question .best premium question

[ArielT]

Hi,

In Junuary of 2019 I registered a .best domain at the promo price the registrar had at that time $10

Now when going to renew it it says it is premium at $83

I contacted the registrar and they told me that the registry had a promo at that time for premiums at that price of $10. Is it correct?

But I would be sure that the domain didn't have a premium tag when I searched for it

What do you think?

 

[Joe N]

Yeah. It appears that all the "haters" were right after all.

Brad

I'm going to go register ExpectTheWorstAndHopeForThe.best

 

[Internet.Domains]

I found this in the other thread. Seems to sum it up "best."

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

In Junuary of 2019

All current fees are applicable only for .BEST domains regged no earlier than Feb'2019.
For "old" domains - no changes in fees.
That's why you see this renewal rate.

Drop and register again.
The only 1 way.

 

[ArielT]

Guys, I got the clarification for my case and the case of many others from the thread posted by @Brands.International

According to @Cyril.Best, the reason of standar to "premium" is that in 2019 they made a price change from $70 to $15 and domains registered at old price of $70 was labeled as "premium" An special premium category assigned to that group of domains

This affect domains registered before 5th feb 2019. So these "premium" domains will renew at old price that is higher than current price

It seems that it is the only registry that did this

Personally, I'm optimistic that we can trust that it is not common practice so if we register standar fee domains they will remain like that

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Because .BEST was sold to another company in 2018.
That's why price policy was changed, but "legacy" domains were not affected.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

And those "legacy" domains are unpredictable after their drop...
Some of them will be repriced up to $1K, but others - can be regged at $1.xx
This is from my own experience.

 

[ArielT]

Yes, you are right @Jurgen Wolf

Anyways I don't agree with this practice carried out by the .best registry but what are we going to do

Thank you to all of you guys for the comments

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I don't think the situation has been completely accurately portrayed (although part of that problem is by .best who incorporated a complicated structure, to my knowledge different than any other TLD).

For any .best registered at standard (including discounted) rates on Feb 5, 2019 or later, the renewal rate is about $15 wholesale.

For any .best registered earlier than that date, the wholesale rate remains $70, the value that renewal for the TLD had been historically.

The date chosen was the date they announced the reduction in renewal rates (although the change came into effect 6 months later). Their logic being that everyone has a rate consistent with what had been the situation at time of registration. This means that domain investors need to check if acquiring aftermarket domains which category they are in. I see how the registry wanted to maintain the revenue stream from a small group of long-standing registrants (even at $70 the renewal rates traditionally were solid), but it is a complex situation that confuses investors as this thread shows.

It was said that @Cyril.Best did not respond to explain it but that is not true. See this post and numerous that follow.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/what-are-your-best-domain-names.1126251/page-13#post-7385609

Now the situation is made worse by the fact that some registrars are not seemingly using the correct wholesale rates and still treating them all as the previous $70 wholesale. I don't know if this is because of registrar agreements or the registrar is making a huge amount on each renewal. The registrars who for an extended period have offered the best discounts seem the ones who have the renewal rates right. So definitely shop around.

Also a few errors slipped into their backend provider, so if you registered at low rate a .best after the Feb 5 date but it shows high renewal rate apply to have it changed (I recently did that for one).

My personal view? I wish they had one straightforward rate. But compared to most new gTLDs there are very few even good words reserved as premium, so it is possible to get nice combinations for a very low first year and a lower than many new gTLDs renewal rate.

Bob

(Obviously I have no association with registry other than owning domain names, as I do for about 25 other TLDs , so while I hope the information I gave is accurate, it should not be interpreted as anything official.)

 

[wwwweb]

Lots of extensions have pulled enough stunts that it hurt the entire space, especially with Domain investors who help these internal eco systems stay afloat with multiple registrations until they can grow organically.

The accelerated price hikes on extensions that are on life support, does not give the registrants confidence. We have to treat erealstste as such, you want to build your business on land that you think will increase in value as you build, and develop your business. Now with new gtlds it seems increasingly so that you are being squeezed by the local building authority with extra ordinary fees, so what do you do, get up, and move your business to a jurisdiction where fees are more neutral.

