).
Hopefully that means they are updating it and will address some of the concerns I expressed here. The infographic, while attractive and engaging, had seriously out of date information resulting in unrealistic projections.
I am going to somewhat buck the trend here and say while the infographic is attractive and does contain some helpful information, especially for newcomers or end users, that I am not a huge fan of it as currently stands. I say that with some hesitation, since it was produced by a company run by one of the huge names in the business.
What are my hesitations?
If asked to grade the infographic I would give it top marks for presentation, but poor marks for accuracy, use of current data, a balanced viewpoint, and use of relevant sources of information. If asked to grade it as an assignment I would only give it a C- (feeling a little generous
- It says that type-in traffic accounts for 50% of all visitors. Figures like that are that either based on very old data (there is a 2012 mentioned in the article linked) and/or it is counting bot visits which according to fairly recent survey bots account for 52% of visits and are treated as type in traffic. So I did check the footnotes as to where they get the figure from. It is a blog post about data from 2012 (or 2011 not clear) on a single domain name diapers! I don't doubt that a domain name is important, for many good reasons, but in 2019 I really don't think it is primarily because of type in traffic.
- I am not sure if Lesson Two means all of those things are important, but clearly some valuable domain names don't encompass all of those aspects. It seems based on the idea that a company needs only one domain name. I think we are increasingly seeing companies using multiple domain names. A main one, usually a com, a the umbrella base address, and others for regional presence, marketing campaigns, etc. For example, not all names are used for branding - if that is what Lesson 2 is meant to say it is not correct.
- A more balanced and nuanced view would highlight the endurance of com as the standard, and its widespread popularity, but to simplify this to 'you must have com' is oversimplification. Many on NPs would believe it is true, I acknowledge, but in an infographic I would like to see a more balanced statement. There are regions of the world where the country codes are important (.de is certainly one). Some huge crypto are going with .org. If you look at the DNJournal top 100 of 2018 yes 84 are com, but 9 are country code, 4 are ngTLDs, along with one org and one net.
- I think it is telling that the graph of domain prices ends in 2011! It gives a completely misleading picture of the rate of rise of domain prices. We all wish they were doubling in price every 5 years. Single word domains in com are I think increasing in price, but not at the rate suggested here, on average. If you don't believe me plot the highest priced domain sales by year, or the average price in NameBio. Domains in general, especially those of the quality a typical user of this infographic would own, are probably pretty static in price. The graph is highly misleading. It is like a mutual fund company showing results from 2001 to just before the financial crisis of 2008.
- Speaking of misleading, let's look at the graph in the middle right of the "Top 5 TLDs" by registration numbers. I think we can all agree that com is dominantly first. But the other 4 are seriously misplaced. net is 4th (not 2nd), org is 8th (not 3rd), info is 9th (not 4th) and biz is 5th (not 22nd). You can readily get these stats here. They list DomainTools, a certainly reputable source, but give no indication of when that data was accessed. Since the footnotes with date are 2010 ad 2011, my guess is it was in that era. A long time ago. Would you make investment decisions today based on the stock market of 2010?
- As to their trademarked statement about buying a brand, methinks brand experts would not agree! They could have more accurately stated the case that a great domain name can make it easier to get noticed, and save you advertising dollars. That is certainly true. But you do not buy brands.
So yes, no doubt we can learn from it. I like the presentation comparing domain prices to promotional prices (although wonder based on rest if the data is at all current). View it though as one particular view of how to invest in domain names in 2011.
Bob
Yes, vast majority are. Note that the data in the infographic is seriously out of date, seem to be from almost a decade ago. While some things are not that different, much has changed. Even then most premium were not available, but not as scarce, or as expensive on wholesale market, as today.
