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Hello everyone,
This is just my opinion and we can always discuss openly as a group as long as the discussion is healthy and constructive.
I have started to go indepth into the expiring names everyday. With that, I mean scanning manually more than 5,000 names, and go indepth into more than 500 of these.
When I go in-depth, I analyse various things. One of them are the domains that are taken in other extensions. This is where it gets very interesting. I see at least 50 of these names are taken in multiple other extensions (sometimes even 20 extensions), and all of this happened based on discount codes and no real usage or investment rationale.
How did I come up with that?
I have seen names, where the first registration was a for .com or a .net, and were done by a small office use or even sometimes a programmer that created his own protocol and used a URL for API calling whatever. Lets take an example to make it easier. I work on a college project and within that project I hand register the domain www.BazabizoProtocol.com. I start to use it, and I renew the domain because that project was dear to me and just want to keep it. Then the magic happens. A registrar gives away $1 registrations for a certain TLD. Lets assume that that happened in April during any given year. Then someone uses a batch crawler and finds all aged .com domains that havent been registered in that TLD (lets assume .net). He/She goes ahead and hand registers that domain for a $1. At a mass scale this happens for millions of names every year. This is not the problem.
But this is not a problem, he/she will just let it expire after a year if it doesn't sell. Correct?
No my friend. The worse part happens, when later in that year another TLD (lets assume .org) gives another $1 coupon for hand registrations. Now it becomes more tempting to register BazabizoProtocol.org as based on automated crawlers it has 2 extensions taken and 1 active website. This cycle happens then for multiple TLDs, and before the year ends, there are like 5 TLDs with BazabizoProtocal taken. Now the guy that initially registered BazabizoProtocol.net would take a quick look and find that its now taken in 5 extensions, and that he has it in a strong extension (relative to the other ones). Then he renews it. Then the cycle continues. Once a domain has 3-5 active extensions registered, it becomes a good bait for people to register the name in other TLDs with coupon codes. At least 10% of the names that have 5+ extentions are a result of this crappy cycle.
So, what is the fix?
There are 2 things to consider when you want to hand register a name. Don't do my own mistakes. I hand registered a lot of shit throughout my 7 years of domaining. I lost more than $40K of hard earned money into this (including 2 renewal cycles). Yes I did stupid mistakes, and I owe it to the community to share my mistakes.
1) If you will register a name based on other extensions, then dive deeper and look at the active businesses behind these. If they are all parked for sale, then there is nothing but a crappy cycle as I mentioned above. Same applies for Expiring auctions. I see some people bidding on names based on other extensions and they will sit on these names forever! I personally believe that Mike Mann's business has been doing that mistake for years. When you operate at scale, you have to rely on automation. However, in this business, automation could literally kill your gains or operating margin!
2) If you want to register a name based no a future trend. Make sure, you register something that really will have value over time. You will need to pay the carrying costs for some years. Don't come with intentions like "I must hand register 10 names today". Never do that. Have a plan, that embodies smart work, and let results become an eventual conclusion.
The only beneficiary from our mistakes here are the registrars. They are not doing anything unethical. They rely on historical data that shows growth following a discounted reg. promotion. Our mistakes create taht cycle. Lets not be a part of it. Lets cut the loop, and leave BazabizoProtocol.net available to register forever, even if .net registrations are $0.01!
I hope that I was able to provide clarity here.
Enjoy domaining!
This is just my opinion and we can always discuss openly as a group as long as the discussion is healthy and constructive.
I have started to go indepth into the expiring names everyday. With that, I mean scanning manually more than 5,000 names, and go indepth into more than 500 of these.
When I go in-depth, I analyse various things. One of them are the domains that are taken in other extensions. This is where it gets very interesting. I see at least 50 of these names are taken in multiple other extensions (sometimes even 20 extensions), and all of this happened based on discount codes and no real usage or investment rationale.
How did I come up with that?
I have seen names, where the first registration was a for .com or a .net, and were done by a small office use or even sometimes a programmer that created his own protocol and used a URL for API calling whatever. Lets take an example to make it easier. I work on a college project and within that project I hand register the domain www.BazabizoProtocol.com. I start to use it, and I renew the domain because that project was dear to me and just want to keep it. Then the magic happens. A registrar gives away $1 registrations for a certain TLD. Lets assume that that happened in April during any given year. Then someone uses a batch crawler and finds all aged .com domains that havent been registered in that TLD (lets assume .net). He/She goes ahead and hand registers that domain for a $1. At a mass scale this happens for millions of names every year. This is not the problem.
But this is not a problem, he/she will just let it expire after a year if it doesn't sell. Correct?
No my friend. The worse part happens, when later in that year another TLD (lets assume .org) gives another $1 coupon for hand registrations. Now it becomes more tempting to register BazabizoProtocol.org as based on automated crawlers it has 2 extensions taken and 1 active website. This cycle happens then for multiple TLDs, and before the year ends, there are like 5 TLDs with BazabizoProtocal taken. Now the guy that initially registered BazabizoProtocol.net would take a quick look and find that its now taken in 5 extensions, and that he has it in a strong extension (relative to the other ones). Then he renews it. Then the cycle continues. Once a domain has 3-5 active extensions registered, it becomes a good bait for people to register the name in other TLDs with coupon codes. At least 10% of the names that have 5+ extentions are a result of this crappy cycle.
So, what is the fix?
There are 2 things to consider when you want to hand register a name. Don't do my own mistakes. I hand registered a lot of shit throughout my 7 years of domaining. I lost more than $40K of hard earned money into this (including 2 renewal cycles). Yes I did stupid mistakes, and I owe it to the community to share my mistakes.
1) If you will register a name based on other extensions, then dive deeper and look at the active businesses behind these. If they are all parked for sale, then there is nothing but a crappy cycle as I mentioned above. Same applies for Expiring auctions. I see some people bidding on names based on other extensions and they will sit on these names forever! I personally believe that Mike Mann's business has been doing that mistake for years. When you operate at scale, you have to rely on automation. However, in this business, automation could literally kill your gains or operating margin!
2) If you want to register a name based no a future trend. Make sure, you register something that really will have value over time. You will need to pay the carrying costs for some years. Don't come with intentions like "I must hand register 10 names today". Never do that. Have a plan, that embodies smart work, and let results become an eventual conclusion.
The only beneficiary from our mistakes here are the registrars. They are not doing anything unethical. They rely on historical data that shows growth following a discounted reg. promotion. Our mistakes create taht cycle. Lets not be a part of it. Lets cut the loop, and leave BazabizoProtocol.net available to register forever, even if .net registrations are $0.01!
I hope that I was able to provide clarity here.
Enjoy domaining!