discuss Are gTLDs affecting .Com price and growth

[Isac]

I think there is a decline in demand and price of .com domains because of new gTLDs. What's your opinion ?

 

[dordomai]

That makes it even worse. .com has 6 times the amount of regs than all the new ones combined and still growing, while the new gltds have been going in the opposite direction.

"There are plenty of billion dollar companies without .com and many more to come now with the new extensions"

Really? Give me a list of billion dollar companies that don't have a .com (they might go with their cctld). And you say more to come, like new businesses, startups etc? The ones that pick .ai over all the new gtlds combined? The ones where they're only picking new gtlds about 2% of the time? The ones where half the regs are from China? And the ones that do try to develop on a new gtld, there is going to be a .com owner always sitting there with the same keywords. Do you eventually pay them?

it's been 4 years and we have a few companies using them. We had companies use .net, .info and .co before. In the grand scheme of things I don't see much change. nGTLDs are more like a cheap alternative(often not cheap in reality) when you can not get the .com

How many years before companies think they are the first choice? Why would they ever think they are the first choice?

- so to flood it with this fodder is simply the controlling authorities up-high trying to milk the last out of the whole domain system.

yes I think it is that they are just desperate to make some fast cash, a lot of hype and get as many businesses and domainers to invest in junk that has not much value. I mean it works to a certain extent at least for them.

I'm not even talking about whether something is a good/poor investment. Im simply answering the question based on fundamentals. The more options people have to choose from the more it will take away from the .com monopoly.

...Even if you're unimpressed that each ntld doesnt have 10s of millions of regs- it doesnt mean its not slowly chipping away at .com's numbers and value

Dont forget casino.online sold for xs $200,000. Not casinoonline.com

For many great extensions like .shop / .auto their future values will highly depend on their reg fees which are exorbitant at the moment.

.com number is growing, nGTLD registrations are shrinking. All one needs to know.

 

[Alex Domain]

That makes it even worse. .com has 6 times the amount of regs than all the new ones combined and still growing, while the new gltds have been going in the opposite direction.

"There are plenty of billion dollar companies without .com and many more to come now with the new extensions"

Really? Give me a list of billion dollar companies that don't have a .com (they might go with their cctld). And you say more to come, like new businesses, startups etc? The ones that pick .ai over all the new gtlds combined? The ones where they're only picking new gtlds about 2% of the time? The ones where half the regs are from China? And the ones that do try to develop on a new gtld, there is going to be a .com owner always sitting there with the same keywords. Do you eventually pay them?

Im personally on the other side of the spectrum. For instance, I have a lot of [keyword]storage.com domains... and im scared i wont ever sell them now that .storage is here......and in all honesty why would any new storage company want to to purchase the equivalent .com - do you honestly think the .com will help their marketing? Honestly doubt it. Brand security? Seriously?

Twitch.tv bought the .com for the leaked traffic - but this is an exception because "twitch" is a simple one word brandable without many companies using it in their title. What about all the companies using common nouns/verbs - like cloud, gold, seo etc. Are they all supposed to fight over the same .com? They used to and it drove up values but now is a different era...

Twitch.com redirects to the .tv - because end users dont just want a status symbol - they want to convey their brand. Thats also why they didnt pay much for the .com seeeeeee having alternatives DOES AFFECT .com values. Its called leverage in negotations

As for billion dollar companies not using .com - there is a massssssive list. Any its predominantly on the back of big commercial/ industrial companies and trading houses worldwide that dont rely on internet traffic for business (Meglobal.biz) but are too global to use cctld.

There are billion dollar hedge funds and finance companies that are switching to .management or .capital.

There are sooooooo many extensions that simply better suit some companies' online presence than .com

Im not happy but it doesnt mean its not happening.

 

[dordomai]

Im not happy but it doesnt mean its not happening.

data?

 

[Alex Domain]

 

[Alex Domain]

data?

Data? How bout the number of rightside/donuts registrations? Ummm whether they are down or not... and whether people want to admit or not - those registrations took value and growth away from .com

crm.supply is a dutch company with the website also being in the dutch language even though their domain is english and not using the .nl - but guess what... they took advantage of a high value globally recognized keyword (which would cost millions $$ in the .com) on an underrated extension that complimented it nicely and build a serious multi-million dollar brand/service.

