Don't ask for appraisals for new TLDs

[Kate]

Hello :hi:

Please don't ask for appraisals for new TLDs.
There is no established market. Therefore nobody can give you a price range. But it is very unlikely you will be able to resell them at a profit.

Therefore assume they are worth zero undeveloped :gl:

 

[JB Lions]

My general appraisal

 

[NPer]

Hello :hi:

Please don't ask for appraisals for new TLDs.
There is no established market. Therefore nobody can give you a price range. But it is very unlikely you will be able to resell them at a profit.

Therefore assume they are worth zero undeveloped :gl:

That is true.:blink:

They should know the value of their precious gems since they reg'd them.

According to these humans, the value of their domains comes from their grandiose development ideas... but their very own website still says "Just another Wordpress site" :D They have little to no experience about developing names.

That alone should tell them to stop right there in their tracks, and stop reg'ing... coz without their development ideas... or rather development dreams actually happening, those domains are worth nothing.

 

[NameOmnia]

The problem with those extensions is their limited scope. You just can't put any keyword to the left of .guru or .sexy, .link or .whatever. These TLDs are gadgets to me, I can't use them for my real-world business, which is a serious business.
On the other hand a .com or ccTLD is versatile. It can be used for anything.

Since the supply of meaningful keywords is limited, the growth prospects are capped from the beginning.
And accordingly the demand (if there is one) will be tiny as well. There isn't going to be enough volume.
It's already hard enough to turn a profit on .com. The few opportunities in this game are for the registries, not the ordinary domainers.

To take an example, computer.guru was actually bought by this guy:
http://domainincite.com/15711-meet-the-first-new-gtld-domainer

The guy apparently spent $30,000 on .guru domains. Ouch.
I almost feel bad for him. People like him have gambled on the second coming of .com, they all got burnt, always, for a reason.

I mean, it's okay to speculate, even to buy stuff that is worthless but do you really need to buy hundreds or thousands of domains when you know you are only going to sell a couple at best... the few sales are unlikely to offset the losses and renewal costs.

You really made a good point I think.

The meaningful words you can associate to every extension are limited ( even though, as always, domainers seem to ignore it... ) so the new .everything ( the ones that will survive the slashing of the market itself ) will be only niches.

I am pretty sure that the .photography, for example, could be successful among professional photographers , amateurs and probably even among some brands who want to target that niche but when it's about brands then HOW those domains will rank in G is pretty fundamental.

I am sorry but stating that G ranks well the new extension because of a n# 8 page for a zero competition keyword doesn't really make my day!

Would you go for a .com which is a " well oiled machine " or for a .everything? I think that for now, if I had a brand I make my living with, I would go for the .com, even though, in some years, the horizon could look different.

 

[NameOmnia]

Would you like to show us any "precious gems" that you own and have developed?

I am not in NS' mind but I think that what he meant is that at this point in time it seems there is no market ( or just a tiny one ) for the new extensions, which means there are hardly any sells, that means there is no history, which translates in no price comparison that leads to the impossibility of appraising them.

In every business NO MARKET EQUALS NO VALUE

SO the value people give them is, in their mind, the development potential aka " what you can do with that name " , but since hardly any of those domains have been properly developed ( as they still are basic WP pages ) the thought " well..what did you reg that domain for an where do you think the value of that is " is almost automatic.

The .com has a sort of intrinsic value itself ( WAIT! it's a generic statement : let's leave nonsense domains out please ) while the new extensions don't and I think people here, everyone with his own words and with his own way, are trying to warn those colleagues who are registering new tlds like there is no tomorrow, that they might be walking on a mined field.

It is not a competition.

 

[Kate]

Also what some seem to forget is these new TLDs target specific business / markets / organisations / crafts etc. That is the real power when the left and right side make sense.

That's the problem, they are niche TLDs with very tiny pools of possible end users (buyers).
If you look at industry-specific TLD: .jobs .travel .museum .aero .coop .etc - all are failures.
I don't see why everything is now suddenly different. It's nothing new really, it's the same old game that has already failed, now rolled out in king kong size™

Well .co was also supposed to mean the country of Colombia . . . and still does. But American startups are using it.

In .co there are some sales but not sure I would call it a market. And that is for a TLD with a volume of 1.6M+ registration. In proportion, what kind of market do you expect in a TLD that has got 10000 regs, possibly less, and nowhere near the same level of promotion.

