Domaining.com no longer free

[internext]

Got my usual daily email, clicked a link and got the domaining sign-in page rather than the story I expected. No problem, I logged in only to find the following:

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Unfortunately the Domaining.com membership is no longer free. We started to charge a low annual fee to help us pay our bills: hosting, data transfer, ... For this reason free accounts have been closed. If you are serious about domaining then we invite you to SIGN UP AGAIN HERE.

 

[gazzip]

Domaining.com helps us all as a community, so seeing this charge will hurt all domainers in one way or another. (I have yet to get the email, so if somebody could forward it to me, I'd like to see it )

I would be very surprised if you got one TBH saying as you and maybe 20 other bloggers are providing 90% of the content and interest generated.

Would'nt be a very smart move IMO, it would be like cutting your nose off to spite your face :o


Oh well... as they say, a great domain without a great plan does'nt make a business


.

 

[krx]

none of us know what his costs are...
none of us know what his revenue is...

many of us are saying we could do it better, cheaper, for free, etc...

until you've run a popular free service, you have no clue what costs are involved.

I don't think it's as much a question of his costs as of the best way to monetize the site and recoup his costs. This just seems like obviously the wrong way to do it. Few if any will pay for the service and without the traffic he has nothing.

I could have a similar service up this week, but the ad market is drying up, domainers have voiced their opinion that they won't pay for the service, bloggers aren't going to pay, so what is the benefit to launching a competing service? what is the revenue stream?

Seems to me he was selling a good number of domains and that this aspect of the site was just getting going. I was just getting ready to list some names there. I was expecting to see the sales aspect become much bigger and possibly split off into its own thing (prominently linked of course on the blog aggregation site). With listing fees and a 10% commission this could have been quite profitable, I would think.

Hopefully he'll reverse course quickly before too much damage is done. Blame it on the eggnog!

 

[jmcc]

A waste of a good domain name. While I wish them every success with their venture, I can't help but think it is just another aggregator scraping content and providing little or no original content itself.

Regards...jmcc

 

[deleted984054565403]

A waste of a good domain name. While I wish them every success with their venture, I can't help but think it is just another aggregator scraping content and providing little or no original content itself.

Regards...jmcc

I think that's the part that gets me the most. It's one thing if there's actually something unique published on the site; instead, it's just a collection of links to other people's work.

If there were original articles, insider tips, or something else unique, the $35/year could be justified easily. :imho:

 

[DotWeekly]

If there were original articles, insider tips, or something else unique, the $35/year could be justified easily. :imho:

Sounds like DotWeekly.com :blink:

:wave:

 

[equity78]

Domainers are Cheap and I think Francois is finding this out and will find out More with this charge.

Making money with a "domainer" type site is tough stuff I must say. All domainers want things for Free. Why that is, I'm not sure. I think he overpaid for Domaining.com and the advertising dollars were miss spent (here). Why market and market to people who already know what and who you are and do?

I have blogged about the domain business and I can bet that if I had a "Donate" button on my site, I would have gained $0 for the year. Just like most of my ads that rarely get clicked. I didn't do my blog to make money, but it's always nice to make a buck. But when I teach somebody something that makes them Hundreds or even Thousands... I guess $1 or $10 is a lot of money to them.

100 % TRUEST STATEMENT of 2008 I have never seen a cheaper niche, industry, whatever you like, The mantra should be DOMAINERS we only want to make money but will never spend it. Everyone loves Namepros and "OH RJ THE BEST" But if NP charged $20 for a yearly membership WOW the thread complaining would be the largest thread in the history of the Internet.

Rep to you Jamie

 

[liquidcherry]

100 % TRUEST STATEMENT of 2008 I have never seen a cheaper niche, industry, whatever you like, The mantra should be DOMAINERS we only want to make money but will never spend it. Everyone loves Namepros and "OH RJ THE BEST" But if NP charged $20 for a yearly membership WOW the thread complaining would be the largest thread in the history of the Internet.

Rep to you Jamie

I would pay 20 bucks!!!

Cheers

Frank

( www.domainnews4free.com coming soon )

 

[copper]

100 % TRUEST STATEMENT of 2008 I have never seen a cheaper niche, industry, whatever you like, The mantra should be DOMAINERS we only want to make money but will never spend it. Everyone loves Namepros and "OH RJ THE BEST" But if NP charged $20 for a yearly membership WOW the thread complaining would be the largest thread in the history of the Internet.

Rep to you Jamie

Not at all.
I will gladly pay it.
I think it's better to charge.
It will improve quality of forum.
It will greatly reduce multi-acct signup.
It will reduce scammers, not much, but, it will.

 

[footodors]

Should be more respectful of the free traffic he's getting.
Set up a tollbooth and people will drive around or avoid the highway altogether unless there is some serious necessity or value there.
Ditch the tollbooth and you get more eyes for billboards and businesses along that highway.
Charge them not the driver.

