New gTLD cheat sheet

What many domain investors don't understand is that the new gTLD's are very much about branding. A lot of people just simply don't, and never will, get it, but that doesn't mean you need to make a lot of silly investments due to your lack of a knack for marketing. Yes, you read that right: you can from here forward stop throwing a little less of your money down the loo! Below you will find a cheat sheet with a brief rundown of which new gTLD's will weather the storm and have any significant relevancy in the coming years.

But.. but... how do you know?!! you must be wondering.

"Surely he must either be in possession of a magical crystal ball, or perhaps has been visited by a time traveling domainer from the future!"

Those are, of course, very natural assumptions, but in fact, the answer is much simpler: I have always had a natural knack for marketing, which happens to be a valuable, yet commonly-overlooked trait when it comes to domain investing. What really makes one domain better than the other? Why isn't shorter always better? If you don't have a good grasp on the psychology of marketing, you're at a disadvantage already in this business. Many domainers are very technical-minded people who don't actually understand the basics of what makes a domain name valuable; there's a lot more to it than statistics. [Having expertise of the language you're dealing with is crucial as well!]

Want to save yourself some time and money and get around all the bs you see thrown around here on an hourly basis?

Read on.




You will know it is time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring, like this.




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Just kidding. This won't take long.

There are sooo many new gTLD's that I will initially go over just a handful. Curious about one I've not included? Comment below.



Let's begin now.


- - -


Read these aloud:


CNN com (doesn't sound so great, but it's ingrained in our minds)
CNN top
CNN xyz
CNN win
CNN link
CNN click
CNN bid
CNN management
CNN site
CNN news
CNN web
CNN website
CNN tech
CNN VIP
CNN club
CNN onl
CNN online
CNN TV

Apple com
Apple top
Apple xyz
Apple win
Apple link
Apple click
Apple bid
Apple management
Apple site
Apple news
Apple web
Apple website
Apple tech
Apple host
Apple VIP
Apple club
Apple onl
Apple online
Apple TV

Google com
Google top
Google xyz
Google win
Google link
Google click
Google bid
Google work
Google ninja
Google management
Google site
Google web
Google website
Google news
Google tech
Google host
Google VIP
Google club
Google onl
Google online
Google TV

Sony com
Sony top
Sony xyz
Sony win
Sony link
Sony click
Sony bid
Sony work
Sony ninja
Sony management
Sony site
Sony web
Sony website
Sony news
Sony tech
Sony host
Sony VIP
Sony club
Sony onl
Sony online
Sony TV

Boston com
Boston top
Boston xyz
Boston win
Boston link
Boston click
Boston bid
Boston work
Boston ninja
Boston management
Boston site
Boston web
Boston website
Boston news
Boston tech
Boston host
Boston VIP
Boston club
Boston onl
Boston online
Boston TV

New England com
New England top
New England xyz
New England win
New England link
New England click
New England bid
New England work
New England ninja
New England management
New England site
New England web
New England website
New England news
New England tech
New England host
New England VIP
New England club
New England onl
New England online
New England TV

Times com
Times top
Times xyz
Times win
Times link
Times click
Times bid
Times work
Times ninja
Times management
Times site
Times web
Times website
Times news
Times tech
Times host
Times VIP
Times club
Times onl
Times online
Times TV

Reddit com
Reddit top
Reddit xyz
Reddit win
Reddit link
Reddit click
Reddit bid
Reddit work
Reddit ninja
Reddit management
Reddit site
Reddit web
Reddit website
Reddit news
Reddit tech
Reddit host
Reddit VIP
Reddit club
Reddit onl
Reddit online
Reddit TV

Toy com
Toy top
Toy xyz
Toy win
Toy link
Toy click
Toy bid
Toy work
Toy ninja
Toy management
Toy site (not terrible actually, in this case)
Toy web
Toy website
Toy news
Toy tech
Toy host
Toy VIP
Toy club
Toy onl
Toy online (kind of meh actually in this case)
Toy TV

Toys com (doesn't sound so great, but it's ingrained in our minds)
Toys top
Toys xyz
Toys win
Toys link
Toys click
Toys bid
Toys work
Toys ninja
Toys management
Toys site
Toys web
Toys website
Toys news (the plural doesn't work well)
Toys tech
Toys host
Toys VIP
Toys club (the singular is far better!)
Toys onl
Toys online
Toys TV (the singular is far better!)



