discuss .LINK binge continues

[ThatNameGuy]

".LINK is no worse than .XYZ".....like the .com loyalists despising the .xyz insurgence, the .xyz loyalists despise the .link insurgence.

While most of the really good "single word" .link domains have been registered still a few remain. For example, the day after Thanksgiving I was able to register Thankfulness.link that happens to be no worse than Thankfulness.xyz or Thankfulness.com.

In the way of an update.....domains under management aka DUM has grown from 200,000 to 221,000 since May, and 1,500 of those I've registered. In addition, i have it from some reliable sources that "Good News is Coming"

 

[Eric Lyon]

@ThatNameGuy -

I think you've made it clear now that you are deliberately avoiding the questions meant to help all potential and existing .link investors/resellers following this topic. Your posts in this thread made it seem as if you were seasoned in this niche and that readers should follow your advice. I may have been mistaken by the context of your replies/posts, which led to my sincere attempt to learn more from you with the questions I outlined.

Taking a closer look, your posts appear to be more promotional, geared to try and get NamePros members to visit the domains you link drop in a majority (if not all your posts).

I would advise readers of this thread to not take any of your .link advice at this point (At least until you have some verifiable sales or development experience in the .link niche).

Please try not to mislead any newer .link investors/resellers.

I wish you the best in your .link ventures. Please consider some of the advice some more seasoned members have offered and don't be to quick to sweep the knowledge they offer under the rug.

 

[Joe N]

@ThatNameGuy - While we're talking about your latest initiative, do you have any updates for us on these ones?

"Simpli"

In the last 24 hours I've registered 50 domains that start with Simpli.........com, from SimpliSexy.com to SimpliDiamonds to SimpliFragrance to SimpliAmazing to SimpliVegas etc.

As an entrepreneur all my life, I know a little about creating markets and setting trends. While naysayers will use every excuse known to man to squash an idea, it's up to others to "Make Something Happen"

.Golf

Speaking of golf...I've now hand registered over 50 word.Golf domains that a registry has agreed to partner with me to help sell at the Worlds Largest Amateur Golf Tournament in Myrtle Beach, SC in August. I'll have a booth displaying my company and my domain business, and it will be manned by a female PGA golf professional who I've also agreed to partner with.

Outbound marketing

Domain professionals here on NP and elsewhere seem to think outbound marketing won't work, although they claim to have tried it, and FAILED miserably. Personally I believe it will work, "if" done right. In my case, the first thing I need to do is attract a savvy technical individual who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

.Club
"if you're trying to tell me the 250+ .Club domains that I recently purchased for $1 each, that appraise for tens of thousands of dollars, and that I also have a business model/plan for, you simpli don't understand anything about risk" (link)

"757"

I recently learned about Geo specific domains and have a portfolio of "757" domains like Welcome757.com, 757Mortgage.com and Ocean757 etc. In about 30 domains that I paid $300 for, I've covered most of the industries that exist within the "757". As such, I plan on taking a similar idea to other regions of the US.

.Homes

I've invested to date less than a thousand dollars for about 90 .homes domains. These domains are in an industry, real estate and home building, that I happen to know a lot about and have a lot of connections. When you combine that with my sales and marketing experience and my 50 years of experience in the NAME business it makes no sense to put my hard earned dollars to work anywhere else.

.Realty

Without going into too much detail I just picked up 55 .realty domains, and I'm seeking other NP members input for speed marketing these domains...

...my main plan is to "outbound market" .realty domains and develop a custom website specifically targeting agents, brokers and new agents.

.Online

I see .online as serious competition for the millions of .com domains hiding in the wine cellar just collecting dust because the average business consumer just can't afford them.

 

[Eric Lyon]

Eric....i'm not your typical domainer nor do i care to be. I've been in a buying/accumulation mode for the last six months according to plan. For example, if I were to come to Houston to go into the real estate business with a million dollar line of credit to buy, sell, rent and flip real estate, how long do you think it would take me to develop a portfolio?.....six months? a year? maybe two years? It takes time right? As I said, I've invested way more time researching and buying .link domains than money.

Moving on, it's pretty obvious to me that I'm not the only one following the developments with .link. Isn't this why you're here? How about other members like JMCC, Jean G., Brad, Joe N, Bob Hawkes, Nick and others?

