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.WIN domains

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LongTimeAgo

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Hi,

I hear .WIN gained a bad name for being used by spammers. I also gather that .WIN domains were once selling quickly, but are no longer.

I'm considering buying a .WIN domain and would appreciate your comments:
  1. What is the risk and implication of buying a Premium .WIN domain, given that the general .WIN tld has a bad name or reputation to domainers & some techs.
  2. Are there any actions taken by spamhaus or similar anti-spam/security/safety/ type services that would effect ALL .WIN domains, even a new Premium Domain which presumably not committed any past crime?
  3. What is the risk & likelihood of the .WIN registrar going under (ie. potential future loss of the domain)?
  4. What other risks or negatives must I be aware of?
  5. Ending on a brighter note, are there any positives about .WIN (I've read mostly negative! I persist because I like this Premium Domain)?
Thank you
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Same as .top pump and dump sh*t, no real business actually uses it.
 
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So just for my own understanding, you think that the registry behind .WIN has intentionally set out to pump and dump?

Since reading your message I've tried to research the registry and it all looks pretty bad...

But I DO LIKE the domain I found... The 'win' term is relevant to the project and therefore more appealing than any other suffix...

Thank you
 
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Just...good luck.
upload_2019-8-20_23-55-22.png
 
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I owned a bunch at 1.99
HorseRaces
FreePicks
Thankfully i saw the light and renewals went to $10
Goodbye.win
Forget this extension
 
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OK, OK, Thank you both very much for your advice and guidance

I will abort the .WIN idea, I need a domain which we can be more confident with
 
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@Bob Hawkes , I believe you have somethung to help with the OP here :)
 
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@Bob Hawkes , I believe you have somethung to help with the OP here :)
Sorry for delay I have been offline most of the day doing other things. Thanks for drawing my attention to thread, @Abdullah Abdullah.

I hear .WIN gained a bad name for being used by spammers. I also gather that .WIN domains were once selling quickly, but are no longer.
While the amount of spam was over-estimated by many, it is true that the heavily discounted domains had higher levels of spam. The formerly Famous Four Media (FFM) domains had deep discount arrangements in particular with Alpnames and Namecheap. Just over a year ago an investment subgroup took over control of all FFM extensions, stopped deep discounting, ended their arrangement with Alpnames, and took other steps to improve reputation and set a new course for the extensions that would see more revenue come from premium domain registrations and renewals. As a result registration numbers went down, and will continue to do so. It never made sense how many .wiin, .loan etc. there were for the niche of the TLD. The good news is that spam has been going down consistently.

You can look up any TLD to get a score using Spamhaus (they have been protecting mailboxes for almost two decades, have an extensive staff, and protect 3 billion plus email accounts, so they are the people with numbers on spam. As of today .win has a Spamhaus score very comparable to com (0.66 vs 0.61) and much better than for example .biz (4.61) and .us (3.17) - a lower score is better. Now bigger registrations get penalized slightly, so com actually has almost a factor of 2 less in percentage spam even though scores only slightly different. If you want to check any yourself use the TLD check at this page: https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/

Re by selling more quickly if you mean aftermarket domain sales, .win has never sold much (less than 20 ever in NameBio). If you mean registrations, than the reason is as I indicated above.

What is the risk and implication of buying a Premium .WIN domain, given that the general .WIN tld has a bad name or reputation to domainers & some techs.
I personally would not invest in a premium renewal domain in most new extensions, and not in this one. It is just hard to make the numbers worth it probability wise. It is unfair that some domainers and techies may have outdated and wrong information, but I guess it is life.

Re your question 2 I would say no.
What is the risk & likelihood of the .WIN registrar going under
I suppose none of us can really answer this. What can be said is that 5+ years in only a single general availability new domain extension has gone ERBO (an emergency set of procedures set up by ICANN in such likelihood) and that was an extension that never garnered even 400 registrations and was handled by essentially no registrars. Neither of those apply to .win or other former FFM TLDs. Those who seek to discredit new extensions point to brand type extensions, only ever to be used by a company, and many companies have decided not to continue. That obviously is not the same thing.
Ending on a brighter note, are there any positives about .WIN (I've read mostly negative! I persist because I like this Premium Domain)?
I would not hesitate to use the extension as an end user, and in fact do use it for my domain name website (which is probably why I was tagged to respond). I have used NamesThat.win for just under 3 years, and have it already registered for almost 9 more and am thinking of adding one more while renewal rates are so favourable. As a website I have found that Google do not in any way discriminate against it, as they of course have constantly said that the TLD does not matter it is your content. I know that Google searches are regionalized, but at least in Canada I am first page of Google for a number of search terms. For example "domain name phrase" one of the areas I specialize in I am currently #1 and Google also feature my definition of them as the response they show at the top. I am also at or near the top of page one for more specialized searches such as "biotech domain name" and usually in first two pages even for more general like "science domain name". So functionally, it is what you do with the domain that matters in search.

I like .win for some domain name phrases, so registered a few (I never had more than 10, and only have several now).

Some might point to the big sale a few months ago of the hack T.win that sold for $22.500 but I would not read too much into that. Single letter, ideal word. It was bought by an online casino but they use it only for redirection to twin.com, at least as of now. There are some other big name users, mainly in gaming, and a bunch of little users in fields like marketing. One of the more interesting users is at win.win a crypto economy startup. It is of course a great name - would love to know how much they paid for it but the registry does not announce its premium sales.