LawnMower com (doesn't sound so great, but it's ingrained in our minds)
LawnMower top
LawnMower xyz
LawnMower win
LawnMower link
LawnMower click
LawnMower bid
LawnMower work
LawnMower ninja
LawnMower management
LawnMower site
LawnMower web
LawnMower website
LawnMower news
LawnMower tech
LawnMower host
LawnMower VIP
LawnMower club (doesn't really fit the extension that well, but many product.club's do)
LawnMower onl
LawnMower online (the singular is meh)
LawnMower TV (doesn't fit the extension)

LawnMowers com (doesn't sound so great, but it's ingrained in our minds)
LawnMowers top
LawnMowers xyz
LawnMowers win (no they don't)
LawnMowers link
LawnMowers click (well, they shouldn't)
LawnMowers bid (no they don't)
LawnMowers work (well, hopefully they do)
LawnMowers ninja
LawnMowers management
LawnMowers site
LawnMowers web
LawnMowers website
LawnMowers news
LawnMowers tech
LawnMowers host
LawnMowers VIP
LawnMowers club (doesn't really fit the extension that well)
LawnMowers onl
LawnMowers online (buy lawn mowers online)
LawnMowers TV (doesn't fit the extension)

Namepros com
Namepros top
Namepros xyz
Namepros win
Namepros link
Namepros click
Namepros bid
Namepros work
Namepros ninja
Namepros management
Namepros site
Namepros web
Namepros website
Namepros news
Namepros tech
Namepros host
Namepros VIP
Namepros club
Namepros onl
Namepros online
Namepros TV


THE CHEAT SHEET:

.com is KING, and always will be.... although there is undoubtedly a growing list of viable alternatives.
.top sucks (top? what?)
.win sucks (see above)
.xyz sucks (so obvious it's not even worth getting into)
.site sucks (it's redundant, in a way much worse than .online)
.web sucks (world wide web.... what year is it?!)
.website sucks (it's just so clunky, without the branding appeal of .online)
.click sucks (isn't clicking on the way out anyways? Tap is the new click)
.link sucks (unless a company like Datalink can get Data.link)
.bid sucks
.work sucks
.ninja sucks (let's face it, the ninja thing is passé)
.management sucks (this is one gtld I can dismiss based solely on its length)
.news overall not a lot of great domains, compared to many gtld's, but can work well for brands, niches, short geos
.tech overall a pretty big meh investment-wise, but it will work for some companies (brand.tech)
.host overall a pretty big meh investment-wise, but it will work for some companies (brand.host)
.vip overall a pretty big meh investment-wise, but it will work for some companies (brand.vip)
.club is nice for a wide variety of purposes and will weather the storm
.onl sucks (dot O N L..... are you kidding me?)
.online makes sense. Don't believe me? Well, "online" is the most common domain suffix in the world...
.tv makes sense, and will continue to grow in usage (yes I know it's technically a cctld)


BONUS:

.net: desirability will continue to decline, as there are tons of new not-com options that are more meaningful
.org: desirability will slowly decline, but .org will still be the go-to for non-profits
.info: will slide further into irrelevancy
.biz: will slide further into irrelevancy
.mobi: will slide further into irrelevancy (yes, that is indeed possible)

ccTLD's (country codes like .de .nl etc) will overall hold steady, but generic alternatives will take a small bite out of their share


Obviously there are occasional exceptions. Sometimes the singular is beautiful in one gTLD, and ugly in another. But overall, there is something special about the green domains, and if you can't see it, well.... for the sake of your finances, hopefully you'll marinate on this post for a bit and see the light.

That's all, folks!