 

[scandiman]

Best appraisal is to list a name for sale and see what it gets.

 

[Kate]

That wasn't the point I was trying to make. I'm just showing how the .center gTLD is having no problem ranking on Google.

So you are ranking on page #8 for a non-competitive expression with no search volume. Impressive :hehe:

You are on page 8 for me too.
But this comes on page 6:
https://flippa.com/domain-appraisals/839-branding-center

 

[Kate]

i think eventually one of the new gtld's will become the next 'face.book' not because of the extension but more so because content is still king,

The problem is always the same, there is a shortage of quality contents on alt extensions. People apparently are reluctant to use them for serious, large-scale projects. [Hint: try to figure out why].
Defensive registrations by TM holders are typically passive: non-resolving domains or redirects. The speculators park them or put up a placeholder page.
Eventually the TLDs become dead zones.

Somebody has to start the ball rolling, before the TLD can build momentum.

The corpTLDs could achieve some recognition, but that doesn't spell success for other generic extensions or geoTLDs. Every TLD is different.

plus when google start 'giving away' some of their extensions there will be a move towards 'something new' Then throw in a few .city and .canon and .sony .bmw sites and the change has begun ….like it or not there will be changes and he next generation of joe public will grow up with them plus .com

Giving domains away for free is a good way to kill a TLD, because you are going to have a high prevalence of spamming, phishing, and all kinds of nefarious purposes. And little quality development (no budget).

.tk is a good example of an extension nuked through misuse and abuse. info to a lesser extent, but still has the stigma of a spammer TLD.
We'll see how .berlin is going to deal with it.

You've just stated that because there's no market you can't give a price range and then proceeded to give a price range of zero.

Hypocrite

I don't see a contradiction here :gl: OK, how much do you want it to be ?
Reg fee ? It's a lot of money when the regular fee is $250 or $400/year

Even with a market most appraisals are junk.

True. It's always a best case scenario. But at least a .com has a remote chance of selling.

Saying that new extensions don't carry more risk than .com because money is being lost on .com - now that would be hypocrisy. Fact is, the few domain millionaires have all made their money on .com, never on .biz .asia or stuff like that. The only way to milk new extensions adequately is to be a registry or registrar. But you don't beat the casino at its own game.

 

[Name Trader]

As I have listed a couple of names on Flippa I took the time to browse the inventory and I found out there are many new tld domains for sale but hardly any has bids...just to confirm what I was stating some posts above; that is there is not a reseller - investor market for those domains yet.

These new GLTDs are almost all to resellers, so there is a reseller market @ RegFee.

 

[Kate]

Yeah, it's not like the end users are lining up and eager to buy these little things
I understand domainers want to buy at least a couple "just in case" but treat them like lottery tickets.
The drops will be fun to watch next year

 

[Kate]

Right, show me the sales. I'm not talking about dreams here. But hard cold cash.
I mean, domainers are buying domain names in the hope of selling them, usually they are not going to develop them and turn them into outstanding websites or online businesses.

The problem is that even keywords that actually fit the extension (and will survive the drop) will have no buyers. A few exceptions possible, but statistically not enough to make the game attractive to us.
What do people expect, we already have a shortage of buyers for good .com domains.

You think I'm being negative, perhaps it's because you didn't like my comments about your domains, but don't take it personally.
I don't care because I have invested $0 in new extensions, so I am not going to suffer.

 

[Kate]

Also any serious domainer has usually, for good domains, a long horizon, say 5-10 years. You might learn this from the big boys you can ask in case you think it's nonsense. But it depends also on what one can afford to spend while waiting beside the incidental big sale.

Well, most domainers are not "serious" They are scrambling for coupons and depressed over the renewals, because they are not making any serious money at all, even in .com.

The big boys if you mean Rick Digimedia etc, have all made their money on .com. Never on second- or third-rate extensions.
Frank is probably going to cash in on new extensions too, but as a registry. He and a few others are in a unique position to benefit. Not you. Not me. He's playing a completely different game by being on top of the food chain.

When you have solid domains, you hold for the right offer, that makes sense. But here we are talking about extensions that are completely speculative and worthless at this point. The odds that any are going to be valuable are extremely slim, because there is no demand while the supply is enormous. What I am trying to say, is that the odds are stacked against you, big time.

 

[gc1282]

.red is good. (Spanish for .network) and I stick by that.