As you know the world is paved with good intentions, and I do intend to have my domains listed in pretty short order. And now that I've decided on the name Varsity Domains for my marketplace, i plan to have that up and running either via Efty or my own website in 90 days.

Finally Eric, i'm not going anywhere and I have enough cash on hand to be able to renew all my .link domains when they come up for renewal giving me time to get my shit together And that's not to say I'll be renewing them all.

Good luck with your surgery Eric, and hi to Amanda.

That answers #6 below. Thanks

1. You started the thread with 1,500 registrations of .link. How many .link are in your portfolio today?
2. Since you started this thread in Nov. 2022, how many .link domains have you sold (Average STR = Sell Through Rate)?
3. Out of the number of .link domains you sold, what is your average ROI (Return on investments)?
4. Since Nov. 2022 have you noticed an uptick in .link registrations (Assuming you monitor it since you are so invested into it)?
5. How many of the .link domains in your portfolio are developed now?
6. Are you mostly listing .link domains on 3rd party sales landers, internal landers, parking them, etc.?
7. When checking analytics for your most popular .link domains, where is the most traffic coming from (E.g. Are your NamePros posts driving most the visitors to them, organic searches, other...)?

What about #'s 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7?

It seems you are avoiding most the questions/inquiries that could help potential and existing .link investors. I'm trying to help keep track of them for everyone by striking out each in the list when answered (There's no right or wrong answers, it's more like an interview that benefits everyone reading this topic). Could you help out and provide some more insight on the other inquiries please?

Thanks.

 

[Joe N]

Once you understand there's literally no technical difference between Networking.com. Networking.xyz and Networking.link, you may begin to understand what I already understand.

Sounds exactly like what someone would say if they themselves don't understand anything.

 

[Recons.Com]

Yep, impossible to share sales when you don't have any.

Still I wish you the same remarkable success with .link as you had with .realty and .online.

Sharing those sales is akin to introducing your imaginary friend to someone.

 

[bmugford]

Why do you think they're so cheap? You're obviously not a visionary, nor do you believe in your own marketing expertise. Once you understand there's literally no technical difference between Networking.com. Networking.xyz and Networking.link, you may begin to understand what I already understand.

Last i checked networking is a BIG DEAL, GD considers link a keyword, and Linkedin has over 700M members, and I have reason to be HOPEFUL


Not to worry Joe.....i've helped others make a lot of money over the years

You are like a broken record dude.

".LINK is no worse than .XYZ"

"All domains work the same"

"LinkedIn blah blah"

Why are you trying to make the same tired arguments on a forum full of domain investors? No one cares.
Shouldn't you be trying to convince potential end users instead?

.LINK is no worse than .ONLINE. How did the .online binge work out?

Also, actual visionaries do visionary things. They don't talk about being a visionary.

It requires more than just registering a bunch of terms in some low demand extension to be a visionary.

Brad

 

[jmcc]

One thing that makes .LINK different from most other new gTLDs is that it is a Truckstop TLD or a Gateway TLD. People don't necessarily go to a .LINK website but rather to a .LINK link to get to another website. That makes it similar to .CO or .EU ccTLDs. It also makes it much more difficult to price these domain names for resale. It is something that has been seen quite often in the domain name business. RealNames ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealNames ) was an early effort that depended on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The .EU was supposed to be a ccTLD for the European Union but tragic mismanagement by the European Commission doomed it to being a Truckstop TLD with low levels of website development. (Around 18% Web Usage.) More .EU domain names redirect to other websites than are developed as native .EU websites. It also has a very large number of brand protection registrations from businesses in the EU that keep renewing each year. That was from 2005. The .CO ccTLD, relaunched as a generic ccTLD in 2010, capitalised on its similarity to .COM.

Due to the overuse of discounting, the number of domain names in a zone file is no longer a reliable metric of the success of a TLD. Measuring the success of a TLD is a complex business. ICANN formed a working group/advisory panel in 2016 to try understanding the market. ICANN uses the monthly registry reports for some of these metrics.

These are the reports for .LINK and the transactions are in CSV format and can be imported into Excel spreadsheets. They have a three month delay for publication.

