discuss If Domain Investors are Squatters Then Domain Registrars Are the Biggest Ones of All

[TCK]

This article is not about bashing domain investors or domain registrars. Rather it is about setting misconceptions straight and putting things in perspective.

What motivated this piece is an article on the Forbes website that was reported on by TheDomains. It was about a “leadership strategist” and writer who was starting a new consulting business.

Read the entire piece here

It was written with the end-user as the target audience. What are your thoughts?

 

[Internet.Domains]

I still can't believe Verisign allowed an employee to call us "squatters."

It's like an employee of a medical insurance company calling a person who visited a doctor a "fraudster."

 

[TCK]

It is still a general misconception among end-users who know very little about domain names and think that their choice should be available at $10 and if they offer $50 then they think its a great deal for the seller.

 

[GenericDomainz]

Guys, if you register not for 1 year(and renew), but for all 10 years in first day, you are not "the squatter", you are "The Owner" :DDDD

 

[JayT]

Guys, if you register not for 1 year(and renew), but for all 10 years in first day, you are not "the squatter", you are "The Owner" :DDDD

Someone wrote that if your register domain in advance it's a ranking signal for google to put your site SEO higher! If you look them up on whois:
Registrar: MarkMonitor Inc.
exp: 2020-09-13

 

[TCK]

Someone wrote that if your register domain in advance it's a ranking signal for google to put your site SEO higher!

I think it may help new sites on new domains get out of Google’s sandbox sooner. Not sure how impactful to SEO that would be for established sites that have been renewing their domains for years. That’s because spammers only register for 1 year and then drop the domains, so Google keeps all new sites on new domains in a sandbox.

That is one of the benefits of buying aged domains.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I think this article was discussed in another thread, but essentially it seems at least, an overly pro .inc take. The model of pushing it as your exact company name (at least in jurisdictions where that is inc) is not without merit. $2000 per year is a lot for a small company, although some of the extras they include will have value to some. For a big company $2000 is small change.

Bob

 

[TCK]

I think this article was discussed in another thread, but essentially it seems at least, an overly pro .inc take.

Yes, I am sure. However, the piece is not about that article. That article only served as the impetus. The piece is geared towards anyone who considers domain investors as "squatters". As mentioned, the intended audience is end-user.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I think the article makes many good points, particularly pointing out that domain investors are not squatters. As mentioned many get it wrong. I like the article much more than title. Sure registrars now big part aftersale market but to me that is only loosely related to main article focus. Thanks for posting it.
Bob

 

[TCK]

@Bob Hawkes

Thanks for taking the time to read the article.

The point of the article is that domain registrars participate and benefit in a big way from the aftermarket, thanks in large part to domain investors. Yet the average person has no issue with that. But when investors sell domains independently, they are quickly labeled as “squatters”.

It’s like saying that auto dealerships are fine, but selling a car privately is unethical.

Lastly, the article points out that even registries are jumping on the bandwagon with premium pricing, which actually models aftermarket pricing, and even launching their own marketplaces exclusive to “premium” SLD/TLDs they control. In effect competing with registrars and investors.

There are also other arguments in the article that show why investors are not squatters.

 

[DomainGuy86]

If I buy a house wih my hard earned money and then sell it for a capital gain in a few years...is that squatting?

No, it's called capitalism and the idea of property rights enshrined into the law.

There are many alternatives available to projects if they need to seek out a name at a reasonable price (reg fee). SEO rankings have become a level playing field as long as you have some value to offer.

You have to pay to play...like everything else in life

Let's talk about how pharmaceutical companies markup items like epipens, to the detriment of those who need them.

A domain is a property with exclusive rights issued to the purchaser. Like a 20-year patent. Credit is given to those first-movers. Those salty about it should of been faster.

 

[MolaRam]

So property investors must also be squatters because they bought the property of someone else's choice?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

In my long post somte time ago (just after the Verisign blog post) defending the domain market I make some analogies that might be helpful.