.center is in the top 10 of regs - look up the stats. (should be higher) I guess people went cucu for guru

.voyage because it's limited within the top 100. (but I made sure I chose words that made sense)

And I will be investing in more gTLDs in the near future.

If you're calling the extensions I chose horrible lol what are your choices for the top extensions? Not that your opinion matters to me - but just for my amusement. I march to the beat of my own drum.

And let's be upfront here . . . some of you guys blah blah blah-ing are .com loyalists with small to medium sized .com portfolios? or dot whatever else you have and are worried that out of the countless gTLDs even if only <1% of those became popular extensions one day that end-users would not pick yours. Don't worry dot com ain't going anywhere. But you're going to have to work just a bit harder in the future to sell them to end users. Don't get me wrong - I love dot com. But dot com has interesting new neighbors.

Seems nerve has been touched. Everybody is this business has thrown away money, but some of us have learned from it. I mean, I see a post where you actually thought one of the color domains (.red) was good. Your have .center domains and even one of the other worst ones, .voyage. You're putting money into some of the worst of the new ones. Bump this thread a year or a few years from now and let me know how inaccurate that gif is.

 

[JB Lions]

Some of you make me giggle I swear. How does Macau Voyage make sense? Let me guess - you went to keyword planner and typed in Macau voyage and got zero? Like I told your friend Miss Know It All aka sdsinc - it's intended to be a brandable phrase domain name. So let me get this straight . . . you think, that because those 2 terms have no results that it's worthless? lol That's no problem , because Macau alone does have results. And if you know about SEO - that's not a a non-issue.

Well, with generic terms, it would help if somebody in the world actually searched on it. Plus, who takes voyages nowadays? Oh wait, it means travel in some other language, just like red means something else in some other language. No confusion there.

"And if you know about SEO"

I do, probably a lot more than you, because you would never see me get excited by making page 8 on terms nobody searches for. That you thought that actually proved anything, told me you must be new to SEO.

 

[McDuke]

By far most are a waste of money crap except for something like free.porn is going to be worth millions! or possibly the most valuable domain in the world, ever!

unless you secure the .xxx you wont be getting .porn. .xxx owners get priority. $$$$$

 

[Kate]

That's it, any TLD can be indexed in google. Nobody said otherwise.

 

[NameOmnia]

content is king ….no what extension, to ignore this is wrong, it's really what end users do with these that may see the results down the road

Yes content is king but you can't deny the fact that it would be, at this stage, pretty risky for a brand to invest in a new tld. It would be no different than gambling.

For all the reasons many pros have already explained

Furthermore, yes, content is king as long as you use it! If all you ( generic you ) put together is a default WP page then what?

Those domainers are treating the new tlds,like the .com : they wait for a domainer, for an offer, for a reseller to want to buy the name to flip it; but what they are failing to understand is that there aren't domainers willing to buy those names off them. ( wit the exclusion of top level premium extra particular and specific word combinations which unfortunately don't make the rule, but the exception ).

In conclusion, if those people are not going to seriously develop those names I am foreseeing many disappointed domainers who lost tons of money

 

[NameOmnia]

These new GLTDs are almost all to resellers, so there is a reseller market @ RegFee.

Yes, when they register the domain...but how many are actually buying the name from another domainer at reg fee that is most of the time above 200 - 300$?

Not that many as far as I could see.

 

[loupe]

sales? You talking about the new gTLDs that just came out? lol. sales to whom? Domainers? Me, I never register names to flip to domaine rs. I always register with the end user in mind. And "will have no buyers"? Maybe you don't know how to find them? And yes I didn't like your comment not because you broke my heart but it just showed me the type person that you are. Your comment was snide sarcastic and uninformed. It added no value whatsoever to the thread. If you haven't invested in the new extensions that's all good nobody gives a damn. Just don't go around trying to sound like you know what you're talking about.

It's always the same with any big change there will be those who will be anti and scream how they know it all based on past experience. Like the past is some kind of garantee

Next time just quote them this one:

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it”

George Bernard Shaw

 

[Kate]

sales? You talking about the new gTLDs that just came out? lol. sales to whom? Domainers? Me, I never register names to flip to domaine rs. I always register with the end user in mind. And "will have no buyers"? Maybe you don't know how to find them?

