gTLD registrations have peaked. With a rocky road ahead, how long until the crash?

[pfj]

Worrying stats from nTLDstats.com - for the last two weeks, new gTLD registrations have been almost static, and are actually starting to decline. Where previously we saw 10k, 15k, 20k new registrations per day, for a sustained period now registrations have ground to a halt. In the two weeks to date we should have expected to see an increase of almost 350,000 domains, but in fact we've seen a LOSS of 7,644.

This is something that I've expected to see happen for months as the inflated figures of various registries begin to adjust - i.e. the low/no-cost "puff" registrations are dropped. .XYZ tried to combat this earlier in the year with their huge promotional event, but you can only do a bargain basement sale once or twice before people lose confidence.

I see this as a sign that the market has reached saturation. Registries have failed to communicate the real benefits of new TLDs while businesses and individuals are failing to adopt them. The number of active sites using new gTLDs seems to be tiny compared to the number of domains registered. This causes a huge problem for investors as the whole gTLD sector risks becoming contaminated.

Christa Taylor/dotTBA's analysis of the first six months of new gTLD performance on Circle ID brought to light some stark realities: a huge number of registries are operating at a loss, and if registrations continue to fall away, the writing is on the wall for many of these registries. I'm confident that we will see a number of registries cease operations in the next 6 to 12 months.

Total number of gTLD registrations:

July 12th: 22,951,202
July 24th: 22,943,558
Increase/decrease = -7,644 (0.03% decrease)

Even with only a 1.5% increase over the period (which is less than similar periods) we should have seen around 345,000 domains being added, bringing the total to around 23,295,470 so this is a startling difference.

Comparing similar periods from previous months:

June 12th: 22,071,306
June 24th: 22,531,238
Increase/decrease = +459,932 (2.28% increase)

May 12th: 17,513,791
May 24th: 18,016,647
Increase/decrease = +502,856 (2.87% increase)

April 12th: 16,726,767
April 24th: 17,030,054
Increase/decrease: +303,287 (1.81% increase)

Compare Christmas/New Year 2015/2016 (which might be expected to be a quiet period)

December 22nd: 10,987,060
January 3rd: 11,241,742
Increase/decrease = +254,682 (2.31% increase)

Same period last year:

July 12th 2015: 6,570,729
July 24th 2015: 6,676,608
Increase/decrease: +105,879 (1.61% increase)

 

[Kate]

It is amusing to experience the very same arguments again now for a third time. If you never learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.

It is funny because the thread started well but since you posted this, it's now beginning to be littered with bad advice. I also think some domainers are not just blind but greedy.
They should stop thinking they are in the same league as Rick Schwartz. Very few domainers can be compared to Rick Schwartz. When you have domains like men.com candy.com etc yes you are the king. You can afford to hold out for the very best offer, because you get unsolicited offers all the time. When you own new extensions you are just another me-too sorry !

PS: indeed nothing has changed since the era of .tel .mobi etc. It's still the same game with different players. But it's more like a Running man game: the players of the day are so blind and hopeful they don't even bother to research the past and find out where the previous players are now...

I am not saying one should never buy a new extension for development purposes. What I'm saying is that they are not a good investment for pure play domaining purposes. Sure it is possible to make sales but the risk/reward ratio is not great. Demand is more sporadic too so it's more like playing lottery.

At present .com are still much easier to sell, thus less risky.

The fact is, new extensions are still not mainstream (in spite of what some domainers predicted) and they are not even gaining much traction vs the 'legacy' TLDs.
The future is of course open to discussion and hard to predict with 100% accuracy. But the present is what it is and has to be acknowledged.

 

[dordomai]

The .com will still be advertised, for the same reason, so only the aforementioned domains will compete with .com because of their beauty and simplicity (For example city.bank vs city.com).

I think that is part of the problem. When talking about the potential of .whatever we always show the best combos for .whatever. City.bank looks OK but what if the brand was called "City"? Will city.bank really be such a good alternative? Or will city.com be king?

Another example: Nestle.

Is nestle.food, home.nestle a good choice or is nestle.com the only thing that makes sense.?

There are many combos that don't look good and that don't work with .whatever. .com always works well with a brand.

Hasbro.games ? .Play.Hasbro? Home.hasbro?.. Ferrari.cars, drive.Ferrari, Home.Ferrari, EN.Ferrari?

They all suck. They are also quite confusing because what is of the left side of the dot varies and needs to memorized or guessed.

 

[Mr Dobalina]

Everyone will change their opinion in 2 years.

