Aged domains question

[Bob Hawkes]

I have a question that I hope someone more experienced in domain investing can provide insight on....

Very frequently I see mention in domain name sales that the domain is aged or how many years old it is, as though this is universally a good thing.

I understand completely how if the domain has been used in a website in a positive way, has received meaningful links from other websites, etc. that being aged is a plus that will make the domain more valuable.

However, what if the domain was first registered say 12 years ago, but has essentially sat parked for most or all of that period? In this case I don't see how being aged is positive, and maybe even it could be negative if an unsuccessful attempt has been made to sell the domain over years. Of course, you may have new ideas for promotion and hope to find success where others have not with the domain name, but I still don't see why per se being aged is always positive and meaningful.

Or am I missing something? Thanks for any insights.

Bob

 

[xynames]

Very old, very rare....

 

[namelancer]

Very old, very rare....

Is it very old because it's rare, or is it rare because it's old ? Is rarity here a byproduct of old age or advanced age is a byproduct of rarity ?

 

[namelancer]

The fact that people renewed it over and over is also an indication of perceived value.

Let's imagine one is running an art agency, or a studio of designers each of whom shares a public profile with a potential contractor, displaying a ranking metric consisting of information om how many commissioned works they have had in the portfolio since the beginning of their employment at said studio . Any future client who'll consider the prospect of hiring anyone among the candidates will get a chance to review their initial drafts made by each artist, before assigning a job to the chosen contender, To facilitate the ease of selection they'll be granted full access to the stats stating how many times an artist was chosen by previous clients. So, if the company started with only one employee or a couple, they are almost guaranteed to be able to secure more picks than the later additions join the company. How can a client do a good job of choosing the artwork or a logo from a specific artist for their business, using the number of times the artist has been chosen as their only contributing, external reference point ? How reliable is this peer authority system if the client lacks the resources or staff to make an informed decision himself ? In this case, how fail-safe could be their decision-making ability if they are shown to put trust in judgement of others in vetting the right applicant for the job ? If every consecutive client were to chose only the client with positive past approval rates (by having been chosen for another job in the past by a different client), it builds a self-referential chain of trust that only would have the legitimacy of choice stemming from the very first client. For example, if the client number 2 (all other things being equal), would be swayed into choosing an artist with a previous track record of commissioned work, it would create 2 assignments in the portfolio of the artist. So, when a new, client number 3, arrives, he is even more likely to be persuaded by the judgement vested by others in aptitude of the same artist whose only fortune was being selected as first in line to perform. This chain of authority building could only create a false ranking model with all but the first being misleading values.

 

[poweredbyme]

Is it very old because it's rare, or is it rare because it's old ? Is rarity here a byproduct of old age or advanced age is a byproduct of rarity ?

Rare because it's old. Age doesn't need anything. Age comes first. But rarity needs time to exist. Because some time period has to pass and "similar" things should appear to call the oldest similar things "rare" or "rarest". If something is unique, it can't be rare. The first registered domain was unique but was not rare. Second registered domain made the first domain old and rare. After several thousands registered domain, the first 100 registered domains became very old and very rare. After several millions of registered domains, the first 10,000 domain became oldest and rarest. After several billions of registered domains the first registered 1,000,000 domain will become oldest and rarest domains.

Rare usually means something that is seen 1 time in 1,000 or more instances depending on industry or statistical event.

 

[HotKey]

https://www.namepros.com/threads/do...der-total-budget-50-000.1046617/#post-6414527https://www.namepros.com/threads/do...der-total-budget-50-000.1046617/#post-6414527
Another one. No real criteria, other than age. There is a market. More so even now, with thousands of new extensions means many of the aged domains in the classic extensions will be the holy grail. Presenting a domain to a buyer with a good "bottling" date is that much more appealing.

 

[Sinh]

aged or new, it doesn't matter for the endusers. To get a good selling price, the quality of the domain is the most important thing and the second thing depends on your luck, just my opinion. I am negociating with a buyer about my aged domain (1992) that is over 10k but we don't mention about it is aged or new

 

[namelancer]

There are 100 2N.com's, 1,000 3N.com's, 10,000 4N.com, 100,000 5N.com and so on. It's obvious 2N.com will be always more expensive than 3N, 4N, 5N ... domains...

3N has been always more valuable than 4N domains regardless of trends.

It's a general rule of a thumb that's proven to carry some weight, but how does it test in practice ?