 

[dordomai]

Data? How bout the number of rightside/donuts registrations? Ummm whether they are down or not... and whether people want to admit or not - those registrations took value and growth away from .com

crm.supply is a dutch company with the website also being in the dutch language even though their domain is english and not using the .nl - but guess what... they took advantage of a high value globally recognized keyword (which would cost millions $$ in the .com) on an underrated extension that complimented it nicely and build a serious multi-million dollar brand/service.

they took away value? How much ? 0.1% 1%, 10% ?

The data here shows that they are dying not thriving. No real adoption by startups, no significant % of Alexa Top 1 M, no positive net growth in the past months (.com is still growing!)

https://namestat.org/s/newgtld-summary
https://www.namepros.com/blog/domain-data-ycombinator-startups-love-com.973209/

also being in the dutch language even though their domain is english and not using the .nl - but guess what... they took advantage of a high value globally recognized keyword (which would cost millions $$ in the .com)

So if a domain contains a keyword it is automatically valuable? like sexcrm.com is a great domain because it has a million dollar keyword in it?

I think a keyword doesn't make a domain automatically valuable, anyone can have a domain with 'supply' in it even under .com

I think it is simply a poor naming choice not the result of good decision making, happens all the time.

There are billion dollar hedge funds and finance companies that are switching to .management or .capital.

One of the recent switches I remember was from monkey.capital to monkey.com. as soon as they could afford it and a suitable name was available, they left. One does hardly ever see the reverse of it. What does this tell us?

Im personally on the other side of the spectrum. For instance, I have a lot of [keyword]storage.com domains... and im scared i wont ever sell them now that .storage is here......and in all honesty why would any new storage company want to to purchase the equivalent .com - do you honestly think the .com will help their marketing?

Yes because people will remember the domain and emails won't end up in spam filters.
Over 9 out of 10 companies will want a .com over a storage for their main web presence.
.storage is an unknown extension and word+storage.com works very well.

 

[boker]

It chips away at other alternatives, .net, .co, .me, .info, other new gtlds etc. Not .com. There is .com, .org for where it makes sense, cctlds, then a whole slew of alternatives.

Check these out: shop.link; star.house; sherpa.group; token.sale; learn.wine; op.media, all xxxxx sales (and others over 1500 xxxx sales, over 200 xxxxx sales and other xxxxxx sales like these) where the equivalent .com stays parked, or a blog or not revolving at all....if you still think that they are not affecting sales, you should think about it. I've hand regged com where the equivalent ngtld was used by companies with xx or xxx employees...that should say something as well.

 

[dordomai]

Check these out: shop.link; star.house; sherpa.group; token.sale; learn.wine; op.media, all xxxxx sales (and others over 1500 xxxx sales, over 200 xxxxx sales and other xxxxxx sales like these) where the equivalent .com stays parked, or a blog or not revolving at all....if you still think that they are not affecting sales, you should think about it. I've hand regged com where the equivalent ngtld was used by companies with xx or xxx employees...that should say something as well.

these comparisons are sooooo misleading, last month we had over 4.5k .com sales reported vs. only 37(!) nGTLD sales.

37 sales a month is nothing and many of these of course registry sales at least half of them.

Something like 18 domainer sales a month. Investors must be going broke from lack of sales.

 

[boker]

these comparisons are sooooo misleading, last month we had over 4.5k .com sales reported vs. only 37(!) nGTLD sales.

37 sales a month is nothing and many of these of course registry sales at least half of them.

Something like 18 domainer sales a month. Investors must be going broke from lack of sales.

The last month is misleading as well...in last two years, there were over 3k ngtld sales, still far away from .com, but eating a lot of .com's pie...80% of my sales are still com, but it's affecting my com sales and it's not just me. Also, like everybody, I have friends connected to offline and online small businesses, and they are all intrigued by the ngtlds, they are catchy, something new...I'm not saying that it will change overnight, but together with crypto currencies , stock markets and anything else, will affect sales and it will lower the ROI. Probably it will still take around 5 years for ngtlds to develop properly, but it will in time. It was the same in the late 90's for com, when it took years to reach maximum prices.

 

[dordomai]

The last month is misleading as well...in last two years, there were over 3k ngtld sales, still far away from .com, but eating a lot of .com's pie...80% of my sales are still com, but it's affecting my com sales and it's not just me. Also, like everybody, I have friends connected to offline and online small businesses, and they are all intrigued by the ngtlds, they are catchy, something new...I'm not saying that it will change overnight, but together with crypto currencies , stock markets and anything else, will affect sales and it will lower the ROI. Probably it will still take around 5 years for ngtlds to develop properly, but it will in time. It was the same in the late 90's for com, when it took years to reach maximum prices.

