depends on the registrars, because this is where people are going to buy names.

I have noticed that registrars push nTLDs a lot, because they probably get higher margins on some nTLDs (but I can't imagine they are making big commission on $1.99 regs). Anyway, they are always going to suggest some alternatives.

Right now, I just searched for the string webdesign at Dynadot. Major extensions are of course taken. Available alternatives are:

• webdesign.co $34999.00 Renewal $22.99
• webdesign.tech $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00
• webdesign.tech $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00
• webdesign.online $12000.00 Renewal $12000.00
• webdesign.site $3000.00 Renewal $3000.00
• webdesign.store $6000.00 Renewal $6000.00

Now put yourself in the shoes of a normal person, this is a put-off. The pricing is designed to drive people away.
The same test at Godaddy yields similar results, very high prices. A few TLDs are very cheap but absolutely not relevant, for example .glass.

In 5 years, nothing has changed.
I am surprised that people are still figuring out what registries should do to win the hearts and minds of developers. Domainers are slightly detached from reality.

At some point, I think the registries should just let the names go, even in small batches. Or price them more intelligently, for example by using a Dutch auction setup. Then there is a chance some of these names will be developed and contribute to building a healthy ecosystem. It's not worth sitting on a pile of good keywords (note I didn't say good names ) that nobody is going to buy and use.

I repeat, the pricing is ridiculous and registries are to blame for the dismal failure. It's already hard enough to convince people to buy them at regular price. If people can't get good names at good prices, then the purpose of new extensions is defeated and people will shun them since they are deprived of the opportunities they expected.

They are pushing ntlds because they are currently reliant on a single supplier - Verisign. I think they see this as the last chance to break that reliance.

Re registries to blame because of high pricing.

I disagree if they sold them off at normal prices domainers would take the lot and price them at levels the registries are currently asking. Registries have no ability to make these mainstream. The standards for addressing were set lond ago, now it is just fighting over 1% of the market.

 

[Henry Y]

Limited sales = limited market. Do you like that better?
If nothing, or very little, is ever sold then it is pretty hard to establish a market.

If I built say tens of thousands of houses (domain registrations) and only a handful sold, then I would say that indicates a severe lack of end user demand.

Brad

I emphasized timeframe and product life cycle stages in my post. Time is needed to build a market due to introduction stage (the stage that registries promote their ngTLDs). If a ngTLD can successfully enter the growth stage, there will be more and more aftermarket sales.

Selling a handful of houses in a minute and in a year at same prices are two totally different stories. And selling a handful of houses at low prices in a minute (i.e. fast selling) and at high prices due to appreciation in a year (i.e. long-term investment) are another totally different stories.

I agree that if there are only limited sales in a long period, we can say it is a limited market. But it does not mean there is completely no investment opportunity. Markets are everchanging. A thing that is unpopular nowadays may be very popular in the future. No matter whether there are currently no sales, few sales or many sales in the aftermaket, if you are holding a domain of great quality that has a sizable pool of potential end users and is at a low cost, you can make investment profit in the future. Investments should look at the future, not the past or current situations.

 

[johnnie018]

I emphasized timeframe and product life cycle stages in my post. Time is needed to build a market due to introduction stage (the stage that registries promote their ngTLDs). If a ngTLD can successfully enter the growth stage, there will be more and more aftermarket sales.

Selling a handful of houses in a minute and in a year at same prices are two totally different stories. And selling a handful of houses at low prices in a minute (i.e. fast selling) and at high prices due to appreciation in a year (i.e. long-term investment) are another totally different stories.

I agree that if there are only limited sales in a long period, we can say it is a limited market. But it does not mean there is completely no investment opportunity. Markets are everchanging. A thing that is unpopular nowadays may be very popular in the future. No matter whether there are currently no sales, few sales or many sales in the aftermaket, if you are holding a domain of great quality that has a sizable pool of potential end users and is at a low cost, you can make investment profit in the future. Investments should look at the future, not the past or current situations.

How long have new tld people been saying this for? 20 years? In future we are all dead.

 

[Henry Y]

How long have new tld people been saying this for? 20 years? In future we are all dead.

1. No one here says 20 years. Number of years needed depends on the quality of extension and marketing effect by registries. May take several years to be popular, or will never be popular.

2. I don't think 20 years later all NP members here will be dead. Please don't expect that all NP members will be dead like you. I believe many NP members can see the success or failure of each ngLTD in their lives.

 

[johnnie018]

1. No one here says 20 years. Number of years needed depends on the quality of extension and marketing effect by registries. May take several years to be popular, or will never be popular.

2. I don't think 20 years later all NP members here will be dead. Please don't expect that all NP members will be dead like you. I believe many NP members can see the success or failure of each ngLTD in their lives.

People have been making these claims for 20 years, that new tlds will one day be popular, that day never comes.

 

[johnnie018]

Personally, I believe in the long term new gTLDs will slowly gain traction and millennials will have no problem using them as they grow older. As I hear about exciting new sites, I’ll visit more and more.

Then there are names like:

Amazon.jobs

This major site must get countless millions of visitors. Awareness of the new extensions can only grow, it can’t go backwards.

.job is 15 years old, not exactly new and one site isn’t going to do anything measurable for awareness. It is an exception like mta.info, del.ico.us, instagr.am etc. None of those extensions are popular despite one big site.

 

[BrandableDomain]

I think people are on surface saying something and they are doing something else in reality.

I would not be much surprised to find that some largest critics are building at least small new gTLD portfolios as well, enjoying privacy now GDPR gave us

Thanks for the valuable observation that some big players are catching dropped new gTLDs.

