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]

Yes, and I pointed out tens number of companies which they are using ngtld( for which they paid xxxx-xxxxx) and the com is parked or not revolving, or in some cases .com is available and we are talking about companies who raised hundred of millions, companies who have owners like Robert Downey JR or companies who work with Lego, Disney and others

this is one in hundred or one in thousand. 37 reported sales worldwide last month.

It's faulty for you...as I said earlier, I will not register names at 10$ a piece just to prove my point, when I will find a 1-2$ com promo I will point it out. They are using ngtlds as combination of brandables and a hack, exactly how you would use a cctld for a suffix, the only thing is that they have real words to do so, they use fire.club instead of fireclub.com or real.estate instead of realestate.com, so they have a general tld to do so and a catchy/brandable, where the actual tld looks better and catchy for them than with something extra.

creditcard.cc looks great too. How much is it worth?

 

[boker]

this is one in hundred or one in thousand. 37 reported sales worldwide last month.



creditcard.cc looks great too. How much is it worth?

The big mistake you make is thinking as a domainer and try to give a certain dollar value to a tld..if you ask an end users, they don't give any dollar value to a tld, for them it's valuable if they can use it properly and not loose customers. Also, I've heard the story where you loose traffic to a com but I could not prove on any on my .com names, even do I own a few where the equivalent tld is used by certain companies some with over 500 employees, so not small companies, but I can see any extra traffic coming from them, just the occasional few a month, like for any other .com, maybe others have better experiences.

 

[dordomai]

The big mistake you make is thinking as a domainer and try to give a certain dollar value to a tld..if you ask an end users, they don't give any dollar value to a tld, for them it's valuable if they can use it properly and not loose customers. Also, I've heard the story where you loose traffic to a com but I could not prove on any on my .com names, even do I own a few where the equivalent tld is used by certain companies some with over 500 employees, so not small companies, but I can see any extra traffic coming from them, just the occasional few a month, like for any other .com, maybe others have better experiences.

http://domainincite.com/7992-o-co-loses-61-of-its-traffic-to-o-com

Overstock.com’s decision to rebrand itself O.co had a disastrous effect on the internet retailer’s traffic, according to its CEO.

The big mistake you make is thinking as a domainer and try to give a certain dollar value to a tld..if you ask end users, they don't give any dollar value to a tld, for them it's valuable if they can use it properly and not loose customers.

if this is true why is the .com registration count going up while nGTLD count is going down?

 

[atinc]

The OP`s question is undebatable and I am not going to discuss with people with no knowledge of business, economics or what so ever.

These people are living in their own reality and can`t accept the real facts about how the market works.(@dordomai @JB Lions @Kate )

See how many customers they(.com) have lost to other extensions.

@dordomai don`t give me the business101 bs cause you have no idea what you are talking about. Check the numbers and you will see millions of customer choose other extensions than .com. This means .com lose that amount of customer to other extensions.

You know there is a common practice with uneducated people which is they mostly give examples with unrelated cases to prove they are right. There are hundreds of competitors against .com. Yet you give Coco Cola example where there are only few cola brands in the world.

@JB Lions you said there have been other extensions before new gTLDs, have you seen I metioned new gTLDs on my post? I said all the other extensions... The question is easy to answer but you guys are obsessed with new gTLDs. Read my post again. Since you came up with new gTLDs you should know that number of competitors with new gTLDs are more than any other extensions. More competition means there will be affect on the market share for .com.

As I said this question is undebatable so I won`t lose my time discussing with false .com prophets

I really don`t have time for you guys, I figured that out from our other discussions. You guys asks questions and get your answers. When I ask questions you don`t reply and change the topic. I won`t have discussion with you any more.

People who are commenting here and assuming that gTLDs or other extensions do not affect .com market have no idea about basic economics or how the markets work.

Of course, any other extension than .com is affecting .com sales and growth.

If you have more competitors in a market this means you will lose a certain amount of percentage in the market. If the number of competitors raises you will lose your customers to your alternatives.

If there were only .com available in the market it means that this extension is the monopoly for the industry.

But today there are hundreds of extensions available to register and millions of them registered by end users and domainers. So .Com is losing their market share to their competitors. Period.