.com prices went up very quickly once there was ecommerce activity.

People attribute flucuations in .com value and prices entirely to nGTLDs (wishful thinking). .com sales and prices have always fluctuated. In reality after the Chinese bubble a downtrend was to be expected.

nGTLD sales are trending down as you would expect looking at .mobi or .xxx history.

People do not want nGTLDs as a first option, they only want them if they can't get a .com and if they are cheap and even then most would choose a .io or a crappy .com before they use a nGTLD.

Check these out: shop.link; star.house; sherpa.group; token.sale; learn.wine; op.media,

All parked and one redirects to a .net. The only developed one is op.media

Only 1 single example of development.

 

[boker]

.com prices went up very quickly once there was ecommerce activity.

People attribute flucuations in .com value and prices entirely to nGTLDs (wishful thinking). .com sales and prices have always fluctuated. In reality after the Chinese bubble a downtrend was to be expected.

nGTLD sales are trending down as you would expect looking at .mobi or .xxx history.

People do not want nGTLDs as a first option, they only want them if they can't get a .com and if they are cheap and even then most would choose a .io or a crappy .com before they use a nGTLD.

You have to notice that there are also over 1k ngtld, so plenty of cheap options...it's hard to reach so high demand so quickly. After a few years, when all the good options are gone, then small businesses will start paying more for them. At namebio, at the bottom of the page you have a graphic with the sale trend over the years. If you choose 2007-2017, you will notice that the trend it's all down, except for around 2015, with the chinese bubble. You can't compare mobi and 2017 ngtls, because everything else it's changed, social media, blogs, online businesses and much more.

 

[dordomai]

You have to notice that there are also over 1k ngtld, so plenty of cheap options...it's hard to reach so high demand so quickly. After a few years, when all the good options are gone, then small businesses will start paying more for them. At namebio, at the bottom of the page you have a graphic with the sale trend over the years. If you choose 2007-2017, you will notice that the trend it's all down, except for around 2015, with the chinese bubble. You can't compare mobi and 2017 ngtls, because everything else it's changed, social media, blogs, online businesses and much more.

the good options are all reserved or premium. Naming basics are more less the same. There is no reason why a nGTLD would work better in 2017.

why would a business pay money for a nGTLD when they can buy a .com instead? No one can answer this question so far.

If you choose 2007-2017, you will notice that the trend it's all down, except for around 2015, with the chinese bubble.

yes exactly. you see a downtrend even before the new extensions existed, somehow people want to convince themselves if .com is selling for less that must mean the nTLDs are killing .com.

As I said people attribute fluctuations in values exclusively to nGTLDs instead of other more probably causes.

In reality, if .com sells for sell nGTLDs will do even worse. As an nGTLD investor I would be worried about that even more.

Crypto will not help nGTLDs, neither will the stock market help nGTLDs. If the market goes down they will be hit more than .com

AI and millennials won't help either.

 

[boker]

the good options are all reserved or premium. Naming basics are more less the same. There is no reason why a nGTLD would work better in 2017.

why would a business pay money for a nGTLD when they can buy a .com instead? No one can answer this question so far.

I've just showed you a few examples where the com is parked or not used and they've paid xxxxx for the ngtld....I found 6 out the first 25 examples, so there are hundred of examples like these. I can tell you what was the response of some guys starting some new tech startups from Europe...they are mostly young, around 20 years old and they are saying that for them .com is classic, old fashion and they need something new...so they go for .io, .co an now because they have ngtld, they have tons of choices. Of course that they will not pay xxxxxx for a domain( maybe not even xxxxx), but they choose to pay xxxx for a ngtls than for a com. This is not something general, but it's a trend and it will be harder and harder to convince the young generation to invest xxxxx in com. Probably, in 5 years you will see the result. Com will never die, but it will not be ever what it was. Also, I think that it's to early to invest in ngtls, probably 2-3 years will be the best time, but maybe for some who invest earlier in this will be more costly for them and hard to make a good ROI, but they will have the advantage that they can choose what to buy.

 

[dordomai]

I've just showed you a few examples where the com is parked or not used and they've paid xxxxx for the ngtld....I found 6 out the first 25 examples, so there are hundred of examples like these. I can tell you what was the response of some guys starting some new tech startups from Europe...they are mostly young, around 20 years old and they are saying that for them .com is classic, old fashion and they need something new...

despite that most startups use .com which contradicts what you say.

we heard this for 4 years and nothing has changed.

