Majority of The Internet Is Squatted

[smartynames]

We analyzed 12 million domains and learned that most of them are unused or squatted. Now, I understand that a lot of people here will start beating me down for using the word "squatted." Before you do that though, consider looking at the data. The point isn't to crap on your business, but to shine the light on it.

https://smartynames.com/internet

If .COM has 400 mil registered domains and 200 mil of them are unused, that in my opinion is a big sign, but whether it's good or bad, that's for you to decide. Some people might think it's awesome, and others might worry. On one hand, it's a huge opportunity to sell domains, on the other, it's a lot of competition.

I'd love to know your thoughts on the matter so that I could do further research in the right direction. Given the data, what else would you like to know about these domains?

For example, if you sell domains with a word "donuts" in them, would you like to know how many other domains with "donuts" are listed for sale, and for how much? I'd be curious to learn this stuff, just because I am curious. But I'd love love love to know what others are curious about, so I can make an inclusive list.

Let me know!
Kirill

 

[Daniel Owens]

It would in a way make sense for people to have to have a landing page for their website in order to own the domain but it would be a lot of work for the average domainer. And, yeah millions of unused .coms can make it harder to sell for high prices. At the same time good domains always sell IMO.

 

[smartynames]

It would in a way make sense for people to have to have a landing page for their website in order to own the domain but it would be a lot of work for the average domainer. And, yeah millions of unused .coms can make it harder to sell for high prices. At the same time good domains always sell IMO.

What do you think is the proportion of domainers that have a website listing all of the names in their portfolio? Would that be a desired feature?

 

[Daniel Owens]

What do you think is the proportion of domainers that have a website listing all of the names in their portfolio? Would that be a desired feature?

Yes

 

[marijuanadomain]

We analyzed 12 million domains and learned that most of them are unused or squatted. Now, I understand that a lot of people here will start beating me down for using the word "squatted." Before you do that though, consider looking at the data. The point isn't to crap on your business, but to shine the light on it.

https://smartynames.com/internet

If .COM has 400 mil registered domains and 200 mil of them are unused, that in my opinion is a big sign, but whether it's good or bad, that's for you to decide. Some people might think it's awesome, and others might worry. On one hand, it's a huge opportunity to sell domains, on the other, it's a lot of competition.

I'd love to know your thoughts on the matter so that I could do further research in the right direction. Given the data, what else would you like to know about these domains?

For example, if you sell domains with a word "donuts" in them, would you like to know how many other domains with "donuts" are listed for sale, and for how much? I'd be curious to learn this stuff, just because I am curious. But I'd love love love to know what others are curious about, so I can make an inclusive list.

Let me know!
Kirill

Majority of The Internet Is Squatted​

dudh---what don't you understand--- go to www.BullShitWebsites.com
it tells them all
yea yea yea I believe everything on the internet is so true

Welcome to BullshitWebsites.com – Website of the Year!!​

BullshitWebsites.com – Websites (humans too) that provide useless garbage BS info, fake news and trying to sell you something that you don’t need and always enticing you to spend more money! Time Waster Websites!!​

 

[branding]

Cool story. You lack defining your definition of 'squatted' and I'm afraid without a clear definition of what you think it means it would make an useless exercise to do further research.

 

[J.R.]

Black's Law Dictionary defines a squatter as: one who settles on another's land, without legal title or. authority. A person entering upon lands, not claiming in good.

Your use of 'squatted' is lazy, outdated, and a not too subtle image smearing attempt within a forum of domainers.

The term you are looking for is registered and undeveloped.

Correction: We analyzed 12 million domains and learned that most of them are undeveloped.

 

[jmcc]

Not knowing how many domain names are active in .COM does not help with having any confidence in your survey. It is 158,773,262 as of today. It isn't 400 million.

Every month, I run a survey on approximately 218 million gTLD domain names and their websites. I am not sure what data you based your conclusions on or your methodology.

How do you define "unused"?

What is the source of your sample?

How representative is your sample of the set of gTLD?

Approximately 8.6% of the active .COM domain names are on sale. Typically, less than 35% of a gTLD like .COM will have a developed website but that does not mean that the domain name is "squatted".

Regards...jmcc

 

[JB Lions]

Mods, shouldn't this be in the advertising section.