• Domains are created. They exist because someone came up with them. As with any creative product you must be highly compensated for a few to make up for those no one will choose.
• Investing in domains is somewhat like investing in startups. A few pay off even though most fail. If no one was creating and investing in domain names useful things like brandable marketplaces would not exist.
• If there was no domain aftermarket it would be hopelessly inefficient to find and make a transaction for a domain name. It would be like art locked away and forgotten in millions of attics. We indirectly fund and maintain a robust and efficient place to find domain names

Here is link to full opinion piece
https://nametalent.com/2018/11/why-we-need-the-domain-aftermarket/

Bob

 

[DomainGuy86]

Without a domain aftermarket the registrars' profit would retreat significantly.

They need us just as much as we need them. This label of "squatting" is patently absurd...and really, registrars openly market their domain extensions and appraisal services solely to cater to domain investors.

Not to mention the shill bidding and expired domain sales that handsomely reward registrars further.

This is clearly a case of a for-profit company biting the hand that feeds them.

Must be trying to polish their image for strictly PR purposes...but anyone can see the hypocrisy.

What's not mentioned is the time, creativity, market research, and the millions in combined losses involved in domaining.

Our time and effort is worth something. The notion of "squatting" is antithetical to our very REAL work.

 

[LaunchUp.com]

Once you paid for something; it's yours. End of story.

The creative part just reinforces it more.

There needs to be a movement to legally acknowledge domain names...as creative works just like art or music. Naming companies are a real thing...brands use these companies daily for products etc.

Especially brandables and two word domains...

But all in all; you paid for it. It's yours. How can you squat on your own property.
Those talking about squatting are the real squatters, to see your property and think it should be theirs without compensation.

 

[lock]

Just don't try sell cancercure dot com some guy here on reddit was virtually assonated for something similar.

 

[TCK]

Once you paid for something; it's yours. End of story.

But all in all; you paid for it. It's yours.

It’s not a question of ownership, imo. It’s people’s ignorance as to resale value.

Also, people spamming with bad domains just recently registered to sell at 10-100x the reg cost doesn’t help the perception.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I don't know if it will ever happen, but domain investing and the perception of domainers, in my opinion, would both be helped if the sell through rate was higher but price margin less. I can't really think of any comparable product, except possibly art, with such low probability of sale but high margin. It is only natural that people judge domains with the ruler of other products they buy.

Bob

 

[Eagle578]

If domainers are deemed to be squatters, then unfortunately every person, company, entity, whatever, who owns property or merchandise which they are not making use of but hold to sell for a profit later on, are squatters. For example... your local dairy.

Unfortunately the bias against domainers stems, in my opinion, largely from the fact that domains were once upon a time (essentially) free for all, but are now much less accessible due to "those" who recognized the business opportunity and were able to move with the times. I guess you could say, it is a lamentation... "Once upon a time, it wouldn't have cost me so much to obtain a good domain name... Those were the days..."

A bit like a modern property buyer in the US saying, "If only the early American settlers back in the 1700's would have refrained from claiming land which they didn't need, then I wouldn't have had to pay so much for a property now..."

As was the case with the early American settlers and many other nations in history, if there is unclaimed ground available and you claim it, its yours. Besides which, as @dnplaybook.com commented in another article, domainers don't simply grab good domains as easy as the flick of a finger and sell them for 1000 times the price. For the most part, it is a business which requires the input of large amounts of money, time, and other resources.

That's just my newbie opinion.

 

[Jv1999]

We are squatters, and glorifying what we do doesn't change that fact.

You can see it everyday, like someone grabbing a deleted .com like WhiteFencesAreGreat.com and then asking an end user to buy it for way higher the very next hour

I think if it were legal to capture air on earth, domainers would try to grab all the air and sell it to people to breathe... sure you can call it "capitalism" or the tragedy of the commons... But that doesn't make it right.

Like air, an obscure domain like WhiteFencesAreGreat.com would have been available for that one end user who was going to use it when the time came for him to search for it. But a domainer happened instead.