That there are exceptions to the rule is curtsy provided by the actual sales data:

According to the above, an 8N./dot./com is expected to be less valuable than a 7N./dot./com, etc: however the sales figures digress from the theory telling a variation of a well-known story. As per namebio's records, 88888888./dot./com was sold at around 150, 000 usd - far greater than its more scarce 7N./dot/.com counterpart would have. At this point you are probably going to object asking me to use better and fair comparisons. I'll comply by claiming that not only did 88888888./dot./com possessed a greater value than a random 7N./dot./com, but it would have surpassed in value a 7N./dot/.com like 8888888./dot./com or, to take it a step further, even possibly a 55555./dot./com. I am using these examples for demonstration purposes as I lack actual data on other sales having mostly estimates . So values defined by scarcity, under certain conditions, are going to be over-ruled by other factors such as peculiarities of the leading market segment showing a taste for symbolism-laden domains.

If we look a bit closer at the realities of the market today, we need to seek no further than the DNJournal's account of sales all being reported for the current year. The market feedback we'll focus on are a couple of sales that are of relevance for our discussion, namely, those of Eth./dot./com and SW.com. Despite being a 3 character domain, Eth./dot/com sold at 2,000,000 usd,while a 2 character SW./dot./com garnished a paltry 660,000 usd by comparison.

 

[poweredbyme]

@namelancer Exceptions don't break the rule in business. This isn't a natural science.
Another point is you can say "x" will be always "y", to emphasize a business-economics rule, while you mean "usually" by "always". Because when something is usual (if an event or pattern is observed more), it's a rule business. Business, as a science, dictates choosing what most likely will happen, is way different than math, physics where a single occurrence of incompatible outcome or event can break the rule . So, I still defend the rules I stated even after you showed me exceptions (eth, 8888888 ) . To break a rule in business, you should show (should logically prove) incompatible events are the majority or the effect of exceptions (amount of money involved in the exceptions ) are majority (more than 50%).

Total supply of 3N domains are 10 times of 2N
Total supply of 3L domains are 26 times of 2L (number of letters in English alphabet is 26)

Statistically, randomly chosen 2L will be more expensive than 3L. This is the rule I defend. There might be more exemptions than you showed. But the exemptions don't break this rule.

 

[namelancer]

So, aged domains were more valuable in 90's and will be always more valuable. Even in bitcoin domains, the best ones are the oldest domains. The best domains are ALWAYS registered first, before the normal and bad domains.

Regarding all-time highlights and record-breaking domains:

1. The most valuable (at over 200 mil.usd) domain sold, Cars./dot./com, was registered in 1998, years after registration of domains was open to public without restriction. Many 'bad' domains have had a chance to see the light of the day, before the crown prince of all domains (up till now) was created.

2. The fifth most expensive domain sold (without adjusting for inflation),360/dot./.com, was registered even later, in 2000.

The explanation for the delay in foreseeing the extreme value was the difficulty of discerning value at at time when it's still slowly emerging and before there is exists as a consensus of value.

Concerning trends in general and bitcoin in particular, one of the most valuable domains sold for over 40k this year was Bitcoincash./dot/org, with a fresh registration date being just three months old at the time of the sale. By any standards, it wasn't the oldest of domains in the same category.

Does the statement that even with trends the best domains would always be registered first, provided 'always' is understood as 'usually' would be valid for trends in general ? Basically it's a question if the tendencies observed on the macro scale would apply to and still be valid for the micro level.

To answer this, let's take a double-letter trend for inspection, as one example.

The problem with trends is that it takes time for them to gain a momentum, which means that the highest values will start showing up by the time of the peak of the trend. Domain registrations will pick up pace in tandem with a trend gaining its speed. But for all trend watchers, following a trend is a learning process. As the trend develops, accumulation of knowledge defining the milestones of what works and what gets discarded on the way of the evolving trend, is absorbed to produce the final product closely matching the trend. With the double-letter trend, given the relative abundance of names that can be altered by addition of an extra letter and seemingly endless variations that result from it, one wont see uniformity in registrations leaning towards correlations of high age with the highest values. It’s more than likely for the finest specimens of the trend to be born in the summer-autumn season of the trend, blooming as late arrivals.

But this isn’t limited to trends that are without borders of constraints, with finitude or elements of scarcity hiding in its components, as we have seen in the bitcoin trend so far. For now, we should refrain from making the final judgement until it comes of age traveling a full circle as a trend or when it becomes a more permanent fixture of life if it's lucky enough outgrows the former.

As a conclusion, just as the trends break the mold, so can they break the rules of values being tied up to the bonds of primogeniture.

.