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/link-2014-06-18-en

Regards...jmcc

 

[Joe N]

Joe, this thread is about binging on .LINK domains.

You actually didn't define any limits in your original post.

You may like to know Joe that GD considers the word half as a keyword and they value it @ $4,915.

Rich, I have an insider secret for you: every word is a keyword. You don't have to wait for GoDaddy to tell you what is and isn't.

Any idea why they might do that Joe? Any idea how I might use this information to sell the HalfOff.link to an enduser?

I wish I did have an idea, but I've been waiting for you to make good on this plan for five years, and I still have nothing more than a few dozen variations of this statement/question.

 

[zomainhacks]

Any sales so far?

 

[DrJacoby]

Here is a quick math lesson for @ThatNameGuy on why registry premium domains rarely make sense.

The average STR for domains is around 1%-2% a year.

That STR is generally for extensions like .COM. Secondary extensions are usually lower.

If you have a $118/year fee that means on average you need to sell the domain for $5,900 (2% STR) to $11,800 (1% STR) just to break even.

So you basically need either a much higher STR or much higher sale price for the math to work.

Brad

The math doesn't apply to Rich, because he's a visionary.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

The math doesn't apply to Rich, because he's a visionary.

 

[domain hacks]

Probably one of the best threads on Namepros so far, I really like coming back reading answers, even though I know I won't learn a thing...still, good laughs are guaranteed.

 

[Eric Lyon]

WOW!.....15 pages and counting, and no telling how many anonymous followers I see you're still in Houston where a friend of mine (NASA Astronaut) is still stationed. Hows your wife and kid (wish I could remember their name)? Eric...as you know I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm sure you know the answer to most of your questions.

To bring you up to speed, it was last May when I first read an article written by Andrew Allemann titled;

Domain investor acquires .link top level domain​

Upon verifying some of the information I'd read I started buying .link domains and as of today I own about 1,600 names with about 50 of them being Premium names for which I paid about $100 each and another 1500 for which I paid about $2 each. Thus, I have a total of about $8,000 invested. Time invested is a different story, but like with anything I do, it's been fun.

While I don't know them well, I've done my best to develop a relationship with the new owners and management @ Nova Registry, LTD in Malta. Bottom line, i like the story I'm reading/hearing "between the lines"

Finally Eric, there was a time I thought we might be doing some business together but it never came to fruition Email or PM me if you'd like, and Happy New Year to you and your family.

That answers #1 below. Thanks

1. You started the thread with 1,500 registrations of .link. How many .link are in your portfolio today?
2. Since you started this thread in Nov. 2022, how many .link domains have you sold (Average STR = Sell Through Rate)?
3. Out of the number of .link domains you sold, what is your average ROI (Return on investments)?
4. Since Nov. 2022 have you noticed an uptick in .link registrations (Assuming you monitor it since you are so invested into it)?
5. How many of the .link domains in your portfolio are developed now?
6. Are you mostly listing .link domains on 3rd party sales landers, internal landers, parking them, etc.?
7. When checking analytics for your most popular .link domains, where is the most traffic coming from (E.g. Are your NamePros posts driving most the visitors to them, organic searches, other...)?

What about #'s 2 thru 7?

My family and I are doing ok, thanks for asking. I have a pending 2nd surgery in the very near future (Fingers crossed that turns out ok without additional complications). But that's a completely different topic.

Let's stay on the .link topic. Your answers could potentially help with data points that potential and existing .link investors may find helpful.

I look forward to learning more about the above remaining inquiries.

 

[Eric Lyon]

For perspective:

.link is an active gTLD that was proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The Registry and manager of the TLD is Uniregistry.[1] The proposed application succeeded and was delegated to the Root Zone on 18 January 2014.[2]

Source

.link has had almost a decade to generate traction and data points, so I don't think it's premature at all to expect to see some movement with the extension by now.

Sales reports for .link

• NameBio.com reports 146 total entries for .link sales dating back to 2018 - The majority are in the low three-figure range
• DnSal.es reports 200+ total entries for .link sales dating back to 2014 - The majority are in the low three-figure range

It's nice to see a couple of the top sales developed, like: App.link and eth.link

Though it's a bit discouraging to see other top sales still parked, landed, redirects, or 404 errors like: 8.link, cloud.link, we.link, smart.link, z.link, secure.link, etc.......