 

[dordomai]

Everyone will change their opinion in 2 years.

they said the same thing 2 years ago. If the nGs are not successful after 3 years they won't dominate after 10 years either. 1 year left to show what they are capable of. So far not much has been seen.

At the moment they are struggling to add more registrations and that despite .top and .xyz and others giving domains away like crazy.

Nothing new really.

After all, .com means (commercial) where .co traditionally means (company). In many ways, .co makes more sense than .com for a company’s domain.

I’m not saying that .co is an immediate threat to .com. Please don’t blow out of proportion my comments. I’m just saying it is the biggest threat. I can’t think of any other extension which would have the same potential.

https://web.archive.org/web/2009062...e-aftermarket-finally-real-competition-to-com

 

[Kate]

Not sure why you would want to blame the bad advise given here on me

I didn't. It is a misunderstanding. I was in fact emphasizing your own comment. I have nothing against you.

 

[ambrose.xu]

u can check this --- https://namestat.org/s/newgtld-summary ,
after 7000+ dropped, it took off again.

 

[Landov]

More than double.....Wine.Club was sold for $140000.
The price is double buy it now $349977 at Sedo

The good combos left . right are not so many and are in the hands of the domainers.

If you own a top new gTLD domain, don't be afraid to ask 6 figures for it!

If you own a premium new gTLD domain, don't be afraid to ask 5 figures for it!

Promote the domains with their price!

The large and the medium companies will battle for the name.

The small companies will register the not-so-good ones.

 

[TopShelf Domains]

They all suck. They are also quite confusing because what is of the left side of the dot varies and needs to memorized or guessed.

I never type in a keyword.com or a brand.com if I do not know the exact website. I always use google. If it is my first time going to hasbros site I will not just guess and go to hasbros.com I will search Google and click on the first result. Why? Because Nissan is a good reason why. Even Tesla before was not on tesla.com. I am not going to waste my time guessing their address when I can just search for their brand site via Google.

But this is just me. I am sure the older crowd does things differently and tries to guess sites typing in keywords.com

For example if I know the address to amazon is amazon.com but I want to go to their toys section I will go to Amazon.Toys.

It is also pretty good for advertising. More kids today are going to remember Amazon.Toys than amazon.com

 

[dordomai]

But this is just me. I am sure the older crowd does things differently and tries to guess sites typing in keywords.com

For example if I know the address to amazon is amazon.com but I want to go to their toys section I will go to Amazon.Toys.

It is also pretty good for advertising. More kids today are going to remember Amazon.Toys than amazon.com

Few are guessing urls today. I am talking about returning traffic and advertising. Something almost everyone will do.

Or do you type Namepros in Google every time you want to visit the site?

More kids today are going to remember Amazon.Toys than amazon.com

Based on what evidence? They type fb.com youtube.com all day long but they will remember amazon.toys better than amazon.com?

I believe a lot of things but this I don't believe. A kid today is more likely to recognize amazon.com as an URL compared to Amazon.Toys.

This is wishful thinking which has never worked as an investment strategy. If you want to invest in nGTLDs you need to make realistic assumptions.

They are not better and neither will they be more popular.They can be used for certain niche usages or as an alternative URL and this will be reflected in far lower sales prices and much less sales volume. They can not replace brand.com in the current state.

 

[jamesosix]

I never type in a keyword.com or a brand.com if I do not know the exact website. I always use google. If it is my first time going to hasbros site I will not just guess and go to hasbros.com I will search Google and click on the first result. Why? Because Nissan is a good reason why. Even Tesla before was not on tesla.com. I am not going to waste my time guessing their address when I can just search for their brand site via Google.

But this is just me. I am sure the older crowd does things differently and tries to guess sites typing in keywords.com

For example if I know the address to amazon is amazon.com but I want to go to their toys section I will go to Amazon.Toys.

It is also pretty good for advertising. More kids today are going to remember Amazon.Toys than amazon.com

Quoted for truth.

I very rarely go directly to any site, with the odd exception of email, or fb etc.

 

[promo]

The prime reason why .com will always be king of the extensions is quite simple.

Because no other extension will ever be able to market their extension in the way .com has been marketed. Billions and billions in marketing have been spent directly promoting websites ending in .com and what equates to further billions in indirect marketing through popular culture.

The first 30 years of the internet if a website was spoken or shown in a movie. It was .com. All this equates to .com being = internet. They get free advertising in all sorts of ways. It is preferred in all sorts of ways...

Your phones have a .club button?

 

[Kate]

More kids today are going to remember Amazon.Toys than amazon.com

Really ?