 

[boker]

despite that most startups use .com which contradicts what you say.

we heard this for 4 years and nothing has changed.

I think that you are referring to US startups mostly. If you come in Europe, most startups are using .cctlds, if you go in Japan or China or other developing countries they are not using mostly .com as well, so now all of them have something general in common-ngtld's. It's exactly like youtube, facebook or twitter, it's enough for a few startups using ngtld's to catch up and it will become viral and it will be hard to stop the trend, until something new will come and take the first place. Com will always have his buyers, but it will never be the same number of buyers and the same amounts. Exactly like petrol once, or stock markets or anything else, it will come a time when something new it will take the first place, nothing dies, everything is changing.

 

[Kate]

You're thinking way too small.

Technology and the internet is growing exponentially!!!! Not to mention a growing global population thats tripled since 1980.

Always the same flawed reasoning.
No, the Internet is not growing exponentially. Growing yes, but not exploding.
There is no direct correlation between growth of Internet usage or world population and demand for domain names. People don't need domain names to access the Internet, they just need IP addresses.
Even in developed countries, the vast majority of people are not interested in owning a domain name, unless it's for business, or if they run a blog or want a vanity E-mail address.

It's not like we have billions of potential buyers in the future. Much less than that.

And the fact that english continues to grow as the universal language, thus more ppl switching off cctlds.

Incorrect.

I think some domainers have seriously failed at putting themselves in the end users shoes.

I am an end user too.

But indeed, I think some domainers have seriously failed at putting themselves in the end users shoes. Because they are trying to sell nTLDs to end users even though they haven't used any for a real business.

Truth is consumers DIDNT need this many extensions but regardless - many ntlds will thrive for future generations (.shop / .llc etc) and as those ntlds shed more light on new possibilities for consumers - this will 100% affect .com growth and values!!!!! There is no other answer to this question!!!!

Based on what ? Wishful thinking ?

Im personally on the other side of the spectrum. For instance, I have a lot of [keyword]storage.com domains... and im scared i wont ever sell them now that .storage is here......and in all honesty why would any new storage company want to to purchase the equivalent .com - do you honestly think the .com will help their marketing?

Maybe your portfolio is not diversified enough. But let's consider the opposite approach: would using a .storage help their marketing ?

Dont forget casino.online sold for xs $200,000. Not casinoonline.com

Don't forget that the registries are pretty much the only ones making notable sales in nTLDs. But good luck with your nTLDs.

 

[dordomai]

I think that you are referring to US startups mostly. If you come in Europe, most startups are using .cctlds, if you go in Japan or China or other developing countries they are not using mostly .com as well

Yes it is either ccTLD or .com but almost never nGTLD.

China is usually using .com, or .cn. Not much different than from the US. Not sure about Japan but I would guess it is like in China.

I don't think there is any part in the world where nGTLDs are popular.

 

[boker]

Yes it is either ccTLD or .com but almost never nGTLD.

China is usually using .com, or .cn. Not much different than from the US. Not sure about Japan but I would guess it is like in China.

I don't think there is any part in the world where nGTLDs are popular.

At least in most european countries is like 85-90%cctld-10%com. I'm not saying that ngtld's are more popular than com or cctld's in any country, just that they are catching up...

 

[dordomai]

At least in most european countries is like 85-90%cctld-10%com. I'm not saying that ngtld's are more popular than com or cctld's in any country, just that they are catching up...

not seeing any of this happening. Startups are often at the cutting edge of innovation and it's been 4 years and they still don't use them much.

investors mostly got sold bags by the registries and still holding on to them hoping the next year will be the year they will finally take off. They will renew forever without getting good results.

 

[boker]

not seeing any of this happening. Startups are often at the cutting edge of innovation and it's been 4 years and they still don't use them much.

4 year for a few of them, but mostly they started from 2015. Around 10% of my portofolio are ngtld, but believe or not, I get more offers for them than for net and org, so that should say something. Also, people are asking about them, most of them are not aware that ngtld are used, so want to know more. I've tested outbound for 10 ngtld, and received inquirires/offers for 3 of them, so much higher response rate than usual. Mostly, they are xxx offers, but for me it's a good sign for the future. Try to make outbound for com and check the response rate, people are aware of .com, it's nothing new, so it's hard to capture their attention.