Yes, I have suspected for some time that some of the anonymous domain deniers are attempting to spread misinformation about the program, while secretly they are grabbing certain names and above all preparing their lists for the big one - the dot WEB launch.

If a tiny niche like dot DEV can get 100,000 fully priced registrations in two weeks, why can’t dot WEB get 20 times that?

If their pricing is reasonable, well that could be two million domains in two weeks!

I am not making a prediction, this is pure speculation!

Jim Bidzos said last year that Verisign might launch dot WEB in 2018, but then the second bidder launched a legal objection regarding the controversial bidding process, so the launch is delayed. But it is coming…

“Bidzos told analysts that it’s ‘possible’ that the company may get to launch .web in 2018, but said Verisign has not baked any impact from the contested gTLD into its forecasts.”

Domain Incite

http://domainincite.com/22934-com-adds-5-5-million-names-renewals-back-over-70

 

[johnnie018]

Thanks for the valuable observation that some big players are catching dropped new gTLDs.

Yes, I have suspected for some time that some of the anonymous domain deniers are attempting to spread misinformation about the program, while secretly they are grabbing certain names and above all preparing their lists for the big one - the dot WEB launch.

If a tiny niche like dot DEV can get 100,000 fully priced registrations in two weeks, why can’t dot WEB get 20 times that?

If their pricing is reasonable, well that could be two million domains in two weeks!

I am not making a prediction, this is pure speculation!

Jim Bidzos said last year that Verisign might launch dot WEB in 2018, but then the second bidder launched a legal objection regarding the controversial bidding process, so the launch is delayed. But it is coming…

“Bidzos told analysts that it’s ‘possible’ that the company may get to launch .web in 2018, but said Verisign has not baked any impact from the contested gTLD into its forecasts.”

Domain Incite

It should get millions of registrations for sure. But what does that mean? .mobi had millions, .biz millions, .net got to 20 million.

These names will mostly be taken by domainers and locked up indefinitely. Say 5 milllion go in the first 6 months, where does that leave the person on day 183 who wants a name to start a site?

 

[HotKey]

Just wanted to say, what a treat it is to read thru you guy's (and gals) posts from yesterday. (and through-out) Each one contributes in such a unique way that brings a good balance, and adds valuable perspective with analysis and facts to the discussion. So thank you. Except my scroll button on mouse just about needs replacing now.

 

[HotKey]

I would bet the registries themselves are warehousing them, no domain investors.

No need to bet, this is a real thing happening too.

I am not sure entirely if this is the right thread, but since it has included talk of some of the extensions and the idea of generic vs specific new extensions I decided to post it here. The following thought has been going around in my mind for a few months but I have never posted it....

The more interesting thing is some of the extensions they have delegated but not available (40 extensions) plus a few that are still in contention. Now some of these are clearly for their brand (google, android, gmail, etc.), but they also have extensions like new, prof, play, mov, map, eat, drive, etc.

So what do they hope to achieve? Here is a speculation (no insider information, just an idea that crossed my mind). Google is despite their diverse range of services primarily a search company. Search is complex, and would be greatly simplified if the extension meant something consistent with the content. That is if say .science websites had to do with science content, an .app page was for app support, .dog had to do with dogs, etc. What if they decided what extensions are specific as opposed to generic, and gave advantage in search to sites with content where there was congruence with the extension (and penalized pages that were not). Perhaps they just want to push this with some of their own extensions, although I see Donuts as the big winner if search ever went this way.

I guess what I am saying if we got to a point where both search and humans could depend on the fact that normally a .app meant a legitimate .app support/developer site, things would be way more efficient than a system where everything under the sun uses one legacy extension.

...

ps I do know that Google say that extension does not matter in SEO. But is that a forever statement?

Intriguing, Bob. Truly. "Search is complex.." statement, with extensions simplifying, is a solution to an ever-expanding internet. An algorithm that looks to sites content combined with its name.extension, excellent way to uncomplicate results for the searcher. Also, my daughter showed me something the other day I had never used (just always saw it there) before, the microphone on the Google search bar. You can click it, and it brings you to a "voice" search". I think this should be augmented with domain names in the near future (so @oldtimer perhaps AI and domains will work together!) where the voice will recognize the "dot" separator as an indicator to take person to the actual url.

btw we definitely do not want a 50 yr adoption rate, who's to say we're not going to be "holoing" to some "holo place" by then in a totally different kind of internet.. then again, these TLDs along with voice may just be the vehicle used by future technologies to come.

 

[BrandableDomain]

1. No one here says 20 years. Number of years needed depends on the quality of extension and marketing effect by registries. May take several years to be popular, or will never be popular.

Did I hear somebody say “20 years”? That's good to hear!

There’s lots of experienced domainers on this thread so many should know about the Domain King’s “20 Year Plan”.

Back in 1995, being one of only about 50 people that were buying up the one word domain names, Rick Schwartz knew it would take until around 2015 to fully realise their value.

The new gTLD program should similarly take a long time to realise it’s value.

I often think about the recent DomainSherpa show about how the great domains now being sold are “off the market forever”. Well something has to replace the dwindling good dot COMs.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

And just because I see a bank using their corpTLD doesn't mean I want to do the same, it's not like I can easily get my own extension, for cheap. I'm not going to buy a .horse either just because they are using a non-com.
So you see, this won't move the needle.

I agree with much in your overall post @Kate, but not about widespread acceptance of brand domains not moving the needle. I agree with you that very few currently using them meaningfully. But IF there was a major shift toward brand domains I think it would help with acceptance of new (and indeed other alternative) extensions. It simply would break the assumption "is it my country code or com?". It does not alone make new gTLDs successful, but would help them get the foot in the door. In my opinion...
Bob