@Isac

 

[boker]

http://domainincite.com/7992-o-co-loses-61-of-its-traffic-to-o-com





if this is true why is the .com registration count going up while nGTLD count is going down?

Yes, I know the story, but it's not proved, as the article say: Quote- 'It’s not clear what the source of the data is, or why the measurement given was out of 13' .So, the the company was down 3% in a certain year and the CEO had to find somebody to blame in front on the stockholders, without saying how he knows and what method he used, but it's used by .com owners every time, I received the same link a few times now. I'm asking you, real data that you own, for sure you have .com's which are used by other companies in .org, net, cctlds or ngtlds and you could genuinely say that you have lots of traffic coming from them, I own over 10 and for neither one I can say that I have extra traffic.

 

[atinc]

Yes, I know the story, but it's not proved, as the article say: Quote- 'It’s not clear what the source of the data is, or why the measurement given was out of 13' .So, the the company was down 3% in a certain year and the CEO had to find somebody to blame in front on the stockholders, without saying how he knows and what method he used, but it's used by .com owners every time, I received the same link a few times now. I'm asking you, real data that you own, for sure you have .com's which are used by other companies in .org, net, cctlds or ngtlds and you could genuinely say that you have lots of traffic coming from them, I own over 10 and for neither one I can say that I have extra traffic.

@boker you won`t be able to change their mind, this is just waste of time. Just ignore what they are saying. They will suck all the energy you got with their ignorance. There is no point to discuss. At least this is how I feel about them. Same people same ignorance. Just let it go. Cause I don`t really care their ideas anymore.

 

[dordomai]

@dordomai don`t give me the business101 bs cause you have no idea what you are talking about. Check the numbers and you will see millions of customer choose other extensions than .com. This means .com lose that amount of customer to other extensions.

millions choose .info and .biz too.

Do a breakdown of registrations.

You will find:

1. 50% Chinese owned in a language they don't speak mixed with Pinyin and Numbers. This is gambling not usage.

So we have 10 million remaining.

2. A large part is protective. Never going to be used.

Then you have domainers hoping they will be able to sell them in the future. Might never happen.

We have maybe a few million legit regs from end-users after several years.

We had 16 .info and biz sales last month vs 37 nGTLDs. They aren't doing much better than the old alternatives.

Business is also stats and data and following market trends. You can't ignore the numbers. The numbers tell a story.

They can't even compete against alternative extensions.

These people are living in their own reality and can`t accept the real facts about how the market works.

Last month sales:

37 .cc
40 .co
65 .io
36 nGTLDs
9 .info
6 .biz

I don't know how they want to spin this but I think the market tells us something. Verisgn must be losing sleep over the competition. I think what the market tells us is that the new super TLDs are eaten alive by previous generation "New Gs".

 

[Kate]

I answered at least one of the two questions asked in this thread:
Are gTLDs affecting .Com price and growth
As for growth, you can judge for yourself. PS: .com domains are not given away for free or $0.01 unlike some nTLDs, which figures were massively inflated.

Also it is a mistake to think of it as a zero-sum game. Just because somebody registers a NTLD doesn't mean they don't register .com too, or that they would have otherwise registered a .com instead of a nTLD.
Defensive registrations are another example. Corporations register domains in new extensions just to protect their brands. Otherwise they would hardly buy any.

If you have more competitors in a market this means you will lose a certain amount of percentage in the market. If the number of competitors raises you will lose your customers to your alternatives.

Partly flawed argument.
If I have good .com domains, I don't care about weak domains in nTLDs, they are not really competing against me, but against other weaker extensions, or weaker domains.

Also, when someone buys a domain name for regfee, usually it's not business lost to domainers anyway. That person had no intention of buying a name on the aftermarket. They just bought whatever they found available for regfee. Doesn't mean more extensions are stealing business from you.

Real competition exists when there is an alternative product of similar quality or priced right to offset the inferior quality. When somebody is trying to sell an inferior product at huge prices, this is hardly competition.

We could also say that ccTLDs are competing against .com. So what ? I buy ccTLDs too. But mature ccTLDs only, that have end user demand.

 

[boker]

I answered at least one of the two questions asked in this thread:
Are gTLDs affecting .Com price and growth
As for growth, you can judge for yourself. PS: .com domains are not given away for free or $0.01 unlike some nTLDs, which figures were massively inflated.

