Bill Hartzer’s “SEO and the Not Com Revolution” Presentation

[News]

For those of you who have been following developments in the new gTLD space, many of the slides will look familiar. There has been ample discussion had about quite of few of the topics in Bill’s presentation, but there may be some newer topics that you haven’t seen yet...

Credit Bill Hartzer (@bhartzer)

Credit Bill Hartzer (@bhartzer)​

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[deez007]

I got your point and I agree. But the fact is that you're a domainer and you must make profit from domaining.
In your example they chose the .io extension because is reg-fee. Where is the benefit for you as a domainer?
Maybe in 10 years, after many and many new companies has adopted the .io or .vip or .whatever you'll have some increase in your portfolio value. But if they've to pay big money for a .io to you they stay with .com or .cctld

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there will be a bigger uptake of nTLD's by end users prob over the next year or so... so the value of nTLD's will increase. Sure it's still not going to be on the same price points as a .com or anywhere close....but my thinking is that I would be just as happy to sell 10 .io domains at $2500 a pop as I would be selling 1 .com domain at $25 000

 

[DomainVP]

Anyone can go ahead and rank a .whatever for a keyword.

The major point I think we all haven't touched on is that you can also rank a .info, a .biz, or a .net...

Look where that has gone over the past 15 - 20 years.

So if the extension didn't matter for the last 15 years, why would it matter now when ICANN has dumped a multitude of extensions onto the digital landscape.

I cant believe it's 2016 and people are still so focused on these new garbage extensions.

 

[Kate]

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there will be a bigger uptake of nTLD's by end users prob over the next year or so... so the value of nTLD's will increase.

We heard that so many times, but new extensions are no longer new, they are already 3 years old. I think domainers are constantly moving the goalposts because progress is obviously slower than they expected. In the meantime they are not making sales.

For domaining purposes, new extensions are the kiss of death.
Now if you are a developer it's different, you don't care about their resale value. But you still have to pay attention to certain things.

I know some SEOers and they try crazy stuff sometimes.
If new extensions were really good for SEO - everybody would know by know. Of course it's all about contents and links. The domains are usually more important for branding than SEO.
Personally I put a bigger emphasis on branding. I don't rely much on SEO at all, I get business through word of mouth etc. When you are famous enough in your league, you don't need SEO anymore The purpose of SEO is to make yourself known.

Even if the 'uptake' happens, new extensions are not going to become significantly more valuable as a result. Just because there are too many and too much dilution. They are still far behind .biz/.info, that no domainer would consider a success. So I don't know what people expect.
Discussions are interesting, but I am more interested in reality. When I look around me, new extensions are not getting the traction they are supposed to be getting.

 

[enlytend]

I need answers to the questions above. Why would conversion on a .com drop from 52% to 22%? I need to know how many clicks that data is based on.

I'm too lazy to look for it, but you used to be able to download details in a whitepaper at Globerunner.

 

[JB Lions]

I'm too lazy to look for it, but you used to be able to download details in a whitepaper at Globerunner.

Yep, you have to sign up to get it.

This was a complete joke. This time Elliot started a blog post, last time he let Bill post on his site about it. It was taken apart the first time:

100 clicks per campaign or $68. That's the joke. That would get laughed at by most people who have experience with this sort of thing. You can't come to any sort of conclusion with that low of clicks.

http://www.domaininvesting.com/com-versus-new-gtlds-real-world-test-results/

 

[deez007]

We heard that so many times, but new extensions are no longer new, they are already 3 years old. I think domainers are constantly moving the goalposts because progress is obviously slower than they expected. In the meantime they are not making sales.

For domaining purposes, new extensions are the kiss of death.
Now if you are a developer it's different, you don't care about their resale value. But you still have to pay attention to certain things.

I know some SEOers and they try crazy stuff sometimes.
If new extensions were really good for SEO - everybody would know by know. Of course it's all about contents and links. The domains are usually more important for branding than SEO.
Personally I put a bigger emphasis on branding. I don't rely much on SEO at all, I get business through word of mouth etc. When you are famous enough in your league, you don't need SEO anymore The purpose of SEO is to make yourself known.

Even if the 'uptake' happens, new extensions are not going to become significantly more valuable as a result. Just because there are too many and too much dilution. They are still far behind .biz/.info, that no domainer would consider a success. So I don't know what people expect.
Discussions are interesting, but I am more interested in reality. When I look around me, new extensions are not getting the traction they are supposed to be getting.

I totally agree that the progress has been slower than expected and yes these tld that were released years ago have not gain traction and neither has .biz and .info.

The thing is that when I talk about nTLD's I am reffering to a select handful of them. I think probably about 80% of them (maybe more) are crap. The 20% that actually have good potential should not be classed in the same category as the crappy 80%. I would have preferred if they just released that 20% and never released the other 80% of crap TLD's. Some of the good ones I think will become a force to be reckoned with are .ONLINE / . CLUB / .VIP / .IO . / and maybe a few others. Now not all domains in these TLD's are going to work, people still need to apply a bit of common sense and make sure the domain actually makes sense.. silly names like onlineshoes.online for example is not going to work. However a domain like shoes.online or Gentlemans.Club can work and I think it brands really well. To a point where personally I think shoes.online looks more visually appealing than shoesonline.com - The disconnect comes in where people currently are not familiarized with the new TLD's yet. Once this starts to happen then I think the 20% of good nTLD will enjoy some good sales. This was not the case with Biz and .info mainly because of how they read. The .biz extension doesn't leave the door open for much except for business related domains and even .info is also limiting in the sense that having a business name on a .info TLD just doesn't look right.

