discuss .Online Domains - Why 3,634 and counting

[ThatNameGuy]

NamePros member @DirkS has requested that I provide an explanation for why I've registered over 3,600 .online domains in the last six months, so here goes;

First and foremost I'm a visionary. I've started dozens of business in my life. I'm 73 years old, and I started my first business while still in college in 1970. Sure I could just be saying this, but if you have doubts I would strongly suggest that you check me out.

Having learned about this industry just over three years ago I've found the .com extension for most new business names to be both unavailable and unaffordable. I've learned that if I were to start a new business today it's unlikely the name I choose for my business would be available or affordable.

Most important, like zip codes and area codes there are literally hundreds/thousands of alternatives, and .Online just so happens to be one of the alternatives. What initially attracted me to the .Online extension was when NamesCon Online (aka NamesCon.com) made the decision to have Radix (aka Radix.online) be a sponsor. Radix then created the domain NamesCon.online to compliment/match NamesCon.com.

When I realized how the .online extension matched up with names like Reservations.online, Shopping.online, Learning.online and Domains.online, I just knew i was on to something Note that names like Reservations.com, Shopping.com, Learning.com and Domains.com are not only "unavailable", even if they were available, they'd most likely be "unaffordable"

Ironically about the time I noticed the .online extension, Go Daddy and Radix partnered and made .online domains available for a first time annual registration fee of .99 cents, and an annual re-registration of just 49.99 thereafter.

I've spent over a thousand hours in the last six months buying mostly one and two word .online domains, so if you were to add my time to the approximate $4,200 I've paid Go Daddy, I have over $20,000 invested in my portfolio of 3,634 domains.

My critics will say things like, you'll never be able to afford to renew all your domains at 49.99 each to which I have a twofold answer; #1 i don't need to renew a single domain and #2 whose to say the renewal fee isn't negotiable....as a businessperson I've learned that pretty much everything is negotiable.

Of importance to me is the fact that "if" my .online domains were .com domains my portfolio would be "valued" at over twenty million dollars. Yes, that's $20,000,000 or 20M

Now is where the rubber meets the road meaning, how do I plan to sell these domains? I just started listing them with the likes of Go Daddy where my current pricing ranges from a low of $199 to $999 and I'm looking to have an annual renewal of $99.....remember, everything is negotiable.

I plan to experiment with financing, leasing/renting and licensing my domains. I also plan to form a "users group" where end users actually have an interest in promoting the .online extension to the world.

Few domains and especially .online domains will sell themselves Thus I plan on having an "outbound" sales/marketing team who share my vision to make .online both available and affordable.

Finally, I owe a bit of gratitude to the monopoly Verisign for confirming my suspicions about the nature of the .com beast. While the beast is slowly dying, alternative solutions are ready, willing and able to take over.

Thank you!

 

[bmugford]

You probably own more .online domains then any other individual , if not you are one of the biggest holders of .online domains......so when you spout off about "domain scalping" it's a bit rich.....Rich....

I have highlighted above what you yourself are doing with .online

So........you are "domain speculating" with the intention of "flipping" them to make a profit and "enrich" yourself (no matter how small or large) You have have also created "scarcity" by holding so many

Pot kettle black springs to mind........

This has always amused me.

If you buy .com domains in order to sell them for a profit, that is "hoarding" and "scalping" according to Bulloney.

If you buy .online domains in order to sell them for a profit, that is not "hoarding" and "scalping" according to Bulloney.

The logic totally makes sense!

 

[ThatNameGuy]

@ThatNameGuy or he could pay that same thousand for Quality.Homes no ? with the way things are going soon each keyword will have it own extension ^^

Maybe so, but a name like QualityHomes.online is certainly better than QualityHomes.icu or QualityHomes.top. Note, the new gTLD .online is growing exponentially.....check it out here; ntldstats.com

 

[ThatNameGuy]

This has always amused me.

If you buy .com domains in order to sell them for a profit, that is "hoarding" and "scalping" according to Bulloney.

If you buy .online domains in order to sell them for a profit, that is not "hoarding" and "scalping" according to Bulloney.

The logic totally makes sense!

So what's the problem Brad? According to you, I must really on to something Care to join me

 

[bmugford]

So what's the problem Brad? According to you, I must really on to something Care to join me

You are actually hoarding more than .com investors, because they actually make sales once in a while.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

You are actually hoarding more than .com investors, because they actually make sales once in a while.

How do you know what my sales are? If you say you do you sir are a LIAR!