I’m not saying people can’t continue to make money in such extensions, but as they continue to change hands, delete, and drop, they are getting repriced as higher premiums, or reserved completely. If people are not developing, and marketing such extensions they will never even be known to exist which is what is happening now. Most domainers don’t know what extensions are live, how are consumers, or potential end users. As more people maybe tend to start off with a promo $4.99 gtld extension, the minute they gain funding, or traction, or access to their .com or equivalent they jump ship for the more secure brand. Google userbase.com who jumped ship from .dev, to .com the moment they were able to pay $25k for the .com when it became available within their budget.

Now when we go back and see where .info, and .biz premium name prices were in the past, and how hard they have fallen, I mean you can get one word .info, and .biz names for under $100, and these are short descriptive extensions, it’s not a good sign for the gtld sector. Now, I’m not saying smart domainers can’t make a profit in the sector, but the registries are choosing to be the domainers themselves, and most squeezing most of you out, so really the ones who are persistent keep finding a bit of profit within the cracks, but as they fill, most domainers will essentially be squeezed out of this space with high fees, and renewals, and lack of consumer demand as we have seen with the original OP, who is willing to probably pay 4-5x the .com renewal, but the greed of the registry will take essentially a $.30 cent cost, and refuse a $25-$30 annual revenue stream. As this person leaves the .best space, they have many options, and opinions they will share with others, and they will not help the space going forward, as their sentiment has turned negative.

Look at darling .xyz, and all those people who paid big money for some of those end user sales, and renewals, those valuations are down, and they are dropping registrations at a record rate. We are taking about a registry that had a $.10 cent registration promo, not sure if they had $.01 promo either; but I believe they did, and it didn’t help much down the road, the market is not accepting of it.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

But I think there are laws that protecs consumers from deceptive pratices

I think the deceptive practice wording is too strong here. When you registered, at most registrars I use, it would have listed your domain name as register for x$ renews at y$ and that would have said $78 renewal or something like that. Even if they did not specifically say that, all you had to do is before checking out set it to 2 years to see what the renewal will be.

Had that been $18 then and now it is $78 that would be deceptive and totally unfair, I agree, but that is not what happened. Rather, the renewal rate at the time you registered was stated as about $78. It has not changed.

Now I agree that it adds confusion where people who registered later than you now get a better rate. That happens in other parts of life. I am pretty sure some of my neighbours get a better deal than me on my Internet plan depending on promotions when they signed up. And here some neighbours pay different rents for similar apartments according to when they started.

I don''t like things like that, but as long as the renewal rate is not significantly higher than what you were informed at the time you registered, I think calling it deceptive is unfair.

That said, as I indicated before, I think in the interest of everyone a single standard rate would have been better. Certainly clearer.

Bob

 

[Internet.Domains]

I don't think the situation has been completely accurately portrayed (although part of that problem is by .best who incorporated a complicated structure, to my knowledge different than any other TLD).

Yes, the complicated structure was confusing from the start and there was never much clarity. There still isn't clarity because there is so much confusion. Price structures for domains should not be that complicated.

It was said that @Cyril.Best did not respond to explain it but that is not true.

I know in my case I did not state that there was no response. I stated it was not "properly addressed" because there remained much confusion.

Unfortunately, it was never properly addressed and now we have this unfortunate situation.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It seems that it is the only registry that did this

Possibly because they are the only registry that decreased renewal rates for the vast majority of their domain names by about 78%. Are there other examples, not counting the premium that were reclassified as standard by Donuts in the fall, of extensions where the renewal rate was decreased by a factor of more than 4x? There probably is some registry that has done it, but I can't immediately think of one other than some short term limited promotion.

In an era when most renewal prices edged up, and price caps were removed from a legacy extension that already had a 10% per annum maximum cap, the BEST registry reduced the renewal rate by a huge factor on the vast majority of registered .best domains.

Would we rather it was $9 or even less? Of course. Would we rather it applied to all of the .best domain names rather than about 85% (rough estimate) of registered .best? Yes, definitely.