This post is little more than the arrogant opinion of one man, so obviously everyone should do their own research.

Disagree with my conclusions? Comment below and tell me how ya really feel!



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(Some of the coloring is irrevocably mucked up, but you'll figure it out)


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That is great post! I have very similar feelings/expectations for most TLDs mentioned in your article.

 

Stopped reading after this. Was an interesting post up until this. I am not sure if you took into consideration .brands o r not

I also do not think you took into consideration combos that are brandable. It is not just brand.tech it is wind.tech or something like that. I think you just took into consideration brand.gtlds. Did I miss something?

But it doesn't matter because if we do not see any viral uses of the new extensions it won't matter.

 

Do you see .com being dethroned by a single alternative extension? If so, which one?

Within 3-5 years it will be so common to see new gTLD's that .com will no longer be viewed as "necessary", but I really don't see there ever being any go-to, default extension besides .com. Mark my words, in 2050, assuming domain names are still at all relevant, .com will still be the most-used domain worldwide.

There will be exceptions in all gTLD's. A select number of people will always find a way to turn a profit, regardless of the extension. But I'm considering the overall value of these gTLD's for domain investment purposes: as in, will there be thousands of GREAT names in that gTLD, or just a handful?

 

I agree with much of the OP.

The one thing i'm not sure about is .net going further downhill. If anything I can see .NET having a renaissance globally with all the new extensions as it is still a solid, meaningful and well aged extension with mass end user adoption and far better then most junk new GTLD's IMHO.

I am not investing seriously into .net going forward as i'm not sure if domainers can make big money from selling .net to end users as they have too many alternatives but I can see end users seeing .net as the absolute second best option after .com in most cases.

That aside i'm completely with you regarding the above.

 

I guess my thinking on .net is, if I'm looking at not-com alternatives for my business, I personally would start taking a look at various cool gtld combos rather than just automatically settling for .net as in the past.

.net will always be viewed by most (at least subconsciously) as being second-rate. It's ingrained in our minds. If you can't get the .com, you go for the (inferior) .net. That was the line of thinking. But imho .net is an outdated word anyways, just like .web (before it even hits the market, oddly enough). "Check us out on the net!" "Check us out on the web!" The net. The web. Meh. Just saying that transports me back to the 90s. I'll go with Online any day. "Check us out online!" There's a reason that more .com's end with "online" than any other word.

With new gtld's, you can, for the first time (outside of cctlds), actually kind of give off that first-class vibe without .com. Take TSD's above example of wind.tech for instance. Many even now would argue that wind.tech "POPS" more than windtech.com, and the gap in opinions will very much narrow between now and 2020 as consumers more and more become aware of the new alternatives.

In 2016, if a company tries to be creative and use something like wind.tech, some naysayers will claim that you're going to confuse people, that it's too early. But by 2020, companies with cool gtlds will widely be praised for their creativity. It's just a matter of time.

IMHO, hundreds of new options is not good for .net.

Is it good for .com? Obviously that's an incredibly touchy subject here, with thousands of us well-invested in .com (myself included), but I'm of the opinion that while .com will always remain "KING" (as in, most widely used), .com values have already peaked, for the most part. That's not to say .com's are no longer a viable investment though. I am buying and will continue to buy .com's! But overall, they aren't going to get any easier to sell. The notion that .com will become "more desirable" due to the new gtlds is complete hogwash...... imo

 

Excellent post 000! That makes a lot of sense, and your examples are excellent!

 

In just 4 years ? But new extensions are already in the third year and still not gaining traction. Their supporters keep moving the goalposts ("give it some more time").
Why would "companies with cool gtlds" not be praised today, but in 4 years they will ?

I think domainers underestimate the resistance to change, how deeply established the 'legacy' extensions are.

In life there are many innovations that sound like good ideas on paper, but in practice they don't do well. Even the best ideas are powerless if people don't embrace them.

 

Usually because they're before their time.