 

[smartynames]

Not knowing how many domain names are active in .COM does not help with having any confidence in your survey. It is 158,773,262 as of today. It isn't 400 million.

Every month, I run a survey on approximately 218 million gTLD domain names and their websites. I am not sure what data you based your conclusions on or your methodology.

How do you define "unused"?

What is the source of your sample?

How representative is your sample of the set of gTLD?

Approximately 8.6% of the active .COM domain names are on sale. Typically, less than 35% of a gTLD like .COM will have a developed website but that does not mean that the domain name is "squatted".

Regards...jmcc

Thanks! From our estimate (the very right column in the graph), 165,316,555 domains are "active," that being all the domains which are not actively on sale, parked, expired, or unused. That's a pretty close number to your 158 mil. I'd say it's pretty good, given ours is based on a statistical estimate.

As per the source, the sample, and the method, I've described that all in our research. It's based on ICANN data, and a scraper that looked at 12 million domains.

I am curious, when you say that you survey 218 million gTLD domains, do you also run a scraper on them, or is that some kind of an actual survey the owners respond to?

 

[jmcc]

Thanks! From our estimate (the very right column in the graph), 165,316,555 domains are "active," that being all the domains which are not actively on sale, parked, expired, or unused. That's a pretty close number to your 158 mil. I'd say it's pretty good, given ours is based on a statistical estimate.

Your number for the set of active domain names in .COM is wrong and it is also out of date by three months if using the ICANN reports as a reference. The total number of domain names in .COM including domain names that have been removed from the zone as they are in a grace period, pending deletion or removed for legal reasons was 165,528,158 from the May 2023 ICANN report. The current full .COM count is 160,865,491 with an active (domain names in the zone) count of 158,773,262. Those are registry and ICANN reports numbers.

As per the source, the sample, and the method, I've described that all in our research. It's based on ICANN data, and a scraper that looked at 12 million domains.

The gTLDs have different uses and different rates of usage.

I am curious, when you say that you survey 218 million gTLD domains, do you also run a scraper on them, or is that some kind of an actual survey the owners respond to?

I don't do sociological surveys and most WHOIS data went dark in May 2018 due to GDPR. One of database tables here also includes the historical usage for each domain name by month since 2021.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Peter45]

Now, I understand that a lot of people here will start beating me down for using the word "squatted." Before you do that though, consider looking at the data.

Hi Kirill,
I'm the one who just Liked you, as - advertising or not - your data are interesting.
That said, definitions - the meaning of words - don't depend on data.
Using squatted or some other term... the difference between squatting and hoarding, don't depend on data.
Imo


You write

We analized 12 million domains and found that about half of all .COM domains are unused, around 72-96% of alternative TLDs are basically in lounge mode too, and domain squatters are spending 2 Billion dollars a year on hoarding, and that is just for .COMs.

Squatting means occupying ground which belongs to someone else.
Not very good.

Cybersquatting - domain squatting - implies bad faith.
Definitely bad.

Treating hoarding and squatting as synonyms i.e. entering this forum and addressing - de facto - your interlocutors as squatters, wasn't - strategically speaking - very helpful

 

[marijuanadomain]

Majority or almost all websites are useless
BullShitwebsites.com

 

[ivey]

Stop these Misleading posts that gives domain owners a bad name.

Unused does not equal to squatted.
They are thousands of unused apartments in New York City, where many are desperate for apartments.
The owners are filthy rich; some being from other countries
These people paid for the apartments and own it.
Just because somebody needs an apartment or wants the exact apartment they own.. does not make the rightful owner a squatter.
They do not have to live in the apartment to own it
Some people do real estate as a business- it's called an investment
which means they purchased it to resell it one day for a profit
Others may own it - to one day use it if they visit the city or state for vacation or a permanent move one day


Squatting: I won't use google for this... but in my understanding, squatting is living on a property that is owned by another person or entity. Such as what we often see in the news- where the real owner who paid for their house struggles to get the squatters out.


The last time i checked: Domain owners owned the domain names.
So where did the word "squatting" come from?