It would be like Verisign reducing the rate on new .com to renew to $2, while all existing were kept at the $8 wholesale price. So only new ones were eligible for the new rate. Would people who currently held .com complain? Probably some would, I mean this is NamePros . But really, if .org said new registrations would carry a $3 renewal, but not already registered ones, how would people feel. I would be happy .

So here is headline story:
BEST Renewals Shrink from about $78 to about $18! (*)
(*)Some conditions apply. Must not have been registered by you prior to Feb 5, 2019. Must not have been previously designated a premium domain name. Some registrars may offer lower renewal rates.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I stated it was not "properly addressed" because there remained much confusion.

I agree. If when the lower renewal rate was announced in February there had been a clear statement of the exclusions I think that none of the bad feeling would have resulted. Rather people would have viewed it as the good news that it was, it just did not apply to everyone.

Bob

 

[namemarket]

And Cyril seems to have disappeared. I am shocked!!!......Brad

It is now all too obvious Cyril was posting heavily to promote the big dot-best sale last March/April. It also appears he talked about an alleged pending sale (never confirmed and names still go to landing page) of hotels.best and hotel.best for 1 million $ as part of his marketing campaign.

 

[ArielT]

Good posts @Bob Hawkes. Yes, the "deceptive" was strong and now I retract of that

I was not aware of this division of standar domains with the first group labeled "premium". I thought it was an aritrary change based on keywords where the price could have been any. Anyways I think the fair would have been non premium tag and same renewal but what are we going to do

Thanks to everyone

 

[namemarket]

.....In an era when most renewal prices edged up, and price caps were removed from a legacy extension that already had a 10% per annum maximum cap, the BEST registry reduced the renewal rate by a huge factor on the vast majority of registered .best domains......So here is headline story: BEST Renewals Shrink from about $78 to about $18! (*) (*)Some conditions apply. Must not have been registered by you prior to Feb 5, 2019. Must not have been previously designated a premium domain name. Some registrars may offer lower renewal rates. Bob

'

Very good points Bob. A problem is since the standard previous pricing near $80 was very high so even with a huge percentage reduction to $18 it's still too far high for .best to avoid severe upcoming non-renewals.

If Cyril can reduce renewals to $5 or less I would consider keeping a lot more of my dot-best

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I don't plan to renew, except few domains...
Here the same silence (~0 enduser activity in terms of inquiries) as on .TOP/.ICU/.CLUB etc.

 

[Brands.International]

'

Very good points Bob. A problem is since the standard previous pricing near $80 was very high so even with a huge percentage reduction to $18 it's still too far high for .best to avoid severe upcoming non-renewals.

If Cyril can reduce renewals to $5 or less I would consider keeping a lot more of my dot-best

I would agree with this remark.

For example, I keep larger portfolio of nice 1 worders in .vip, but it is easy to keep all those names, as I pay $4.6 / year for such .vip names.

.Top costs usually $3-8, etc.

And .best is in the same category in my opinion as .vip or .top imo (as all those are reversed-order, broader new gTLD extensions, and they usually works for majority of english keywords and also present good alternatives to each other - meaning, I can buy something like example.top or example.best, and it is almost the same semantic meaning, imo).

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I agree with @namemarket that if the renewal was something less then those names in domainer hands would be retained to a much higher degree.

as all those are reversed-order, broader new gTLD extensions, and they usually works for majority of english keywords and also present good alternatives to each other

I agree with the last part, about they can present alternatives as they have somewhat similar meaning. However, the reversed-order has been over-stressed in my opinion. Yes, they can be reversed, but both top and best can be a noun, verb, adverb or adjective. If we view them as an adjective and precede with a noun, the order is reversed. If we use them as a noun or verb, the order is, in most cases, the correct one.

I suspect that both .best and .top registries would complain that they are not comparable. Top is much more highly registered, but the vast majority of those registrations are in a single country. While there are now 18 NameBio listed .best sales (17 from most recent 12 months - although many were simply expired auction sales to domainers, maybe almost all) they are at modest amounts whereas top has sold over a much longer period but has some very high (although mainly registry) sales in NameBio.