 

[bmugford]

How do you know what my sales are? If you say you do you sir are a LIAR!

Oh, they must all be subject to NDA I guess...

How are your .homes and .realty sales going? I am old enough to remember when you were pumping those.

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Oh, they must all be subject to NDA I guess...

How are your .homes and .realty sales going? I am old enough to remember when you were pumping those.

Brad

by that you mean my Non Disclosure Agreement....every domainer worth their salt has an NDAonline.

 

[bmugford]

by that you mean my Non Disclosure Agreement....every domainer worth their salt has an NDAonline.

For sure. From my experience those $XXX and low $X,XXX sales really require a lot of signed NDA.

I am sure buyers of two word .online really appreciate their privacy. It would be embarrassing for anyone to know they paid a premium price for a two word .online.

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

For sure. From my experience those $XXX and low $X,XXX sales really require a lot of signed NDA.

I am sure buyers of two word .online really appreciate their privacy. It would be embarrassing for anyone to know they paid a premium price for a two word .online.

Brad

What is a "premium price" for a two word .online domain like LocalSports.online where LocalSports.com is actually priced @ 10 Million Dollars. Anyone?.....Seriously

 

[NameBuyer.com]

$10 .net vs $999 .online

They would just register the .net, which is a far more well known and used extension for $10.

Even the best salesman would do better with better products. .Online is nothing special.

The sad thing is you could probably do well with your sales experience and in demand domains, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel pushing extensions that have virtually no end user demand.

This is just wasting valuable time and resources. You are swimming upstream for no reason.

Brad

I don't want to weigh an opinion on the .online discussion, but as far as business choices when it comes to picking a domain name, I think it doesn't match the theoretical choices above. What businesses are doing in practice 80-90% of the time, from what I've seen when trying to put together contact lists in the past, is sticking with a .com domain no matter what. If they don't want to spend $1,000+ on a domain and are going to be cheap, they typically just add a word to the .com domain. Anything from "try" at the beginning to the city name at the end.

So as domain investors we shouldn't think of there being one .com choice and after that the buyer is going to pick our extension. The buyer has almost an unlimited choice of alternative variations in the .com extension alone. There are certain buyers that will pick other extensions, but from what I see, 80-90% end up sticking with .com because the other extensions are not even on the table for many businesses.

For the pacific wine example, you can see this below. The "merchants" and "services" addition likely wasn't because they loved a super long name, but because it was a cheap alternative to acquiring pacificwine.com.

In the last example, they could actually get a shorter name by registering pacificwine.services for $7.99, but very few businesses (or people) are familiar with new extensions and to this day most of them avoid anything but a .com, even if they have to pick a longer .com domain.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

I don't want to weigh an opinion on the .online discussion

In all do respect Garett you have shared your "opinion" on the .online discussion. As you know I subscribe to your domain appraisal service, and I'll start by pointing out that both pacificwineservices.com and pacificwinemerchants.com appraise for < less than $500 whereas pacificwine.com appraises for $29,500.
Furthermore the domain pacificwine.com is for sale at GD, and is unaffordable for most end users.

You may also note that Pacific Wine Services started in 2006, and Pacific Wine Merchants started in 1995 many years before .online became an extension. I believe in the .online extension enough that I just purchased PacificWine(s).online to see if either of these businesses are interested....so thanks for the idea Garett As you know I'll be telling these businesses that .online is a new extension, and it's been growing exponentially ever since being introduced in 2016. I haven't decided yet, but I'll probably be asking $299 for the singular PacificWine.online and $299 for the plural PacificWines.online.

It will please you to know that I'll also be sharing Nameworth's appraisal of $29,500 of the .com version, and pointing out the FACT there's zero technical difference between using .com and .online for they're only a means to an end/website

There's my opinion Garett, and I'm sticking to it. Thanks for your opinion

 

[NameBuyer.com]

Well, my personal opinion is that the pacificwine.com would be similar in price to pacific.wine. I was just noting what I've seen businesses using 10+ years after most of these extensions were released. So I would expect pacificwine.com to sell before pacific.wine if listed at the same price.

But as far as .online, I can see potential as there have been a number of .com sales ending in online in the last 5 years. I just haven't put a lot of thought or research in that area so didn't want to give a real opinion beyond sharing that many businesses seem to add words to the .com to make new options. In these cases there probably isn't any resale value with the .com version anyway as they are just looking for a cheap domain.