OK, you are targeting the end users. That makes sense. Have you identified any ? Apparently, YOU know how to find them. So I am eager to learn. Yes, those extensions are new. How many years are you willing to wait for them to take off ?

I think YOU are the end user for your domains.

I have always warned people to tread carefully in new extensions, and my tune is not going to change :imho:

 

[HeyNow]

But here we are talking about extensions that are completely speculative and worthless at this point. The odds that any are going to be valuable are extremely slim, because there is no demand while the supply is enormous. What I am trying to say, is that the odds are stacked against you, big time.

Yes, and that's been ICANN's goal since resale .com prices went through the roof 15 years ago. Back then, lots of cybersquatting on prime .com names, lots of bitching and moaning by the trademark lobby, lots of back-stabbing and power plays from the ICANN board to stifle competition (like telling Chris Ambler and Paul Garrin to take a hike back in November 2000). Paul Garrin applied for exactly the same thing that is sanctioned now: unlimited TLDs, including .info, .space, .love, .whatever, etc. ICANN didn't allow a registry to also be a registrar, but now that's different too.

So ICANN gets its way: the market is diluted with TLDs, sending lots of speculators packing, and ICANN has monetized the TLD application process most effectively, which is probably why they didn't care to accommodate Chris Ambler and Paul Garrin back in 2000 for a mere $50k each.

 

[gc1282]

It's throwing away money if you don't have the aptitude for picking the good names. I'm guessing you've been burned before?

My general appraisal

 

[JB Lions]

.red is good. (Spanish for .network) and I stick by that.

.center is in the top 10 of regs - look up the stats. (should be higher) I guess people went cucu for guru

.voyage because it's limited within the top 100. (but I made sure I chose words that made sense)

And I will be investing in more gTLDs in the near future.

If you're calling the extensions I chose horrible lol what are you choices for the top extensions? Not that your opinion matters - but just for my amusement.

And let's be upfront here . . . some of you guys blah blah blah-ing are .com loyalists with small to medium sized .com portfolios? or dot whatever else you have and are worried that out of the countless gTLDs even if only <1% of those became popular extensions one day that end-users would not pick yours. Don't worry dot com ain't going anywhere. But you're going to have to work just a bit harder in the future to sell them to end users. Don't get me wrong - I love dot com. But dot com has interesting new neighbors.

.red is not good, not even domainers think so, hence the low regs - 798

.center is at #10 but not even 14,000 and based on what people are regging, most of them aren't good

with what you regged with .voyage and making sense. Tell me why macau voyage makes sense, seeing that it gets - - search a month, meaning 0. I'm only looking at it from the U.S., so maybe it's better somewhere else? Where.

And no, .com owners aren't worried about it. It's like this running idea people investing in new gtlds think.

Also the red/network is a bit of a stretch. Maybe somebody who speaks Spanish would know better. I tried one of the translators online, this came up first:

red [red]
noun
1. Net (pesca), particularly for fishing and fowling.

So people should register something in .red which is red to most people, but somehow they're supposed to know it's Spanish for a net used for fishing? And the registry disagrees with you, since it's a color, that what they said.

 

[loupe]

That's the problem, they are niche TLDs with very tiny pools of possible end users (buyers).
If you look at industry-specific TLD: .jobs .travel .museum .aero .coop .etc - all are failures.
I don't see why everything is now suddenly different. It's nothing new really, it's the same old game that has already failed, now rolled out in king kong size™

Well .co was also supposed to mean the country of Colombia . . . and still does. But American startups are using it.

In .co there are some sales but not sure I would call it a market. And that is for a TLD with a volume of 1.6M+ registration. In proportion, what kind of market do you expect in a TLD that has got 10000 regs, possibly less, and nowhere near the same level of promotion.

Niche / Specific, yes, most are. But the biggest difference is the scale and awereness it is slowly creating. With only a few like jobs / travel / museum (etc) it was limited and only targetting a few sectors. Now everything can and is targetted. Sky is the limit for the end-user ! This is why it is now not a good idea to judge such niche TLD on its numbers.

A good business won't depend on a TLD for its success. People visiting it won't say "oh wait, that's a new TLD lets not visit the website and get that product"

And you know what ? This is good news actually for the domainer of all sizes ! Finally a bigger playing field with more options to get something good. No more a limited playing field with a few lucky players who got in a long time ago on the .com train and the rest can do with some shitty 3-4-5 word domains.