 

[xynames]

I couldn't get past #1 because business.com was sold for $345M in 2007:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/ol...-domains-after-the-sale.1044751/#post-6405218

Still, beer.com was 1993, sex.com was 1995 (beer before sex? evidently), in those early days internet was not nearly as widespread, even a laptop in the classroom for note taking was a rare occurrence. So, a few years before 1998 isn't that big a deal not as much was happening in the internet during those three years, not nearly as much activity as we see today. So it doesn't mean so very much if cars.com or business.com were not registered until 1998. 1998 was still before the internet really exploded, remember eBay didn't even go public until Sept 1998, and the biggest year of the dot com boom was 1999 in fact.

But anyway, as far as bitcoin domains getting to be as valuable as business.com I have no objection!
https://www.namepros.com/threads/eth-com-sold-by-sharjil-saleem.1025923/page-3#post-6405249

 

[namelancer]

I couldn't get past #1 because business./dot/com was sold for $345M in 2007...:

Thank you for pointing it out. I must have consulted a register lacking complete information, However, it's a minor detail, and to enable you to get past the number number 1, I would like to change the text retroactively to read as:''the second most valuable domain, Cars/dot/.com, was sold for a staggering sum of money...It outshone its elder 'less valuable' siblings defying the maxim that oldest children do best in life''

 

[WatchDogue]

I have a question that I hope someone more experienced in domain investing can provide insight on....

However, what if the domain was first registered say 12 years ago, but has essentially sat parked for most or all of that period?

In this case I don't see how being aged is positive, and maybe even it could be negative if an unsuccessful attempt has been made to sell the domain over years.

Or am I missing something? Thanks for any insights.

Bob

I've excerpted the part of your post I'll respond to, as the owner of maybe a 75 or so domains aged between 12 - yes, 20 -ish years.

Their value IMO as " aged domains " is their long term unavailability to interested persons seeking those domains over the years.

Many are small niche market EMD or highly descriptive names that could have been or still are desirable in their marketplace.

Realistically many of the early potential name suitors have long since used many other domains or, have retired or relinquished their websites.

And as the years have passed without their availability, should an opportunity to acquire the
" aged names " arise a potential buyer would recognize this is likely their only opportunity to acquire the name or names - hence a perceived value to an " aged domain ".

 

[poweredbyme]

Regarding all-time highlights and record-breaking domains:

1. The most valuable (at over 200 mil.usd) domain sold, Cars./dot./com, was registered in 1998, years after registration of domains was open to public without restriction. Many 'bad' domains have had a chance to see the light of the day, before the crown prince of all domains (up till now) was created.

2. The fifth most expensive domain sold (without adjusting for inflation),360/dot./.com, was registered even later, in 2000.

.

1- past sales aren't very reliable indicator. Some sales are private, there might be domains which have never been sold, there might be special conditions (seasonal, personal, financial) on particular sales.

2- Internet wasn't popular before 2000. I am old enough to remember 1995 and before. The internet was slow and most people was not knowing search engines to find websites. Home connection was rare and was slow dial up. Most people were connecting from public places like libraries or companies. Domain was an unknown concept in 90's even by first internet users (internet surfers . Even computer engineers were not knowing how to register a domain, what are the registrars, how to pay reg fee online (online payment was not existed or was unknown). Therefore the first domains were registered by a very small group of people who have internet connection and payment options. As they are very small number of people, they don't represent anything. So weird, meaningless were registered in 90's while premium domains were available until 2000. You are evaluating the past with the standards of today. This is a very wrong approach. First domains around 1995 were registered by a very small number of early adapters. The same pattern is seen in all new technologies. Everyone would want to buy 1 bitcoin for $1 in the past to sell for $7,500 today. But the conditions in the past were different than today, so only a few persons bought it for $1. Similar thing happened in 90's for domains. That's why age is a major factor. You can't turn back to 1995 to hand register dozens of 3L. You can't judge 1995 with the conditions and standards of 2017. 22 years passed after 1995. Can you guess the price of 3L domains or 1 bitcoin 22 years later? so, you couldn't know the prices of 3L domains in 2017 when you were in 1995.

 

[poweredbyme]

There are some people with special talents which allow them guessing the future:
"Bezos was one of the first shareholders in Google, when he invested $250,000 in 1998. That $250,000 investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock worth about $3.1 billion today"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

 

[HotKey]

beer before sex?

Very common. Beer before sex, and than have a cigarette.

beer.com 1993
sex.com 1995
cigarette.com 1999

 

[namelancer]

I am sorry to inform you, @HotKey, but you are wrong, or rather, you can't draw any conclusions. As per @xynames, it can't be representative for general population since internet access at that time was limited to only a few.

