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"

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Well, nit-picking aside, however many thousand you spent on .link names could have been spent on some technical help.

I do remember those ideas! I also remembered how they stayed as ideas when you didn't find a partner, which is why I was curious.

But don't despair, Rich! I wrote a Christmas domaining parody that might cheer you up:

Happy holidays!

Thanks Joe, but I don't need cheering up. I actually have the very best partner money can't buy, and you heard it here first in the form of three domain's i recently registered;

JesusGolfs.com

JesusGolfs.org

JesusGolfs.link

Joe.....you don't know the story behind these domains but my partner suggested that I register them. I wonder WHY

 

[Joe N]

Thanks Joe, but I don't need cheering up. I actually have the very best partner money can't buy, and you heard it here first in the form of three domain's i recently registered;

JesusGolfs.com

JesusGolfs.org

JesusGolfs.link

Joe.....you don't know the story behind these domains but my partner suggested that I register them. I wonder WHY

Does JC have coding experience? Maybe get him started on listing those 1,500 names.

 

[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.....

 

[MadAboutDomains]

[COLOR=hsl(263, 39%, 37%)]Jesus[/COLOR][COLOR=hsl(137, 44%, 46%)]Golfs[/COLOR].com

[COLOR=hsl(263, 39%, 37%)]Jesus[/COLOR][COLOR=hsl(168, 100%, 33%)]Golfs[/COLOR].org

[COLOR=hsl(263, 39%, 37%)]Jesus[/COLOR][COLOR=hsl(168, 100%, 33%)]Golfs[/COLOR].link

Those are fantastic domains. I wish I could find ones as good as those.

 

[Joe N]

Those are fantastic domains. I wish I could find ones as good as those.

Your wish is granted:

JesusDrinks.beer

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Your wish is granted:

JesusDrinks.beer

Surely not cause that one makes sense in English...

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I might register JesusTennises.xyz. it's functionally no different to any other domain so it's worth it.

 

[Joe N]

Thanks Joe, but I don't need cheering up. I actually have the very best partner money can't buy, and you heard it here first in the form of three domain's i recently registered;

JesusGolfs.com

JesusGolfs.org

JesusGolfs.link

Joe.....you don't know the story behind these domains but my partner suggested that I register them. I wonder WHY

Rich, was your wife okay shelling out the $30 for those instead of saving for some development work?

 

[Croc]

I own freespeech.link and dc.link, but those are the only two .LINK I have out of around 250ish domains in my portfolio.

 

[Joe N]

I own freespeech.link and dc.link, but those are the only two .LINK I have out of around 250ish domains in my portfolio.

Those are solid .link names.

Prepare to be contacted for a once-in-a-lifetime partnering opportunity.

 

[bmugford]

Thanks Joe, but I don't need cheering up. I actually have the very best partner money can't buy, and you heard it here first in the form of three domain's i recently registered;

JesusGolfs.com

JesusGolfs.org

JesusGolfs.link

Joe.....you don't know the story behind these domains but my partner suggested that I register them. I wonder WHY

You need an intervention when it comes to registering domains.

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Does JC have coding experience? Maybe get him started on listing those 1,500 names.

Last I checked my partner JC can do anything. I'm not sure if you were aware of this Joe, but Christianity is the largest religion in the world with over 2 Billion followers. That's about 500M more Christians than Muslims, and over a Billion more Christians than the 850M members at Linkedin Ironically my partner had registered Christianity.link for me back in May without my permission so he may feel obligated to help me get it listed.

Seriously though, I don't recall registering it, but I register so many domains I'm not surprised.

Joe, i don't know who your guy is or if you even have a guy, but you know those two "Holes In One" I made after creating the game called 9Time™? Well, the chance meeting with Renee Powell, PGA professional whose Dad Bill Powell was the first and only African American to design, build, own and operate a golf course in Canton, Ohio in 1948 should tell you why I own the domain JesusGolfs.com

I wonder if Buddha or Allah play golf Joe? That would be my dream foursome; Jesus, Buddha, Allah and Me. Maybe that's a game waiting for me in Heaven

 

[ThatNameGuy]

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.....

"shitty extensions".....Nick, i'd have to go back and check, but I don't recall you calling .link shitty? Why the change of heart?