There is also the BEST social network. Until it is truly active, it is hard to see if that will make the domain names significantly worthwhile.

No doubt that .top is much cheaper to hold even if you stick with a major western registrar. However, if one viewed say a 3 year holding period and had taken advantage of the renewal promotions over Cyber Monday and in December then .best is not that out of line - say $2.50 year one plus 2 more years for $18.50 combined (approximate numbers) is a per year rate of $7.00 per year. If you add a fourth year at $18.50, then per year becomes just under $10 for each of the four years, about what I would pay for the better rates for .org per year. I really hope BEST will do another renewal promotion at some time.

The other thing to keep in mind is that BEST left many great words that would be premium in virtually every other new extension as standard. Even 3L were available as standard, all sorts of high value dictionary words, nice phrases. So the registry may view it that they need to make up for that through higher renewal rates.

I am personally keen on domain name phrases, and best works well for that. In that sense I view it as more similar to words like .life that works well in phrases. If you stick with western registrars to my knowledge you can't get a renewal on .life cheaper than .best. Of course .life has a record with some really high value resales going for it, so in that sense they are not similar at all.

I have renewed some of my .best. If I had more spare cash, or if rates were lower, I would renew more. I view the extension as somewhat high risk, as no record of $300+ publicly verified sales yet to my knowledge. But the inherent quality of some of the available phrases is good, and I prefer that .best is much more geographically spread than the other TLDs mentioned in this thread.

I agree, though, that the market so far does not justify $18 renewals. The TLD needs some time for the use of the extension to be enhanced and proven. I think TLDs like ICU did the right thing with good renewal rates (less than the legacy extensions) and every single domain name in the extension, even if first year was premium, is a standard renewal, so the system is clear. Certainly this new and old rates has made the .best situation unclear even to many domainers, and that is not a good thing.

Bob

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

I posted about that situation months ago. Same thing happened to me on 3 .best names. My answer is it sucks doing that.

When I got the names there was no indication they would be premium in future and were considered standard. In fact, I may be wrong but do not believe .best had premiums in the past and simply assumed earlier registrations before the big discount promos of last March/April must be premium quality.

It is something I really dislike about .best registry. Out of those 3 now premium renewals I let one recently expire (not worth the $81) and the other 2 reluctantly renewed for $81 each.

My experience with ,best has sadly not been good what with them saying they were suddenly premiums and the vast majority of the others being very dubious value and not worth renewing for the current high $18 (except for a relative few).

Also real disappointed about the claims from Cyril that hotel.best and hotels.best were selling for 1 million $ almost a year ago and no news on it. Plus very little heard about the new social media benefit.

P.S. Maybe Bob Hawkes (who has written about .best before) can chime-in on this if he wants to?

Well I won't be renewing. There was a lot of hype about this amazing social network etc which has now been accepting pre-registration for about 8 months now and it just feels like an empty promise.

The world isn't going to switch to .best and I think their PR has been pretty bad.

 

[Internet.Domains]

No matter what direction this extension takes (we have a pretty good idea now) saying the word "best" at the end of a string doesn't make sense. It's improper English for most uses.

Regardless, if you love it or hate it, "best" to you!

 

[The Durfer]

im kinda bias, I sold a .best for $75 on dynadot so for me it works. Just like any of them, it has to fit and make sense. Good luck.

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

I guess it will be .bollocks next.

 

[Lox]

There's too many ... crypto/blockchain/whatever-based platforms that reward (loyalty) content creators and curators. The same old idea/trick (1996+) to get something for nothing. Read ToS / ToC. Due Diligence #1

Regards

 

[Recons.Com]

No matter what direction this extension takes (we have a pretty good idea now) saying the word "best" at the end of a string doesn't make sense. It's improper English for most uses.

Regardless, if you love it or hate it, "best" to you!

Agree. Even "better" would work better, at least, with verbs.

Compare Live.Best to Live.Better, Travel.Best to Travel.Better. The only logical combo might be Geo+'s + best, like Houston's.Best or phrases like Who Said it .best )

VIP is in better position, while with nouns it is still misplaced, with verbs it might make sense like in Travel.VIP, but not Traveler.VIP