And then Amazon will also have amazon.books, amazon.electronics, amazon.dvd, amazon.kitchen etc ?
It's not practical to fragment your online presence, it even dilutes your branding. It's best that consumers remember only one URL which acts as a starting point.

.toys is a relevant TLD for companies that specialize in toys. Not for a company like Amazon that sells anything.

 

[dordomai]

Really ?

And then Amazon will also have amazon.books, amazon.electronics, amazon.dvd, amazon.kitchen etc ?
It's not practical to fragment your online presence, it even dilutes your branding. It's best that consumers remember only one URL which acts as a starting point.

.toys is a relevant TLD for companies that specialize in toys. Not for a company like Amazon that sells anything.

amazon.com/toys would work too BTW. It's not that a nTLDs is required for that.

 

[dordomai]

The prime reason why .com will always be king of the extensions is quite simple.

Because no other extension will ever be able to market their extension in the way .com has been marketed. Billions and billions in marketing have been spent directly promoting websites ending in .com and what equates to further billions in indirect marketing through popular culture.

The first 30 years of the internet if a website was spoken or shown in a movie. It was .com. All this equates to .com being = internet. They get free advertising in all sorts of ways. It is preferred in all sorts of ways...

Your phones have a .club button?

Show attachment 35681

the future will be 1000+ different .whatever buttons one for each extension. that way direct navigation will be far more efficient and less complicated unlike the current .com clusterf***

 

[dordomai]

toys is a relevant TLD for companies that specialize in toys. Not for a company like Amazon that sells anything.*

interestingly, if you try find the best name for toysrus:

rus.toys?
toysrus.toys?
toysrus.com?
toys.com?

The first 2 don't work well. Home.toysrus isn't great either.

mattel.toys
mat.tel
mattel.com

In that case the first isn't as bad but .com still better IMO.

.brand or brand + .whatever often does not work well.

Another example:

home.overstock
over.stock
o.co
overstock.shop
overstock.shopping
overstock.com

Most of these are horrible combos!

 

[pfj]

u can check this ---
after 7000+ dropped, it took off again.

It hardly took off again - going by ntldstats - my original source - there has been a net addition of only around 16,000 domains since July 12th - across 400+ registries. That's TERRIBLE. That's just over 1000 domains a day. There are 400 registries with around 1500 or more registrations. That means that averaged out each of these registr9es is adding about 18 - 19 domains a week. They'd make more money selling cookies door to door.

My point of the original post was to highlight the fact that two years into the new gTLD project many registries are running at a huge loss, and struggling to get even a few registrations a week - purchasing domains in new gTLDs is speculation in the purest sense, because these registries may not exist in a year or two years.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Registries don't care about us... why you care about them???

 

[RU]

Show attachment 35681

galaxy s7?))

 

[Wass]

If you own a top new gTLD domain, don't be afraid to ask 6 figures for it!

If you own a top new gTLD domain, don't be afraid to ask 6 figures or 7 figures for it!

 

[pfj]

Registries don't care about us... why you care about them???

I don't. But I do care about people who are wasting money buying domains in registries that are going to end up bankrupt.

 

[dordomai]

It hardly took off again - going by ntldstats - my original source - there has been a net addition of only around 16,000 domains since July 12th - across 400+ registries. That's TERRIBLE. That's just over 1000 domains a day. There are 400 registries with around 1500 or more registrations. That means that averaged out each of these registr9es is adding about 18 - 19 domains a week. They'd make more money selling cookies door to door.

My point of the original post was to highlight the fact that two years into the new gTLD project many registries are running at a huge loss, and struggling to get even a few registrations a week - purchasing domains in new gTLDs is speculation in the purest sense, because these registries may not exist in a year or two years.

It's even worse than that because a large part of regs come from a few registries that market them very aggressively and give the domains away below $1 dollar.

9,635 Net Gain +23,882 (of which 10k are from .top alone)

These giveaways will not last forever because they are not profitable. Over 50% of registries are not profitable from what I have read.

 

[Raymond C]

It's even worse than that because a large part of regs come from a few registries that market them very aggressively and give the domains away below $1 dollar.

9,635 Net Gain +23,882 (of which 10k are from .top alone)

These giveaways will not last forever because they are not profitable. Over 50% of registries are not profitable from what I have read.

They need to drop the price to $2.......

 

[TopShelf Domains]

or do you type Namepros in Google every time you want to visit the site?

No I type in the first letter and see the most recent websites listed in the address bar drop down.

 

[TopShelf Domains]

fb.com

Never knew they had it and I bet most don't either.

 

[Mr Dobalina]

All of your .coms are losing value by the day.