Show attachment 70593
Also it is a mistake to think of it as a zero-sum game. Just because somebody registers a NTLD doesn't mean they don't register .com too, or that they would have otherwise registered a .com instead of a nTLD.
Defensive registrations are another example. Corporations register domains in new extensions just to protect their brands. Otherwise they would hardly buy any.

Partly flawed argument.
If I have good .com domains, I don't care about weak domains in nTLDs, they are not really competing against me, but against other weaker extensions, or weaker domains.

Also, when someone buys a domain name for regfee, usually it's not business lost to domainers anyway. That person had no intention of buying a name on the aftermarket. They just bought whatever they found available for regfee. Doesn't mean more extensions are stealing business from you.

Real competition exists when there is an alternative product of similar quality or priced right to offset the inferior quality. When somebody is trying to sell an inferior product at huge prices, this is hardly competition.

We could also say that ccTLDs are competing against .com. So what ? I buy ccTLDs too. But mature ccTLDs only, that have end user demand.

Kate, you are saying that hand reg doesn't affect the value of .com for domainers, because they will not pay anyway for an aftermarket domain and try proving your point by giving a statistic with the total number of registrations, where over 90% are hand regged, but you don't say that the average sale value has reached 500$, the lowest point in ten years...for me looks like a flawed logic.
Regarding the competition between com and cctld/ngtld, the examples I was giving are companies who payed xxxx-xxxxx for they ngtlds where com is parked, not revolving and in some instances available to reg, or in the case of cctld, big players who don't care about .com( including big UK players) when with one hour of revenue from their activity could pay for the com, but decided that it's not worth it.
Don't get me wrong, 80% of my portofolio and 80% of my sales are .com's, but that doesn't mean I cant see a trend and that it doesn't make me think what will be in 3-5-10 years. Exactly how you can use data to know that China will surpass US GDP by 2020 and will be double until 2030, exactly the same you can use the same data regarding future value of any tld.

 

[dordomai]

Kate, you are saying that hand reg doesn't affect the value of .com for domainers, because they will not pay anyway for an aftermarket domain and try proving your point by giving a statistic with the total number of registrations, where over 90% are hand regged, but you don't say that the average sale value has reached 500$, the lowest point in ten years...for me looks like a flawed logic.
Regarding the competition between com and cctld/ngtld, the examples I was giving are companies who payed xxxx-xxxxx for they ngtlds where com is parked, not revolving and in some instances available to reg, or in the case of cctld, big players who don't care about .com( including big UK players) when with one hour of revenue from their activity could pay for the com, but decided that it's not worth it.
Don't get me wrong, 80% of my portofolio and 80% of my sales are .com's, but that doesn't mean I cant see a trend and that it doesn't make me think what will be in 3-5-10 years. Exactly how you can use data to know that China will surpass US GDP by 2020 and will be double until 2030, exactly the same you can use the same data regarding future value of any tld.

you think nGTLDs are everything that is there. .io, .co and .cc are doing much better. What makes you think the growth will go the nGTLDs?

the trend for nGTLDs is down for over 6 months, soon it will be 1 year of no growth if it continues like that.

if you wanted to bet on trends you would buy .io

 

[boker]

you think nGTLDs are everything that is there. .io, .co and .cc are doing much better. What makes you think the growth will go the nGTLDs?

I have sold 9 .co's in the last year, much more then I've sold ngtld, but reading the data, asking every end user or business owners what they think, make's me think that in 3-5 years I should base my sales on ngtlds. I'm not talking about short term, like in the next year, because I'm sure that still .com will make the most sales, but they are going down in value month by month, until they will reach a bottom, my idea is that they will stop when they will reach around 30% of their highest value. I think that somewhere in 3-5 years, 50% of the aftermarket sales will be done by gtlds, 30% of the sales by .com, and 20% of sales done by cctlds and some individual old legacy gtlds(.net, .org). Time will say who will be right and who was wrong and probably everybody will invest how they think is best. Also, I think that never the prices will not be as high as their were( this is valid regarding .com and ngtlds as well).