SEO for me plays a big part. Mainly because I am an Internet Marketer more than I am a domainer. I have a few niche sites and about 50% of my traffic comes from search. Yes these are all content heavy sites that have excellent link profiles but having a niche relevant domain is the cherry on top.

Now do I believe that I am 100% correct and that I can not be wrong without question? Off course not, everything I have mentioned are my opinions and my observations. I have merely shared my view point. I am confident that the 20% of good TLD's will take off but I also know that NOBODY knows for sure whats going to the happen. When people make comments like "That will never work" - "This will crash and burn 100% guaranteed" and those kinda of statements, I think it's presumptuous, unless they have a crystal ball that tells the future they should understand that there are no guarantees.

 

[enlytend]

100 is the bottom edge of "statistically significant". To me the study, even with the updates, doesn't make a strong case that the gtlds are "better" - more that they're not a "problem".

However as a domainer if the end user sales aren't happening, that's a problem

 

[TRY]

Did he give the CTR? New g's are good for Google's business since their biggest threat is direct navigation and with the new g's they have little to worry about.

 

[dordomai]

Honestly I wouldn't put too much faith in a single case study.

Common sense would tell you that results could be all over the place e.g(some domains will perform poorly, some very well)

Depending on the keyword or ad copy some domains will do better, some worse.

Where are the failures? There must be some. We see only one single selected example.

Unless someone tried that with a large number of domains across different niches, it's really hard to interpret what the result means.

I am sure I could set-up a campaign where the .com performs better than the nGTLD. Then I could proclaim that ALL .com are better because of one single one.

 

[dordomai]

It's the exact same example used, over and over again. It's been talked about before on this forum. Since you're impressed by it, can you tell me some info.

On slide 23
it's:
Sep 2015 - 22% conversion rate on .com, 35% conversion rate on .diamonds
May 2014 - 52% conversion rate on .com, 36% conversion rate on .diamonds
New gtld converts better than .com in 2015

the conversion rate on .diamonds was stable but .com is less than 50% one year later, why?

if you take the average of both years for .com you get around 36% which is about the same as the other extension.

 

[djum]

Yep, you have to sign up to get it.

100 clicks per campaign or $68. That's the joke. That would get laughed at by most people who have experience with this sort of thing. You can't come to any sort of conclusion with that low of clicks.

http://www.domaininvesting.com/com-versus-new-gtlds-real-world-test-results/

That's right, this numbers are statistically insignificant, can't really make conclusions based on 100 clicks.

 

[TopShelf Domains]

People remember .com and now may automatically assume that the .online is an error and add the .com to the phrase.

Regards...jmcc

Honestly, first time I knew about .biz, .info, .io was not from end-users, it was after entering the domain industry.

I consider myself a computer-savvy person.

A person above said .biz extensions are their most profitable websites.

I don't see why nTLDs can't meet this expectation as well. .biz are not that well known by the general public. Does this mean people currently try to type in xxxbiz.com ? I would like to see a study on that.

 

[slimjim270]

My 2 cents...

There appears to be 2 different conversations going on - one about collectible assets / scarcity for investing purposes (domaining) and one about site visibility for traffic purposes (developing/SEO).

Minting new coins does not create scarcity, though the event of printing those coins might initially create media excitement and visibility during the printing event.

For value appreciation, I prefer investing in scarcity. Along those regards, .com is the most difficult to attain and most likely to be "out of circulation" when an end user performs a registration search.

-Jim

 

[TRY]

New gtlds are at a definite disadvantage when it comes to 1 word .com's. And when advertisers start using subdomains to further target and personalize their ads such as 24k.diamonds.com, gold.diamonds.com etc. It would take numerous new gtlds such as gold.diamonds, 24k.diamonds to compete with just 1 .com.

 

[baseballworld]

Same crap different day. Dot coms going nowhere just the new crap dies off after the trend year or so.

 

[dordomai]

.HYPE

 

[TopShelf Domains]

New gtlds are at a definite disadvantage when it comes to 1 word .com's. And when advertisers start using subdomains to further target and personalize their ads such as 24k.diamonds.com, gold.diamonds.com etc. It would take numerous new gtlds such as gold.diamonds, 24k.diamonds to compete with just 1 .com.

how many times have you seen ads with subdomains? jjust curious

Id rather see a brand.diamonds than gold.diamonds anyway

Custom.Diamonds or Custom.Diamonds.Com

 

[TRY]

how many times have you seen ads with subdomains? jjust curious

Id rather see a brand.diamonds than gold.diamonds anyway

Custom.Diamonds or Custom.Diamonds.Com

I'm talking about ppc

 

[WilsonM]

Agree with @JBLions, sample data set too small to make such big predictions.

Also the more these new extensions flood the market, the more .com becomes valuable I think.