The sales above are all in the 5-figures dating back almost a decade in some cases with plenty of time to develop them or find a new home.

With so many still sitting, it begs to bring concern that resellers/investors are having a very hard time finding actual end users for the .link assets and that the renewals stacked on the initial investments are potential financial losses every year. At some point (1, 2, 3+ decades later) such stacked investments may not be able to bounce back with a green profit margin and become destined for a red margin in loss.

Of course, not all .link domains are created equal and some are considered premium in quality with potentially a higher market demand.

As with all extensions, you can only pass them around between other investors at slightly marked up wholesale pricing for marginal profits so much before the hot potato is no longer interesting enough for another investor to take a chance on. At that point, either an investor is left holding the proverbial hot potato bag for an ultimate loss or it landed with a bonified salesman with niche market experience and contacts that can actually put the potato in the hands of a new start-up or existing company looking to rebrand for a profit.

Determining the safe hot potato threshold is the ultimate challenge so that there is still interest and wiggle room to at least make a quick marginal profit at whole liquidation in the event the investor needs capital fast, has an emergency financial situation, or wants to pivot to a different niche without being stuck holding that proverbial bag.

At any rate, I got a little long-winded. So I'll stop there for now and look forward to seeing any data points and insight other members have to share regarding .link to change my mind.

 

[DrJacoby]

Sharing those sales is akin to introducing your imaginary friend to someone.

LOL, yeah pretty embarrassing.

 

[NickB]

What could of been Rich.......

With the budget you had/have you could of built an impressive portfolio of .com | 1 word .org | 1 word .io or any other decent extension..... even one or several outstanding one word .com domains for the money you have spent - you had/have the pockets to build a really strong portfolio.....

You know what they say about pride?......swallow it, stop fighting these perceived injustices, stop rebelling against what works to try and prove a point and do the simple things - I'm dam sure if you did this and followed the good advice that people have shared you will do very well.......which would be nice to see....

Buy a good domain and pay someone to set up a good website, if you don't want to use Afternic or Sedo... you can even get them to list your domains on there and set up Escrow and/or DAN for payments for you - invest in quality domains and then use LinkedIn and any other vehicle you want and put that marketing expertise to good use.....

People have spent a lot of time sharing their expertise with you - helped me learn a few things following these threads for the last few years....hopefully the penny drops at some point

 

[jmcc]

It wasn't until such time I discovered the registry's for the new gTLD's really didn't care to work with me despite my being their biggest supporter and promoter.

The reason for this is because the more sensible registries are trying hard to appeal to the Mom and Pop registrants who go on to build websites on the gTLDs. This creates a kind of virtuous circle for the registries with people seeing developed websites, registering their own domain names and then building their own websites. Some new gTLD registries set their registration fee at a multiple of that of .COM because that creates a kind of golden handcuffs for the registrant in that they come to think of their registration as being more valuable because they paid more for it.

The .LINK has been using discounting promotions to build registration volume. That means a low price for year one which shoots up on the second year. Discounting offers are a very cynical business model because most registrations don't make it past their first renewal. The .LINK is not the worst of the new gTLDs in this respect. Some of the new gTLDs can see 80% or so of the zone from a year ago deleted when compared to a current zone.

The new gTLDs are not going to be .COM killers. It simply has too much momentum. The best way to approach them is to look at the dominant markets in them (are they US/EU/AU/China/India etc dominated). That's where the demand for them exists. However, the perennial problem for the new gTLDs is that they are operating in highly competitive markets. For the EU, over 80% of the registrations are split between the local ccTLD and .COM gTLD. With the US, the .COM is the de facto ccTLD while .US is the official ccTLD.

One of the things that some of the supporters of the 2012 round of new gTLDs did not appreciate the costs involved in getting a gTLD established. Marketing is expensive and the marketing budgets were too low or built on a Field of Dreams fallacy. This lack of consumer awareness resulted in people adding a '.com' to the new gTLD domain names. The .LINK seemed focused on the idea of the Semantic Web where the extension, the TLD, makes the domain name memorable. The problem for new gTLDs is that people think in shortcuts. The .COM is the obvious extension for the US so almost everyone outside the domain name industry assumes that a domain name is a .COM. It is similar with the ccTLDs in that people living in a country with a strong ccTLD will assume that a domain name will have a .IE or .UK or .DE if it is targeting their market.