 

[namelancer]

in those early days internet was not nearly as widespread, even a laptop in the classroom for note taking was a rare occurrence. So, a few years before 1998 isn't that big a deal not as much was happening in the internet during those three years, not nearly as much activity as we see today. So it doesn't mean so very much if cars.com or business.com were not registered until 1998. 1998 was still before the internet really exploded, remember eBay didn't even go public until Sept 1998, and the biggest year of the dot com boom was 1999 in fact.

My findings gave a partial answer to the question posted as to whether most valuable domains are registered first or whether most aged domains are the most valuable. The question wasn't if the the tendency to register most valuable domains first were representative of the population in general, but if the most valuable or expensive domains always get registered first by whomever registers them, i.e. the segment of a population that has access to technology and willingness to use it.. It's been also independently pit forth by a different poster that the most valuable objects are usually taken by pioneers known as early adapters, hence the relevance of studying the behavior of what turned out to be the early adapters.

Just for the records, the first domain ever registered was Symbolics,and it happened in 1985, but it was excluded from the data on the grounds that only a very limited number of companies had an opportunity to use what was a rudimentary form of internet at the time.By definition, registrations taken place in the 80's didn't qualify as early adapters.

Additionally,as per your own view expressed in a previous post, the best and most valuable domains were taken during the 90's, depleting the available reserves of valuable domains for later registrations. It would be cumbersome to the study registration habits of the sample representing general population with respect to assumption of the best and most valuable domains being always registered first-which would have taken place once internet gained wider acceptance from the date you indicated (the time internet exploded) - if by that time the pool of the most valuable domains had essentially disappeared (with exceptions of some liquid domains). The records confirm that by the 1999 (shortly before the internet got its widespread footing), the ruling majority over of the English dictionary words were gone The only proper words that were still left were of the kind one could not even find on the SAT tests - it'd have taken a full GRA exam kit to master them. This is a joke but it's representative of what was left of dictionary by the time early adapters were through with it by the end of 90's, namely the front and back cover and not much else

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I've excerpted the part of your post I'll respond to, as the owner of maybe a 75 or so domains aged between 12 - yes, 20 -ish years.

Their value IMO as " aged domains " is their long term unavailability to interested persons seeking those domains over the years.

And as the years have passed without their availability, should an opportunity to acquire the
" aged names " arise a potential buyer would recognize this is likely their only opportunity to acquire the name or names - hence a perceived value to an " aged domain ".

Thanks for your post, and that is a perspective I had not clearly thought of this way before.I agree the view has a lot of merit. It is probably very analogous to certain types of fine art bought early on, then held by a private collector for a long time, and now perhaps for the only time in a decade or more is made available for sale.

Clearly the topic of domain age has lots of facets, and interesting that it has stayed so active for so long here. Even though I have only commented a few times, I wanted to thank EVERYONE for answering with so much detail and insight. I am sure I am not the only one who has learned a lot from this discussion.

Thanks everyone, and have a nice day!

Bob

 

[namelancer]

And that the domains that were available to hand reg YEARS ago, tend to be higher quality than what is available to hand reg. today.

To judge the domains registered in the past by today's standards is understandable, it brings one to dry land for a fast point of reference. Otherwise, if the domains from the past were to be judged by the standards of the past that surrounded them, their value back then, when they were first registered, would be almost non existent. However, to judge the domains of the past by today's standards and then use it to discredit the domains of the present judged by the same standards (of the present), is to overlook the potential values of the contemporary domains. Judge the domains of present, not by what they can give you today but the values they could develop tomorrow.

 

[namelancer]

My view is that age is a great proxy for quality, but it doesn't actually contribute to value.

Most of us probably do this, as the odds of finding a really strong domain is significantly higher if you're looking in a pool of 20-year-old domains as opposed to a pool of domains registered within the past year. But there are plenty of garbage domains in that pool of old domains.

So there is a strong correlation between age and value, just as there is with length, number of TLDs registered, etc. But none of these factors actually determine value. Literally the only thing that determines the value of a domain name is demand; how many end users would want to buy it and how much could they afford to pay for it based on its potential uses.

If a domain like Cars.com deleted and had the creation date reset, its value would not be impacted in the slightest.

 

[namelancer]

This is in reference to @Michael's response accidentally posted without commentary..

I’ll do my utmost to interpret his words to resolve unclarity, confusion and misunderstanding occurred on this thread, using gold as an analogy. As it’s known gold has value, which develops over time. There is a gold price chart shown specifying spot prices at which units of gold may be bought through daily/hourly updates in the professional bullion market. Now gold that is being offered this way could have been mined years ago or it could have been freshly fused into gold bullion a fortnight ago, so to speak. When placing an order for gold to be bought from the market that fits the standard set, one is not going to pay a different price for gold sold in bullion bars, by kg or ounce depending on whether it was mined, processed and smelted decades ago or if the journey from gold dust to the golden bars took place in the more recent past – it’s going to have the same current price of gold per respective unit notwithstanding the origin of gold, or the time, or age, of its extraction from the ground.