Right now .win has really favourable standard renewal rates of just a few dollars, so if an end user got a .win or other former FFM I would suggest registering it out a number of years. Not for .win, but for .science they are charging only half as much for renewal as for first year registration, a very interesting twist on the usual pattern. I think as of now these favourable renewal rates are only locked in wholesale until end of September, and it may go back to about $12 then (or may not).

So to summarize:
  • Last year and likely going forward .win is no worse in spam than most TLDs
  • Registration numbers are going down because deep discounting has been abolished. This is a good thing really for reputation and stability.
  • If I could find a gem that was standard renewal I would take it as a domain investment, but they are hard to find, so I personally don't see it as a very positive domain investment.
  • I personally would not buy a premium renewal in it unless there was a compelling case like the T.win and win.win or we.win or something like that and the renewal was not too high.
  • I have found in terms of Google search, etc. there are no issues with using one. I am an old man with almost 0 skills in search optimization, and as noted I have even on an unsophisticated website got decent search metrics in some terms (not yet in some others I would like).
If you have other questions, don't hesitate to ask. With only 2 aftermarket sales above $1000 (on NameBio at least) I think the economics of paying a premium renewal are tough to justify unless you see a number of high likelihood end users for a great term at not too high a premium.

Bob
 
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Hi Bob

Thank you very much for your extensive reply. It was very informative.

I thought it was interesting about the Spamhaus scores that .WIN is similar to other TLDs.

The fact you wouldn't buy a premium .WIN is another big red signal for me.

It's nice to hear that in general it's rare for a registrar to cease.

In looking for information on the company behind .WIN through google, wikipedia, forums etc. I found there's a lot of negativity & a lack of positive or reassuring information about the TLD or it's owners. FFM discontinued and GRS are the current appointees. They both are conveniently located in Gibraltar so I wonder if it's the same people or the same crowd.

The T.win and win.win examples are good. I had found an expensive premium .WIN, and while I choke slightly at the cost, I'd have been happy to do it if I had greater faith in the TLD.

Thanks to my learnings I've abandoned any .WIN plan for now. This sucks because that .WIN would have been good!

Good luck with your website and sales :xf.smile:
 
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It is a complicated ownership trail but my understanding is that some of the previous owners are still in charge but others were forced out or dropped out, and some new investment money has come onboard, Kevin Murphy has followef the evolving story most closely and written on it several times.
t's nice to hear that in general it's rare for a registrar to cease.
Just to clarify it is not that rare for registrars to go out of business, typically one or two per year, but it has almost never happened that registries go out of sale.

Re Gibralter, many companies have corporate HQ there for tax savings and I would not necessarily read anything negative into that.

It i s not so much that I would not personally buy a premium .win as I would not personally buy any premium or very high standard renewal domain name as you need a high sale price and high probability of sale for it to be statistically worth holding. At say $100 per year and 5% per year chance of sale would need to net $2000 (probably sell at $2500 or more) and when subtract registry sales not very many sales in new extensions at this level.

Clearly some do well though as a number of premium sales in .games, .app and others this year have indicated. Anyway it is my personal approach, not necessarily the right one. As a senior I only invest in domains essentially what I make in domains. I am mainly a hobbyist. I would not buy a .com at $1000 either but realize many make all their substantial returns from exactly that.

Best wishes,

Bob
 
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Just to clarify it is not that rare for registrars to go out of business, typically one or two per year, but it has almost never happened that registries go out of sale.
There is a higher turnover with registrars, Bob,
But the latest NGT to be bought out is .GLOBAL by Afilias. There have been others but one of the larger ones was .MOBI a few years ago. There will probably be a few more sales over the next few months. There is an Emergency Backend Registry Operator ( https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ebero-2013-04-02-en ) for NGTs that run into difficulty so registrants will not be immediately affected.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Just to clarify it is not that rare for registrars to go out of business, typically one or two per year, but it has almost never happened that registries go out of sale.
I wrote the wrong thing, I meant registries not registrars. Thanks

It i s not so much that I would not personally buy a premium .win as I would not personally buy any premium or very high standard renewal domain name as you need a high sale price and high probability of sale for it to be statistically worth holding. At say $100 per year and 5% per year chance of sale would need to net $2000 (probably sell at $2500 or more) and when subtract registry sales not very many sales in new extensions at this level.
I see your rationale. I'm not buying to sell. I wanted the .WIN for a new project. It was going to be used as a secondary domain for a main website. The .WIN would've been very important hence my potential willingness to spend thousands on it.
I've now bought another domain which I don't find quite as attractive but I think it offers greater long term stability/safety. The possibility of having a domain on a .WIN TLD with a registry that demonstrates short term greedy (pump & dump) doesn't fit with my long term requirements.

If anyone can make a sensible case that .WIN should still be considered please advise. We're not implementing use of the domain immediately, but for now the .WIN is abandoned.

Thanks for your help Bob, and others
 
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It might be an excellent TLD for political candidates in the upcoming US presidential election though most would have already gone with a .COM.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Yes, good use of .WIN
Also for an election campaign it may be short term usage.
I'm thinking .WIN not so good for longer term objectives...
 
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I got Magazine.Win many years ago.

It is the best domain for a global magazine, focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and winners.
 
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