Let me tell you where it came from: At-least from listening to non-domainers.
Most people who are unfamiliar with domain investing- often want to use a domain that's already owned by another person. The other person may not be running a business yet on the name- and maybe never will because it's an investment or a personal buy. (so the buyer gets frustrated since it's owned already and the asking price may be out their ball park(they're are some occasions where domainers overprice domains, but even this can be subjective.. you have fair market price, and then you have what buyers are willing to pay). But anyway, the buyer gets angry and overtime they define un-used domains as squatted.

Food for thought: The internet been around since the 90's right? So do you expect a domain, especially a good one, would stay unregistered waiting for you to be born and stay unregistered until 2023???
Of-course not. So you can't get mad at someone for owning a name you want. secondly, you would have to hate every apartment owner, every play-station owner who doesn't use their game, every owner of anything unused. I have some un-used boxers in my draw... i hope i'm not squating?

 

[ivey]

Hi Kirill,
I'm the one who just Liked you, as - advertising or not - your data are interesting.
That said, definitions - the meaning of words - don't depend on data.
Using squatted or some other term... the difference between squatting and hoarding, don't depend on data.
Imo


You write


Squatting means occupying ground which belongs to someone else.
Not very good.

Cybersquatting - domain squatting - implies bad faith.
Definitely bad.

Treating hoarding and squatting as synonyms i.e. entering this forum and addressing - de facto - your interlocutors as squatters, wasn't - strategically speaking - very helpful

Bad faith is registering a domain you know is being used by someone or a business already.. or a similar domain and you're hoping to make money off their hardwork. In the cyber world... squatting is equivalent to what i just said or outright stealing.

If someone owns a domain for the purpose of investing then that's called a business.
That's literally what the most basic form of business there is
you buy something at one price and try to sell it for a reasonable profit
But you have people throwing out the word squatting simply because they realize the domain is already owned but not used... just like thousands of apartments in NY and all over the world.

Squatting is not even a legit term unless you owned the digital or physical property and someone else illegally uses it. Such as living in a house owned by another person without their permission.

 

[smartynames]

@Rory Ivey : You hit the nail on the head. The word squatting came from listening to the non-domainers. That's how 9/10 people would describe domains that are not available.

Your real estate analogy is correct, with a caveat. Real estate is expensive. While "expensive" is relative, and a one bedroom in New York could cost 5 million bucks, the same bedroom could cost 155k in some forgotten town in the middle of nowhere state. But, it still costs relatively a lot. You can save money and invest, and own a few properties.

In domaining, you could go out and buy the whole state of Utah, and then extract any value for your property from anyone who might want to settle in Utah. In fact, because the model is so crappy, you basically have to buy the whole state, and then make all your money from a handful people who want to settle there. And that is precisely what people don't like.

 

[ivey]

@Rory Ivey : You hit the nail on the head. The word squatting came from listening to the non-domainers. That's how 9/10 people would describe domains that are not available.

Your real estate analogy is correct, with a caveat. Real estate is expensive. While "expensive" is relative, and a one bedroom in New York could cost 5 million bucks, the same bedroom could cost 155k in some forgotten town in the middle of nowhere state. But, it still costs relatively a lot. You can save money and invest, and own a few properties.

In domaining, you could go out and buy the whole state of Utah, and then extract any value for your property from anyone who might want to settle in Utah. In fact, because the model is so crappy, you basically have to buy the whole state, and then make all your money from a handful people who want to settle there. And that is precisely what people don't like.

Not liking something and cybersquatting are two different things. The domain owner is still the owner- regardless of greed or fair pricing. It's sort of like Tyler Perry being frustrated that BET was giving an outrageous asking price. He can be frustrated and even correct that BET isn't what it once was and is overvalued. But the owners are still the owners. In addition, i have seen non domainers being angry that a name is just $700 too. I believe there has to also be education and marketing to the non-domainer world so they understand hand-regs are priced at $12 because they are not the same as aftermarket domains or premium domains. And many people don't value the name of their business. And then you have million dollar companies who lie about bootstrapping a business and in compassion you sell a solid name for $850 and boom they have millions raised already and just waiting to publish the website.

The only thing that would be workable to amend the issue of overpriced domains would be to have some sort of market value law or rule, where the domains can't be above a certain percentage above that market value.. based on similar sales and current stats. But that would be too complicated and cause a circus. But their would be great legitimacy if the domain market had some way to truly appraise value. like all other business have. So the real issue isnt cyber squatting.