Something similar is observed with domains. Generally, it doesn’t matter when the domain is registered (apart from few exceptions). What is of crucial importance is WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A DOMAIN AT THE TIME OF ITS REGISTRATION, OR, IF IT CAN BE EXPRESSED THIS WAY, WHAT IS THE AGE OF ITS VALUE. In instances of domains that are still unregistered or already dropped and pending re-registration, the focus is a projected value of a domain if it (were to be) becomes registered. There are two time-spans applicable to domains: one is of the domain age, pertinent to the life-span of domain resulting from its registration and the timeline attesting to the development of value of domain over time for potential or actual domains. The age of domain is going to add value in circumstances where the age is the factor in itself compounding the value of a domain as is the case with aged domains being looked for by investors specifically filtering aged domains (as collectors items, e.g.) where the presence of age is a contributing factor adding to quality. Another scenario involves domains where age has material impact on its value as with regards to SEO metrics, etc., the added values obtained by the process of ageing specifically.

So, the age of the domain is just an accident of birth, an arbitrary event bearing witness to the age, life-span or time-line of the development of its value. It tells us when the domain happened to be registered with respect to and alongside the time-line of development of its value. So, had cars dot com been registered a year prior to or years after its actual registration date or even recently (if it had slipped through the cracks of time unnoticed as a golden nugget), it would not have affected the value (development of value) of the cars dot com domain per se.

 

[private123]

Domain age is not valuable of domain value. Domain value parameters it's meaningful name and easily read

 

[maxtorz]

Age can be relevant and increase the value of a domain name if you have stats or relevant metrics ie: previous inquiries, past offers, web traffic etc. that would INCREASE the value of a domain name when you are trying to SELL it to an end-user. (if you kept track of all those metrics over the years you have owned it)

 

[namelancer]

The discussion is whether or not the age of the domain matters and it is absurd to argue that it does not.

Of course, age matters - to original owners of aged domains and whoever benefits from them most.. Aged domains are valuable, but only to those who managed to register them early in the game

But to the rest domains are just like gold.... No matter if you bought you gold bar ten years ago or just yesterday, when it comes to its selling date,there will be no escape from the judgement meted equally to both by the Bullion Market in the form of a fixed gold rate.

 

[poweredbyme]

So, had cars dot com been registered a year prior to or years after its actual registration date or even recently (if it had slipped through the cracks of time unnoticed as a golden nugget), it would not have affected the value (development of value) of the cars dot com domain per se.

This is incorrect. There are domains that have almost no value 20 years ago like virtual reality, bitcoin, eth, and so on. If they had value like cars dot com, they would be registered 20 years ago. Today's new valuable domains will be 20-25 years old after 20 years. But cars dot com will be 40 years old after 20 years if it registered 20 years ago. Currently a 20 years old domain will be always older than 1-19 years old domains. Old domains have a long term consistent, proven value. New domains may have a value but they are risky as they don't have a market value in the past to predict future value. You can more safely predict future value of an older domain. Older domains are less risky investments as they had value long before than newer domains. Your gold example doesn't fit because of this. Gold may be mined today but it was valuble before they mined. You are mixing the economic fundamentals by false examples. Gold and domains are similar as they are scarce. But each domain is unique has unique name like a serial number, each gold is anonymous. Both of them are scarce but gold doesn't need authority to be valuable. There are many differences between gold and domains to compare them as investment options. Domains are more similar to registered corporate names. Buying a running corporate or a domain are similar things in my opinion. Therefore buying an old domain would give you similar things when buying an old commercial corporation. Commercial company is a better example than gold to understand domains for a newbie.

If you mean re-registering a dropped domain, nothing changes. I mean if cars dot com was hand registered today for the first time or re-registered after drop, it would be less valuable. Because it would mean nobody was interested to hand-reg it for the first time until today, or the owner didn't see a reason to renew, usually because it was impossible to sell. Normally nobody would let his/her valuable domains to drop. It's safe to assume majority of newly registered domains are less valuable than old domains. Any domain that has renewed for 20-30 consequent years should have a real proven value, especially when you consider higher renewal and reg fees in the past. Don't be surprised if you read somewhere that domain fees were $100+ in the past. You must be mad to pay such high fees for a crap. This might also partially explain why some valuable domains were available to register until the end of 90's. You may see a correlation between domain fees and number of registered domains. Domain fees are the main reason of drops. If domain fees were $100 you would see less crap domains around.