 

eng.land
tim.es
redd.it
co.ltd

 

I'm sure '.web' was considered when deciding a name/string for the very first generic TLD 31 years ago but it just so happened to be '.com'

If '.web' was decided 31 years ago, then '.com' could very well have ended up some kind of new gTLD with high renewal fees and belittled as a poor alternative to the king .web

.com is king because it was the first truly generic unrestricted gTLD introduced for worldwide commercial use.

By the time newer TLDs were introduced and some even becoming less restrictive it was all too late because .com had already cherry picked the biggest companies and entities in the world many who were already established for decades or even hundreds of years, this truly cannot happen again and that's why .com gained a reputation second to none.

 

@000 I'd be one of those who think that wind.tech is visually more appealing than windtech.com. But my personal taste in this matter doesn't mean, or do, a thing. Because general public could not care less. For the 99.9% of the public, domains are the single most boring thing ever. And as they don't care, they default to .COM (and ccTLDs) for years to come.

I'd love to see new gTLDs thrive because personally I like them. But so far they simply don't (except that some of them have quite impressive, though inflated, reg numbers).

Anyway, good OP, pretty much agree with your analysis of the viability of the extensions mentioned.

 

The thing is, most of those 99.9% really don't care if they're on a .com, .net, .tv, .club, .rocks., or heck even .xyz! They type in what they're told to type in. The people don't lead, the people follow! They don't even think twice about it. Only we domainers care, or think they care. If someone sees a business' website listed as Kens.repair or Faith.church, they're going to go there regardless of the extension. Simple as that.

It's just a whole lot of fear-mongering is what it is...
"Oh no! It will confuse the people!"
"Oh no! The people want .com!"
"Oh no! The people are incapable of adapting to change!"
"Oh no!"
"Oh no!"
"Oh no!"

Let's get real: the people couldn't give two sh!ts that they aren't going to a .com - and that's why gTLD's will succeed!

What the naysayers should be crying is "Oh no! I may need to re-evaluate my domain business model!"

**GASP**

You mean that the same business model won't remain practical for decades on end? Ya don't say!!

They aren't gaining traction very quickly.... but they are without a doubt gaining traction. Maybe not everywhere, yet, but I'm sure you know that that's just not how technology works. I live in Denver, a well-educated, technologically-savvy city, so it stands to reason that I might start to see new gTLD's in action a little more quickly than someone in, say, Louisiana (a very neat state, but far behind much of the nation/world in tech). Cities like Boston and NYC will always be a step ahead of most parts of the US (hence .boston and .nyc). If I live in Kentucky, it would be foolish of me to expect to see new tech in action at the same rate as if I lived in California. Do you live out in the boonies? Do you use Google much? I use the heck out of Google almost every day of my life, and it is not at all uncommon for me to see new gTLD's in organic search results.

Will the general U.S. public (I can really only speak about my experience here) be used to frequently visiting new gTLD's in 2020? Abso-lutely! No doubt in my mind. Two years ago, I very much had doubts myself! But at this point, imho, one must be rather oblivious to not see it coming. . .


From where I'm sitting, ngtld-haters actually drastically overestimate the resistance to change.
The people are NOT resisting! Old-school domainers are! You are!

 

.com is good now and new gTLDs will be good in a few years. It's simple.

 

I agree with much of what you say and indeed I agree that some gtld's are appearing more and more in the serps and will continue to do so going forward. To me though they are absolutely not domainer investing friendly 99% of the time due to crazy prices and/or renewals.

I do think some will do fine and be adopted more and more by end users, .club, .app etc. but I really think very few domainers will end up making money from gtld's in the long run with how registries have set it all up. They won't admit it but they are cutting the domainer out to a large degree.

Time will tell if i'm right.

 

@000 I too think that there's a lot of fear-mongering going on when it comes to ngtlds. And I do like new TLDs because many of them make good, easy-to-understand domain names. But to succeed, there should be much, much more development on those domains names. Unfortunately, that is torpedoed by the fact that every single make-sense domain in all commercial new gTLDs is currently owned by a domainer or the registry (except for the auntbettyscookie.store type of names). Asking their typical crazy domainer prices (don't get me wrong, I too ask stupid crazy prices).