I'm not quite sure how your .LINK venture will work out but good luck with it. When you cross the thousand registrations mark, it becomes a volume game and you will have to decide which domain names to renew and which to drop. The real danger is in becoming a true believer and stopping treating your .LINK venture as a business.

Regards...jmcc

 

[DrJacoby]

I don't share my sales and you should know that by now.

Yep, impossible to share sales when you don't have any.

Still I wish you the same remarkable success with .link as you had with .realty and .online.

 

[bmugford]

Well, like stated. I can see it in use but you'll have to ask yourself, who will buy it for a decent enough number to make it worthwhile to invest in? Since its $118 a year... Say you sell it for mid $xxx, add 10 year renewals. That's a good budget to get you started looking for a decent .com at the aftermarket which renews at just $10/year with much more certainty when it comes to selling probability.

Here is a quick math lesson for @ThatNameGuy on why registry premium domains rarely make sense.

The average STR for domains is around 1%-2% a year.

That STR is generally for extensions like .COM. Secondary extensions are usually lower.

If you have a $118/year fee that means on average you need to sell the domain for $5,900 (2% STR) to $11,800 (1% STR) just to break even.

So you basically need either a much higher STR or much higher sale price for the math to work.

Brad

 

[Joe N]

Joe....you should know by now that I don't have any renewal fees for .online, .homes or the realty names. I sold a few of them, but barely enough to cover my original costs.

Lol. Good one, Rich. So how many domains are you holding now, besides your .link names?

Finally, and I know you'll enjoy this.....i just started a "LINK" gTLD Users Group on Linkedin last night. It's very crude but it's a beginning, and I think you'll agree Linkedin with over 70M members is the perfect venue for it. Any more questions

You were going to explain how the user group would benefit .link buyers.

 

[DrJacoby]

Just as an fyi Doc....... .LINK added 6,450 new domains today. Since you're a groupie I thought you might like to know

No, I'm here for the good laughs.

Quite funny that it's five years in and you still haven't learned what gives a domain name value. It's like you're stuck in newbie phase forever. You're not even competent enough to list your domains on Afternic. A random 7 year old child could do that.

 

[Joe N]

This time it's different Joe? How so......just like there are no two snow flakes exactly alike, no two startups are exactly alike, and i should know having started dozens of businesses.

When applying the SWOT analysis to my latest venture/.link, my greatest strength is that I believe in myself. While you like to point out my failures, i focus on my successes both in life and in business. That said however I do learn from my failures of which I've had a few. So how is my venture into the .link business different? First, i don't know if you've ever been involved with or participated in a turnaround of anything Joe, but i have I first noticed .LINK when domain investor Yoni Belousov purchased the new gTLD from Frank Schilling of Uniregistry the first of this year. Bottomline, .link was a big mess. Schilling had given up on .link and left many of their Premium domains on the table......by that I mean I was able to register dozens of Premium domains like Nursing.link for $118 in June of this year that were dropped by Uniregistry way back in 2017.

Moving on, having been a member of Linkedin for over 10 years I felt a special connection to the keyword link. I felt even more of a connection when I learned that Linkedin has 875 Million members all over the world.

Finally, i have the financial where with all to renew most if not all of my portfolio annually regardless of whether I make a single sale. Like I said in my previous post.....i'm in it to WIN IT

None of that makes this venture even a little different from your other ones, Rich. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Your other ventures always started by you "noticing" a great opportunity in the extension.

Your other ventures always relied on working with a massive, unrealistic partner/business in some vague and unrealistic way.

Your other ventures were always so promising, that while you were promoting them, you claimed a willingness to renew many of your names.

@NickB has some great advice for you above. Put that business experience to work and make a real plan.

 

[Joe N]

Here's what a friend and one of the most respected "Top Contributors" on NP had to say about .link;

"I had not heard until your post that the new owners of .link had been announced, finally. Good to hear one is a successful domain investor. In my view .link was by far the most valuable of the auctioned TLDs from the former Uniregistry. I hope the new owners will manage the TLD well.

