Can some of the older TLDs get a boost alongside the New gTLDs

[oldtimer]

With hundreds of New gTLDs coming out soon this might breath new life into some of the older TLDs such as .info , .biz , .jobs , .aero , .name , .mobi , .museum , .tel , .travel or even .asia and the fact that the general public hasn’t heard of a lot of these TLDs in the past might actually work in their favor if they can get mixed in with the new gTLDs, Although some of these older TLDs are restricted, but that’s only known to domainers, as far as the general public is concerned all these older TLDs could be New gTLDs.

So some of the top category killer domains in the older TLDs might get a boost if people think that they are New gTLDs, What say you.

Attention newbies: This is not meant to persuade anyone to go and register a bunch of mediocre domains because even the top category killer domains will have a hard time to compete when people are given hundreds of new choices in the near future.

IMO

 

[Kate]

With hundreds of New gTLDs coming out soon this might breath new life into some of the older TLDs such as .info , .biz , .jobs , .aero , .name , .mobi , .museum , .tel , .travel or even .asia and the fact that the general public hasn’t heard of a lot of these TLDs in the past might actually work in their favor if they can get mixed in with the new gTLDs, ...

I think it's exactly the opposite that will happen. New extensions will make them even less special.
Is .biz still an attractive alternative if you can have .corp or .inc or .ltd or something else. Not that they are any better, but not worse either.
.museum .coop .aero etc: hardly anybody knows they even exist. And nobody is missing out.

The fact that they have been around for 10 years doesn't bring any major benefits because they have stagnated. It's like they haven't had a head start really.

 

[equity78]

I think it can go either way, it depends on what premise you are going by imo. If the new tlds are successful and I am defining success as they get a lot of press and the average person and small business knows they exist, they may discover biz and info and pro because they really never knew them before and just thought domains were .com/net/org.

For domainers it will probably push them down a rung as people want the new shiny hot thing, .mobi was hot for a minute until it wasn't, then came .me and then .co. In the start up world .co and ,me have kept some momentum.

So I think it could be a tiny boost for the older non .com gtlds if a lot of people wake up and say I did not know you could have that to the right of the dot.

I firmly believe that the new ones that are pushed the best will be what new people to domains gravitate to. Just like just about everything in life, it comes down to new vs old.

The other negative for the older gtlds is the Registrars will be pushing them way down the list, they will be getting paid a lot for shelf space and .biz and .info etc... I think will be back behind the black olives and not displayed prominently.

 

[carob]

So some of the top category killer domains in the older TLDs might get a boost if people think that they are New gTLDs, What say you.


IMO

No.

IMO people will want country code, com, or something relevant like .cityname or .product or .brand

All those poor third-choice extensions will now be tenth or twentieth choice extensions.

There are only so many people wanting a website and domainers have only so much money to spend cornering the market in the way they did... so domainers may just have to give up.

 

[oldtimer]

I think it's exactly the opposite that will happen. New extensions will make them even less special.

Anything is possible as the landscape changes,

A while back I was telling an end-user about one of the .US domains that I own (Mortgage.US) and he said that he had not heard of .US before, but he had heard about the hundreds of new extensions that were supposed to come out soon and asked me if .US was one of those new extensions.

 

[mjnels]

the answer is: YES

however - it will probably only give them a boost in terms of legitimacy. like hey, its not weird to use a .travel or a .biz domain anymore. people will judge you based on YOUR BUSINESS.. not silly nonsense things like TLD's.

but they probably will not get a boost in terms of values though - there are too many of them coming.

as lame it is to quote the big domainers i agree with frank schilling: .COM has reached its high water mark in terms of dollar value. if even 1 business decides to use a .whatever that takes 1 sale away from .COM and by definition, does not make it "stronger"

 

[equity78]

exactly oldtimer there will be a % of people that never heard of .us,.biz,.info, that will think they are new.

The other part that proves the new vs old mantra, is people like to say .info sucks, a lot of people don't like .net in domaining circles while some do good business with .net. But if they were new and coming out now, I think they would be two of the most highly sought after, but since they are old they are out of favor.

 

[Jasonn]

i think the fate of any gtld will rely mostly on effective marketing. unless sites are built on these gtld's or people are typing them/searching for them, they aren't going to gain any traction.

i also wonder what will happen with these gtld's in the future. lets say some are successful and some aren't. are the ones that aren't going to be cut lose? if a gtld is losing instead of making money is there a risk it will at some point be shut down?

mobi is losing money and still trucking along but with 1000 plus gtld's registration numbers could be spread all over the place. 100,000 at one while another might only have 400. i can't see them spending the money required to keep the losers when they have so many to keep up.

 

[Kate]

Anything is possible as the landscape changes,

Everything is possible but doesn't mean likely

As for the dinosaur TLDs that you mentioned marketing has been very poor. They shot themselves in the foot.
Take .jobs: restrictions, red tape, no free choice of domains, vetting of applicants.
.aero: again restrictions. And it's a niche industry anyway.
.pro: originally restricted to 4 countries and a limited subset of professions. Again red tape.
.travel, .museum: no comments. They are on life support.
It's hard to find one reason why any of those TLDs would be a superior choice for your business.

Of course, those TLDs are not carried by the mainstream registrars, thus are deprived of any meaningful exposure.

What were they thinking ? Seriously ?
That consumers would flock in droves to buy overpriced extensions that are distributed in the ghetto ? Extensions that nobody cares about and that will do nothing to improve their bottom line.

Oh wait they don't even know they exist... and they don't care. They didn't ask for those extensions. There is no popular demand. Sure some people will bite. That isn't the definition of success.