 

[dordomai]

I have sold 9 .co's in the last year, much more then I've sold ngtld, but reading the data, asking every end user or business owners what they think, make's me think that in 3-5 years I should base my sales on ngtlds. I'm not talking about short term, like in the next year, because I'm sure that still .com will make the most sales, but they are going down in value month by month, until they will reach a bottom, my idea is that they will stop when they will reach around 30% of their highest value. I think that somewhere in 3-5 years, 50% of the aftermarket sales will be done by gtlds, 30% of the sales by .com, and 20% of sales done by cctlds and some individual old legacy gtlds(.net, .org). Time will say who will be right and who was wrong and probably everybody will invest how they think is best. Also, I think that never the prices will not be as high as their were( this is valid regarding .com and ngtlds as well).

These are the nGTLD sales reports from Namebio:

2015: 1,360
2016: 1,285
2017: 577

I don't see any growth in reported sales, it looks like a decline.

 

[boker]

These are the nGTLD sales reports from Namebio:

2015: 1,360
2016: 1,285
2017: 577

I don't see any growth in reported sales, it looks like a decline.

Again, I'm not talking about actual sales, when you release over 1k tld's, peoples have millions of tld to choose from, so first they will register what's good and just after that they will start buying in the aftermarket, this is the reason why it takes so long time. Also, if in 2015 you hardly could see some ngtlds used by end users and they didn't know anything about them, now I'm dealing with few who are using ngtlds and I know more of them who own or build new businesses with them. From my view, this is another 1990 regarding tlds, when you could use it to build for the future, but probably it's a little bit early if you want a big portofolio and keep them for 5-10 years, because they will eat all your ROI, until constant sales will start showing up.

 

[boker]

If you followed what I was saying you could have noticed that 80% of my sales are.com and that I'm on xxxxx profit this year just by selling to resellers, without counting end user sales, so I don't have any reason to dream or to wish that ngtdls will do better. Also, I have provided tens of links in multiple threads here at namepros regarding this, proving what I was saying. The fact that you are a broker selling .com's and you are choosing to see the future how you want it to be, it's you're choice, but you can't ignore facts as aftermarket sales hit the bottom in 10 years and that companies with millions in funding have chosen ngtlds, when the com is parked, not revolving or availbale reg.

 

[promo]

@boker

Well the reason I am brokering .com is because I want to make money. If I did not want to make money, I would broker nGTLDs.

And no you have not left any links to prove anything. You counter actual data with .. "I spoke to someone that said"... "My feeling is that"... "In future probably it will be like this"..

7 years ago I wrote my masters thesis in international business management. The topic was the domain name aftermarket. I did primary data collection on consumer trust of TLD and keyword. Actual research with 200 people surveyed. The result was clear. Clear keywords based on the local ccTLD (I am based in Denmark) was first, .com was second in consumer trust.

So when I entered this market professionally I used that knowledge to select which names to pursue brokerage off.. And its not gTLDs and its not ccTLDs either. Why would I pursue a single national market when a global one exists with a clear preferred product?

You think you see where the market is heading. But you are wrong. I am not sure if you dont understand economic principles like market monopoly and consumer habits, but all of your thoughts are not based on data. Just what you think might be right. And we are telling you, with data at our backs, that you are wrong.

 

[boker]

@boker

Well the reason I am brokering .com is because I want to make money. If I did not want to make money, I would broker nGTLDs.

And no you have not left any links to prove anything. You counter actual data with .. "I spoke to someone that said"... "My feeling is that"... "In future probably it will be like this"..

7 years ago I wrote my masters thesis in international business management. The topic was the domain name aftermarket. I did primary data collection on consumer trust of TLD and keyword. Actual research with 200 people surveyed. The result was clear. Clear keywords based on the local ccTLD (I am based in Denmark) was first, .com was second in consumer trust.

So when I entered this market professionally I used that knowledge to select which names to pursue brokerage off.. And its not gTLDs and its not ccTLDs either. Why would I pursue a single national market when a global one exists with a clear preferred product?

You think you see where the market is heading. But you are wrong. I am not sure if you dont understand economic principles like market monopoly and consumer habits, but all of your thoughts are not based on data. Just what you think might be right. And we are telling you, with data at our backs, that you are wrong.