The extension is more generic than many new TLDs, and has reasonable renewal rates, both positives."

While this isn't an endorsement Joe, it speaks volumes imo.

There are a lot of generic gtlds. And actually, .link is not as generic as you might think... The term itself speaks to connecting people to information and websites. What about other more commercial uses, like shopping, trades, investment, professional services, etc? How many major corporations - or even mid-to-smaller sized business - will want to build their website around the concept of linking?

If .com isn't available, they're more likely to opt for truly generic alternate extensions, like .net, .org, .co, .io, .xyz, or their relevant ccTLD. And what about other not-yet-popular generic extensions like .one, .onl, .ooo, .gdn, .website, .site, .top? How will .link stand apart from all of them?

Note further that I don't need to convince you, but the "end user" needs to be convinced.

Yes, so I'm wondering how you will convince the end user that .link is worth using.

You quoted someone else, but what do you think?

Unfortunately most of the critics here are bias, but that can me a good thing. What do you think Joe?

I think most of the criticism you receive here is quite constructive. All opinions will be flavored with bias, so your job is to parse out the objectively good advice and use it to constantly improve your investing skills. Don't let bias for your own opinions and ideas cloud your judgment too much.

 

[NickB]

I mean......dam.......

It's like talking to a brick wall that wanted to argue with cement

No point - I'm beginning to think that Rich is a proxy for these shitty extensions and gets paid to promote them in this obtuse format........probably lures in a few suckers.....

 

[jmcc]

Curiously JMCC this thread seems to to be drawing a modicum of attention......i wonder why? As I just said to DN Playbook......most "business owners" don't even know what a TLD is However, therein lies a HUGE opportunity in my playbook. .link is simply a means to an end (website), and it's no more complicated than that Happy New Year!

Likewise. The problem with business owners and domain names is that they often are exposed to a very limited number of TLDs. Mostly, it is the local ccTLD, .COM, .ORG and .NET. The .NET has been in decline as a first choice TLD since the mid 2000s.

ps. fyi, to go with Waterford.link, the latest binge buy registered VisitIreland.link

Ireland it is a complex market. The .IE ccTLD has about 324K registrations. The number of Irish hosted .COM domain names (Dec 2022 figure) was 126,785. There are approximately 9,951 .EU Irish hosted .EU domain names and 30,836 .UK domain names. There were only 45 Irish hosted .LINK domain names. It is doing better than .CLICK whick only has 35. The visitireland.link might be of interest to the tourism industry. The waterford.link one would need careful handling because of the Waterford trademarks (Waterford Crystal).

When a country becomes ccTLD dominant, how people think of domain names and URLs changes. They begin to identify with the ccTLD as being their TLD. That means that the extension becomes psychologically invisible because people expect that a business aimed at them will use the local ccTLD. The naming dynamics on the right of the dot also change in that business names and geographical keywords are more important. The simplest way to think about it is in like asking someone for directions to a shop. They may give the street name or, if in a different city, the city name too. They won't give the country name (the ccTLD extension). What may seem to be a good generic domain name in .COM may have no local context in a ccTLD. and people, including business owners, think in terms of local context.

It might be an opportunity but the main market for .LINK could still be the US. The problem is that there was very little effective marketing done for the gTLD when it was a Unireg gTLD and there's very little brand awareness of the gTLD. It might be the best mouse trap ever invented but if people don't know that it exists, they won't buy it. From the latest registration stats, the industry is heading for a few rough quarters. The 01 January 2023 .COM total (158,597,872) was down from that of 01 December 2022 (159,095,744). The latest ICANN registry report total (September 2022) for .COM was 164,806,555. The total on the Verisign Zone count page ( https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-registry-products/zone-file/index.xhtml ) for 01 January 2023 was 160,518,100. The ICANN registry reports are delayed by about 3 months for contractual reasons. However, the monthly net results .COM went negative a few times (more deletions than additions in a month) during 2022. Some of the ccTLDs have also lost regs over 2022. Some of it is due to the Covid regs washing out of the zones.

Regards...jmcc