So the domain-savvy Mr./Mrs. Business Owner faces a tough decision: Should I buy the furnitureonline.com or furniture.online? Sure, some of them will think that the not-com version is actually better for them (for any reason) but most of them will simply play it safe and go with the dotcom.

I'm simply not convinced yet. It's a crazy uphill battle for new gTLDs and the domainer mentality adopted by the registries sure doesn't help.

We'll see.

 

That's the problem. Most of the time they are told to go to .com (or ccTLD). It further reinforces the supremacy of .com.
The question is, why don't we see more prominent businesses using new extensions. Not since 2013, but since 2001 when .biz .info etc were released.

It's all relative. Maybe 10 bona fide .club websites will pop up on the Internet by tomorrow, but at the same time there will be maybe 20 times more created in .com.
Gaining traction maybe. Catching up not.

Of course there are plenty of new extensions in Google but it's small fry. Low-key websites that won't get repeat visits. So people don't pay attention. There are very few major, household brand names using new extensions as their primary URLs.

The conditions of awareness are:

• new extensions have to be advertised (heavily)
• they have to be embraced by major players, or they will never be credible
  Don't give me abc.xyz as an example, it's not even a customer-facing website... nobody goes there.

Still, domainers are the biggest backers of new extensions. They are buying new extensions while the ordinary consumers still shun them. So I would say that domainers on the whole are more open to new extensions than the average Joe. But not all domainers of course. Many are still reluctant to buy them.

In fact I agree with a lot of what you said in the other posts. But I have a different analysis. Some of the points you are making should have been equally valid ten years ago, because 'new' extensions are not new...

 

In my portfoglio I have Housing.House but I don't have HousingHouse.com
What is better? Housing.House or HousingHouse.com?
For me Housing.House is better and by far...
Time will tell

 

Absolutely right! The same goes for .com, of course, but the learning curve will likely be higher with the ngtlds, for a variety of reasons. (1) It's a whole new ballgame. (2) There are way more places to throw money now than with just one TLD to focus on, so it'll be easy to get distracted. (3) Higher renewal costs overall than .com. (4) Newbie domainers entering the game...... etc.

Many (myself included) will still continue to make money in .com as well. But as I've mentioned, I think the overall demand for .com will decrease due to the availability of other options.

Definitely agree that it will often be a tough decision to make. But, the fact that they are even debating it shows that .com's place at #1 is not as strong as before. Options are good, and now Kens Repair can choose from KensRepair.com, Kens.repair, Kens.online, Kens.boston, etc etc etc. It really doesn't matter much which he chooses.

 

They are both terrible, sorry mate!

 

@000 - I think you have pretty much hit the nail on the head... I have been saying the same thing for some time now about the branding potential of new TLD's - I also have a solid marketing background so I appreciate the brandability.

 

Frank Schilling is still buying .net on Namejet I have seen... He is now getting them very cheap because of the gTLD scare.. Some food for thought.

 

I know he just bought encino.net for $250 from me which I should have never allowed to go for that price but it was bang on my low reserve. However, .nets are a tough sell to end users today no doubt with all the new gtld's.

Bottom line is new gtld's do provide good alternative options for businesses wanting to start out gaining an online presence. I do still feel that ultimately some/possibly many if successful could want to buy .com later if nothing else to secure the brand and regain any lost type in traffic.

We shall see.

 

You are a Great Expert.

 

@Kate
I say the previous new gtld's .biz, .info are irrelevant to this batch of new gtld's. Why?
.biz is basically a chincy .com ripoff.
.info is by definition for informational sites, so I would never have expected much usage, esp by companies...
Quality-wise, they're basically equivalent to the junk ngtld's of today: .web .link .click .site etc: destined to fail before they even launch.

The ngtld's that will succeed are the more meaningful ones as discussed above.

It's totally senseless to disregard the new gtld's based on the fact that they haven't already seen mass adoption just 2, 3 years after the program first launched. Surely you understand the tech biz better than that....