If you follow the threads you will notice all the link's that count. Also, probably the data collection from last year made by the australian company is wrong and your data collection from 7 years ago is the right one, of course. Also, I have something that a lot of domainers don't have, I'm involved in several online and offline businesses in 3 EU countries and all my friends, family partners are connected to european market, so let me believe my rough data collected directly from people I deal with in 2017, than believe some data from 7 years ago. Also, as I remember, you said yourself in another thread that you sell 90% to resellers, so I don't think that you can compare one with another.
Also the usage of .com in most european countries, where .com is used by 3-5% of the top local websites is also wrong, even do the same data is showed by all the big data collection companies, but if you have different data, then you should use that, maybe it's something that the rest of us don't have access to.
When I'm talking with 30-40 european business owners and they are all open to ngtls and a few of them owning some and they start building businesses with them, and you are saying that your data from 7 years ago it's saying that they don't know what they do, maybe I should tell them to retire and leave the businesses to somebody who want's to use your data.
Probably namebio is wrong as well, saying that aftermarket sales hit bottom or that for every 10 resellers sales there is only one end user sale.

 

[promo]

Again with the "I know people that said"... "look at this press release and tell me its wrong" ... "when I talk to people".... "when I read data, I think its something else"..

Frankly I am also based in the EU and Kate is as well. We both have been in the industry for 10 years longer than you have and both have completely different views from yours on the market direction. We seen the alternatives crash and burn already. And back then we were saying exactly the same thing as we are today. .COM is king and nothing will change that in short to medium term.

You dont seem to base your theory on anything data based, you seem to base them on your feelings and press releases by people that want to sell stuff. Whereas mine is clearly based in economic theory and actual sales data. You come back here when you actually sold stuff and tell us about it. Until then its hopes and dreams.

 

[boker]

Again with the "I know people that said"... "look at this press release and tell me its wrong" ... "when I talk to people".... "when I read data, I think its something else"..

Frankly I am also based in the EU and Kate is as well. We both have been in the industry for 10 years longer than you have and both have completely different views from yours on the market direction. We seen the alternatives crash and burn already. And back then we were saying exactly the same thing as we are today. .COM is king and nothing will change that in short to medium term.

You dont seem to base your theory on anything data based, you seem to base them on your feelings and press releases by people that want to sell stuff. Whereas mine is clearly based in economic theory and actual sales data. You come back here when you actually sold stuff and tell us about it. Until then its hopes and dreams.

What do you mean 'sold stuff'. I have 19 end users sales and over 300 resellers sales and because I'm not doing bulk sales like you, selling 500 domains at a time for a commission, now you act like you're the only one selling. So now, doing this for 10 years more than me for sure you're right, there's no way to get it wrong, this seems familiar. I have dealed with one guy being in stockmarket and investing in realestate from the 90's, and he was doing it the big way, with tens and hundreds of millions, you could not tell him anything because he was doing it for years and he was always right, but in 2007 when he lost everything you could not catch him to answer any question after that, seems familiar, no?
We have different life experiences and you, from behind a desk are trying to tell me how the business owners should act, when I'm dealing with them on a daily basis. Maybe you should redo your data from 7 year ago and try and ask some actual business owners about the ngtlds and he market, maybe it will change your mind. Also being so affected if anything goes wrong with .com, I understand why you are trying so much to convince everybody and yourself that everything will be ok, but maybe it will easier for you to make the step forward when it's happening.

 

[dordomai]

We have different life experiences and you, from behind a desk are trying to tell me how the business owners should act, when I'm dealing with them on a daily basis. Maybe you should redo your data from 7 year ago and try and ask some actual business owners about the ngtlds and he market, maybe it will change your mind. Also being so affected if anything goes wrong with .com, I understand why you are trying so much to convince everybody and yourself that everything will be ok, but maybe it will easier for you to make the step forward when it's happening.

personally I have never heard that people in the startup scene would be cheerleaders for the new extensions, some like .io though. if the startups are not interested others won't be either.

What experience do you have?

My impression was that your experience comes from selling matching .coms to ccTLD holders. This group as a whole won't be too interested in .coms

so this would not tell us much.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

popcorn time. I was watching this thread with interest. Now I am watching for entertainment.
To OP my answer...yes