 

[Mike]

It's a cost - benefit calculation.
At current, he may not make as much revenue and subsequently profit as he imagined.
It becomes a question of math - advertising income vs. income of subscriptions - lost subscribers. Most often, even though the site looses a lot of subscribers, the numbers play in favor of the pay model.
Marketing wise and publicity wise, the pay option is certainly not a model that anyone on the paying end favors

As everyone knows though, there are plenty of sources to get your domain news fix

M.

 

[copper]

Domainers are Cheap and I think Francois is
finding this out and will find out More with this charge.

Making money with a "domainer" type site is tough stuff
I must say. All domainers want things for Free. Why that is, I'm not sure.

Agreed.

I think domainers are penny pinchers.
Let's say you have 1,000 domains.
Every penny you save on renewal means $10.
Paying $.10 less per domain means $100 saved.

This is why domainers seek out coupons and/or
cheapest registrar although cheapest doesn't mean best choice.

You do this everyday for years, you become penny pinchers :D

However, in general, domainers are not fools.
Most domainers are smart.

Most domainers will gladly pay $35 annual fee if it's worth it.
Hell, for one membership site, I paid almost $800/mth for about
one full year. I cancelled only when I decided I learned all I
could from that site. That's almost $10K/year fee and best
money I ever spent!

I really DO wish Francois succeed with this change, however...

Like anything else, domaining.com's value will be decided by
membership signups with price tag of $35/year.

 

[lzy]

Hell, for one membership site, I paid almost $800/mth for about
one full year. I cancelled only when I decided I learned all I
could from that site. That's almost $10K/year fee and best
money I ever spent!

That must be one hell of a program! Care to share? I'm really curious to find out what's worth $800/month.

 

[Fixhotep]

i'm willing to pay for a service that provides a unique/valuable service that I can't get anywhere else, such as the 'other' forum. I am not willing to pay for an RSS aggregator when I can get the info elsewhere for free. And I think even though Domainers are generally penny pinchers, they would mostly agree with me on this.

Now, if Domaining.com offered some unique/valuable service in addition to the RSS aggregator, I would consider paying. Depending on the service, of course.

And like Jamie at DotWeekly, I am still a member and can submit names and everything.

 

[staffjam]

Copper - i'm also interested in this site that you paid $800 a month for - and what exactly they were teaching you as that is a pretty hefty price tag.

 

[Seabass]

IF he MUST charge then he should have charged by the month. $3 a month sounds a lot better than $35 a year......also if it is recurring billing folks let it ride a lot longer and may never cancel.

However, I will not pay for this, and it looks like 100% agreement from all other domainers here that they feel the same way.

 

[snoop]

Domainers are Cheap and I think Francois is finding this out and will find out More with this charge.

The thing is the site isn't offering anything unique, it is just a listing of blog posts. I can't imagine people in any industry paying for that. It would be like google trying to charge for its news service. Anyone can do much the same thing in a few hours of coding.

 

[Broker]

At the top of the website now...

Dear member, your $35 annual membership is due - PAY IT NOW

Better off with a donation button Cyber and another way to make money. 3 Day listing fees for selling domains at the same price for a 30 day featured at sedo doesnt get it for me either. Nice knowing ya :wave:

 

[cybertonic]

Hello,

Penny pinchers, this is a funny english term I learnt today reading this thread.

For the adepts of this community I have two good news:

- First, there is no longer need to register or be logged to access the pages linked by the headlines in domaining.com

- Second, I restored most closed accounts. So you could continue receiving your "favorite" daily newsletter.

I admit I have been a bit sharp, and decided to let you a pair of weeks to better valuate if our service worth these tremendous $35.

Enjoy the end of the year,

Francois

 

[DotWeekly]

Free again... Sweet! That was a quick change.

 

[Zcorp]

They will be so doomed when they switch to paid.
They will lose the money from domain listings for sure and tons of visitors, but whatever, bad marketing move 100%

 

[footodors]

any publicity is good publicity!

 

[DotWeekly]

any publicity is good publicity!

Not sure about this going back and forth...

 

[internext]

Free again... Sweet! That was a quick change.

...decided to let you a pair of weeks to better valuate if our service worth these tremendous $35.

If I am reading this right, Domaining.com access has been only temporarily restored for another 2 weeks so we can reevaluate whether to remain members (by paying the annual fee). I dont see that Francois has decided to make it free again.

Hopefully the two weeks will give him time to reconsider other revenue options. In any event, I hope to see a good outcome for all concerned.

 

[deleted984054565403]

Thanks for listening to us, Francois. Happy New Year.

 

[DotWeekly]

If I am reading this right, Domaining.com access has been only temporarily restored for another 2 weeks so we can reevaluate whether to remain members (by paying the annual fee). I dont see that Francois has decided to make it free again.

Hopefully the two weeks will give him time to reconsider other revenue options. In any event, I hope to see a good outcome for all concerned.

Considering the change lasted some 12 hours and was switched back to free (you don't even have to login to read again) who knows why it was switched to 2 weeks or whatever.

Currently it's free.
2 weeks from now, not sure. Tomorrow, who knows...

Maybe nobody signed up in the 12 hours it was a pay site? Traffic dropped? Either way, Domaining.com as a pay site is not the right way to go IMO.