 

[ThatNameGuy]

I own freespeech.link and dc.link, but those are the only two .LINK I have out of around 250ish domains in my portfolio.

Like Joe said.....both FreeSpeech.link and DC.link are "solid .link names" Crock, i Just sent you a Linkedin invite, and while I own Alligator.link and Gators.link one of my very best domains that I've owned for a few years now is Welcome321.com. I don't know if you understand it's significance, but it has some serious potential if you know what I mean. Merry Christmas to you and everyone at Real Life

 

[Joe N]

Last I checked my partner JC can do anything. I'm not sure if you were aware of this Joe, but Christianity is the largest religion in the world with over 2 Billion followers. That's about 500M more Christians than Muslims, and over a Billion more Christians than the 850M members at Linkedin Ironically my partner had registered Christianity.link for me back in May without my permission so he may feel obligated to help me get it listed.

Seriously though, I don't recall registering it, but I register so many domains I'm not surprised.

Joe, i don't know who your guy is or if you even have a guy, but you know those two "Holes In One" I made after creating the game called 9Time™? Well, the chance meeting with Renee Powell, PGA professional whose Dad Bill Powell was the first and only African American to design, build, own and operate a golf course in Canton, Ohio in 1948 should tell you why I own the domain JesusGolfs.com

I wonder if Buddha or Allah play golf Joe? That would be my dream foursome; Jesus, Buddha, Allah and Me. Maybe that's a game waiting for me in Heaven

Rich, "Allah" is Arabic for God.

Why did you put quotes around Holes In One? Were they only supposed holes in one?

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Rich, "Allah" is Arabic for God.

Why did you put quotes around Holes In One? Were they only supposed holes in one?

Joe i know Allah is God.....why do you think i own the domain GodGolfs.com

With regards to the the quotes around "Holes in One", because my partner Jesus had a say so, i just felt i should share the credit. Besides, haven't you seen the articles featuring my "Holes in One"?

Joe, this is the eve of my partners birth so we'll be celebrating for the next few days....care to joinus.link

 

[Joe N]

Joe i know Allah is God.....

Well yeah, now that I told you.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Well yeah, now that I told you.

Joe, insinuating that I didn't know Allah is God to Muslims is like saying I didn't know that Muhamad Atta lived here in Virginia Beach before he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Who do you think arranged for the 72 Virgins

On a .LINK note.....i just started organizing my 1,500+ .link portfolio and was pricing my domains for market. At first blush I wasn't going to ask much for GOATS.link until I realized it would make the perfect site for the "Greatest Of All Time" athletes, to world leaders, to entrepreneurs, to domainers, to Gods.

Especially with names like goats.com and goats.xyz unavailable, i would think the domain GOATS.link would be way more valuable than the $2.39 I paid for it. What do you think Joe?

Regardless, i'm looking for 2023 to be the best year I've ever had in business, and my partner and I have had some pretty good years

 

[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

 

[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

 

[ThatNameGuy]

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

Fabulous advice JMc.....as i sit here wearing my 'Lovely Day for a Guiness" cap that I got at a pub in Dublin 25 years ago Your explanation as to why registries seem reluctant to work with me makes a lot of sense, but I appear to be making some headway. I recently got this advice from a domain industry professional,

"I think it now makes sense to sell a domain name added to a service. Just the domain by itself won't seduce buyers enough. Domainers do not create usage, usage is required first for a TLD to generate interest I believe."

John, this sort of goes hand in hand with what you're saying, and it's my business background and experience that may add enough value to my .LINK domains to make this venture worthwhile.

With regards to the renewal factor of my 1,500 .link domains, the total cost to renew the 50 Premium domains I own at $116 each is $5,800 and the remaining 1,450 domains is approximately $12,000. As you can see from these renewal fee's it appears to be very manageable.

I'll share more later, and thanks so much for your generous comments.....finally, I just luv HosterStats.com

 

[ThatNameGuy]

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 (see Wiki) 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.

Regards...jmcc

WOW JMc....this post/response is more valuable than your first. I had no clue what a Truckstop or Gateway TLD are, and after a few minutes of research I'm still not sure However I do understand the "RealNames" idea especially for a custom email address. This said, i do own Nursing.link and it crossed my mind that in addition to other Nursing services/applications at the site, names like FloreceNightingaleLPN.link could be sold to any of the 28M nurses in the world. Understanding this to be a possibility should help a lot in the pricing. Also knowing that SAW and other domain appraisers value Nursing.com at well over a million dollars and that Nursing.xyz is for sale by Swetha for 130K, will help with my pricing.