 

[mjnels]

benefit of new TLD's: you can use short memorable keywords and not have to pay the .COM or ccTLD ransom price.

its good for consumers.. bad for domainers wanting to control the supply.

 

[oldtimer]

If the registries for some of the older TLDs lift all those restrictions and rebrand themselves they might get a second chance by getting mixed in with all the New gTLDs. Now that doesn’t guaranty that they can increase their market share, it just means that they will get another chance at it. IMO

 

[bmugford]

its good for consumers..

Yeah right. It will lead to nothing but consumer confusion.

When people are confused they go to what is known. In the domain world that is COM/NET/ORG and ccTLD.

Brad

 

[mjnels]

Yeah right. It will lead to nothing but consumer confusion.

When people are confused they go to what is known. In the domain world that is COM/NET/ORG and ccTLD.

Brad

right, cause 4 choices doesnt fit the definition of confusing already. and now there is .co, .me and other alternatives people are actively using today.

hi my website is: great.sale

that isnt confusing. its two words with a dot in the middle.

 

[johname]

hi my website is: great.sale

that isnt confusing. its two words with a dot in the middle.

Its confusing! But perhaps not so much in the future.
Would have to be written as www.great.sale That lil dot not enough yet.

Dilution never good but I think it gives a tad boost to dot pro. Dot pro would be a 2013 new addition for sure if it wasn't already an extension, so now dot pro has a "group" to belong to.

 

[mjnels]

Its confusing! But perhaps not so much in the future.
Would have to be written as www.great.sale That lil dot not enough yet.

Dilution never good but I think it gives a tad boost to dot pro. Dot pro would be a 2013 new addition for sure if it wasn't already an extension, so now dot pro has a "group" to belong to.

roger that.. i feel the same way about the www. addition to make people realize they're websites at first... which, hilariously lots of places even on TV still say WWW. even when dealing with .COM's _\|/_

.pro is a good one.. info too.. travel too.. depending on how it turns out maybe lots of the great generics wont be available for registration at all.

what if google gives them away for free but restricts sales..what if what if

 

[.NJ]

Walk outside the box for a little bit and go start asking businesses and everyday people what they think of all the new "gtld's".

They will most likely say. "you mean a new .com"

Look at the sources of all the "gtld" news. They are all fed by domain outlets.

Most of the new gtld registrations will be made by the same people reading into all the hype (domainers).

There will be a few ones that survive due to the brand that they carry.

But most will crash and burn.

 

[oldtimer]

Most of the new gtld registrations will be made by the same people reading into all the hype (domainers).

I am not sure if domainers are going to play a big part in the New gTLDs like they did in the past when TLDs got rolled out one at the time and got a head start by catering to domainers.

The top 1000 keywords in each New gTLD will probably be held back or sold at end-user prices by the registry itself, the second and third tier domains are not going to be of that much interest to domainers considering that there are going to be so many to choose from.

The New gTLDs are probably going to be geared more towards end-users who don’t care that much about how valuable their domain is, but rather how useful it is to them.

On top of that if some of the famous brands start giving free domains to people then there won’t really be an aftermarket that domainers can take advantage of.

The whole idea of New gTLDs was to bypass the domainers and give more choices to end-users, how that’s going to work out is something that we have to wait and see.

IMO

 

[mjnels]

Walk outside the box for a little bit and go start asking businesses and everyday people what they think of all the new "gtld's".

They will most likely say. "you mean a new .com"

your test is flawed.

you're asking non geeks about geeky stuff that isnt even out yet. go back in the year 2003 and ask people about the future of mobile devices.. they'll say: you mean laptops?

 

[Kate]

benefit of new TLD's: you can use short memorable keywords and not have to pay the .COM or ccTLD ransom price.

its good for consumers.. bad for domainers wanting to control the supply.

That's the theory. But if the extension really didn't matter then alt extensions should already be more popular today. But you don't see many high-profile websites in oddball extensions. Why is that ? Why don't end users embrace the opportunities already available to them ?
I have seen a few official websites on .travel but not many. Not enough to raise the profile of .travel in the eyes of ordinary people.

I think the issue of branding is overlooked, for branding purposes the extension matters as much as the keyword. Ask Overstock.

If the registries for some of the older TLDs lift all those restrictions ...

Indeed, I think that registries with restrictions and red tape will find it very difficult to compete. Of course some TLDs say they don't want to 'compete' against others because they have a unique purpose and they want 'quality' only, but they are commercial entities and they will need as many regs as possible just to remain financially viable...

...
The top 1000 keywords in each New gTLD will probably be held back or sold at end-user prices by the registry itself, the second and third tier domains are not going to be of that much interest to domainers considering that there are going to be so many to choose from.

:bingo:
That is one reason why the end users are not going to benefit much from new extensions. Speculation by the registries and the domainers.
The so-called memorable/premium keywords that MJnels mentioned are seldom made available to end users for regfee. They will be available, but for a price (on auction). Then where is the opportunity ?
As an end user I don't find the idea of competing in auctions against experienced domain speculators very appealing. If I run a hotel in Boston I might find that boston.hotel is 'nice to have' but not critical either. If I were to actually make it to the auctions, I would be outbid anyway. By people who are going to sit on the domain but c'est la vie.

 

[gpmgroup]

The Internet makes the world seem much smaller than it really is. Marketing any new gTLD to real users will be horrendously expensive and beyond all but the largest of corporations.It runs the risk of being like investing in a fantastic new store at the end of a country lane. People will say wow but not enough will buy to make it viable.

A big worry is when registries realize their gTLD isn't viable. Do all of their ambitions go out the window with an ensuing race to the bottom? Which in turn leads to lots of new regulations from ICANN?