Also thanks for the link to the ICANN stats....they're very helpful and timely

 

[jmcc]

WOW JMc....this post/response is more valuable than your first. I had no clue what a Truckstop or Gateway TLD are, and after a few minutes of research I'm still not sure

Most retail TLDs (not brands) have domain names that redirect to websites in other TLDs. Normally, that's just brand protection. When the percentage of redirects is greater than the percentage of developed domain names in a TLD, the TLD becomes a Truckstop or Gateway TLD. (It is a phrase that describes a kind of Web Usage seen with various TLDs.) That's because users just go there before intending to go somewhere else. Some TLDs accidentally become Truckstop TLDs either through management decisions or lack of demand. The .LINK is intentionally a Truckstop TLD because that's the main selling point. Valuable keywords can be used to drive traffic to the registrant's primary website. The logic is that of type-in traffic rather than search engine traffic. The ICANN Wiki entry has some of the thinking behind the gTLD.

https://icannwiki.org/.link

The mistake that Uniregistry/Frank Schilling made with some of the Unireg gTLDs was in reserving too many premium domain names through an associated registrar. That suppressed the natural landrush that most newly launched TLDs experience for the first six months of operation and domainers, who would have driven interest in the gTLDs, largely ignored them. Without the landrush spike, the gTLDs had to rely on brand protection registrations and opportunistic registrations. When it launched in April 2014, it had 23,399 registrations. Of these, 19,283 were on Uniregistry.

There was aslo a bubble in the gTLD caused by Chinese registrations and even the notorious Alpnames registrar (terminated by ICANN) had over 45% of the registrations at one stage.

https://www.thedomains.com/2016/09/...arts-deleting-its-230000-uniregistry-domains/

Regards...jmcc

 

[Joe N]

Joe, insinuating that I didn't know Allah is God to Muslims is like saying I didn't know that Muhamad Atta lived here in Virginia Beach before he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Who do you think arranged for the 72 Virgins

Yikes, Rich. Sure hope that was a joke.

Especially with names like goats.com and goats.xyz unavailable, i would think the domain GOATS.link would be way more valuable than the $2.39 I paid for it. What do you think Joe?

It's better than most of your names for sure. GOAT would be better.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Most retail TLDs (not brands) have domain names that redirect to websites in other TLDs. Normally, that's just brand protection. When the percentage of redirects is greater than the percentage of developed domain names in a TLD, the TLD becomes a Truckstop or Gateway TLD. (It is a phrase that describes a kind of Web Usage seen with various TLDs.) That's because users just go there before intending to go somewhere else. Some TLDs accidentally become Truckstop TLDs either through management decisions or lack of demand. The .LINK is intentionally a Truckstop TLD because that's the main selling point. Valuable keywords can be used to drive traffic to the registrant's primary website. The logic is that of type-in traffic rather than search engine traffic. The ICANN Wiki entry has some of the thinking behind the gTLD.

The mistake that Uniregistry/Frank Schilling made with some of the Unireg gTLDs was in reserving too many premium domain names through an associated registrar. That suppressed the natural landrush that most newly launched TLDs experience for the first six months of operation and domainers, who would have driven interest in the gTLDs, largely ignored them. Without the landrush spike, the gTLDs had to rely on brand protection registrations and opportunistic registrations. When it launched in April 2014, it had 23,399 registrations. Of these, 19,283 were on Uniregistry.

There was aslo a bubble in the gTLD caused by Chinese registrations and even the notorious Alpnames registrar (terminated by ICANN) had over 45% of the registrations at one stage.

Regards...jmcc

Thanks for the .link history lesson. It was your site @ Hosterstats that confirmed the Frank Schilling/Uniregistry "mistake reserving too many premium domain names". When I was able to buy/register premium names like hollywood.link, dollar.link, country.link and revolution.link for $116 each (renewed @ $116) I felt I'd stumbled on to something pretty special. I actually had a list of about 50 more names like these I wanted to buy, but one day back in August they were all gone

Finally, i can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Happy New Year, and when I get back to Ireland, we'll have to share a pint or two