I don't have an opinion about .online specifically, but on the topic of nGTLDs, in general, I did lose about $7,000 as well as as losing about $28,000 in opportunity cost because I could have bought .com domains that I statistically know would have sold in the same time period. But I didn't give it a lot of time, so maybe I was bad at it.

I have a few detailed posts here.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/no...ened-by-new-gtlds.1147822/page-2#post-7342190

 

[Windoms]

But as far as .online, I can see potential as there have been a number of .com sales ending in online in the last 5 years.

Having sales ending with online doesnt mean there is potential in online.

The extension is too long, strange by default.

PacificWine.online
PacificWineOnline.com

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Well, my personal opinion is that the pacificwine.com would be similar in price to pacific.wine. I was just noting what I've seen businesses using 10+ years after most of these extensions were released. So I would expect pacificwine.com to sell before pacific.wine if listed at the same price.

But as far as .online, I can see potential as there have been a number of .com sales ending in online in the last 5 years. I just haven't put a lot of thought or research in that area so didn't want to give a real opinion beyond sharing that many businesses seem to add words to the .com to make new options. In these cases there probably isn't any resale value with the .com version anyway as they are just looking for a cheap domain.

Garett....the one thing I do know is unlike .coms, new gTLD's don't sell themselves. Why? Because "end users" simply don't know about them or understand them. A friend of mine owns a multi million dollar specialty sandwich business called "Taste" for which he has a registered TM Taste Unlimited®. Now he does own the domain TasteUnlimited.com (for over 20 years), and guess where it forwards to?....Taste.online

btw, I didn't sell this to him, or even recommend it for that matter. He registered the name in 2015 long before I picked up on it in January of this year. Obviously he would have preferred Taste.com, but 500K was pretty steep even though I know my friend could afford it.

Garett....i've now talked with enough business peers and potential "end users" who think the extension .online is pretty cool, and especially if their business is 100% "online".

extensions like .xyz, .icu, .top and even .com mean absolutely nothing when it comes to a name for a business that's 100% online. However .online is an extension that actually makes sense when you think about it

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Having sales ending with online doesnt mean there is potential in online.

The extension is too long, strange by default.

PacificWine.online
PacificWineOnline.com

technically it matters not the length of the extension. However, the length of your business name matters a lot......"Pacific Wine"

 

[tipstapunk]

NamePros member @DirkS has requested that I provide an explanation for why I've registered over 3,600 .online domains in the last six months, so here goes;

First and foremost I'm a visionary. I've started dozens of business in my life. I'm 73 years old, and I started my first business while still in college in 1970. Sure I could just be saying this, but if you have doubts I would strongly suggest that you check me out.

Having learned about this industry just over three years ago I've found the .com extension for most new business names to be both unavailable and unaffordable. I've learned that if I were to start a new business today it's unlikely the name I choose for my business would be available or affordable.

Most important, like zip codes and area codes there are literally hundreds/thousands of alternatives, and .Online just so happens to be one of the alternatives. What initially attracted me to the .Online extension was when NamesCon Online (aka NamesCon.com) made the decision to have Radix (aka Radix.online) be a sponsor. Radix then created the domain NamesCon.online to compliment/match NamesCon.com.

When I realized how the .online extension matched up with names like Reservations.online, Shopping.online, Learning.online and Domains.online, I just knew i was on to something Note that names like Reservations.com, Shopping.com, Learning.com and Domains.com are not only "unavailable", even if they were available, they'd most likely be "unaffordable"

Ironically about the time I noticed the .online extension, Go Daddy and Radix partnered and made .online domains available for a first time annual registration fee of .99 cents, and an annual re-registration of just 49.99 thereafter.

I've spent over a thousand hours in the last six months buying mostly one and two word .online domains, so if you were to add my time to the approximate $4,200 I've paid Go Daddy, I have over $20,000 invested in my portfolio of 3,634 domains.

My critics will say things like, you'll never be able to afford to renew all your domains at 49.99 each to which I have a twofold answer; #1 i don't need to renew a single domain and #2 whose to say the renewal fee isn't negotiable....as a businessperson I've learned that pretty much everything is negotiable.

Of importance to me is the fact that "if" my .online domains were .com domains my portfolio would be "valued" at over twenty million dollars. Yes, that's $20,000,000 or 20M

Now is where the rubber meets the road meaning, how do I plan to sell these domains? I just started listing them with the likes of Go Daddy where my current pricing ranges from a low of $199 to $999 and I'm looking to have an annual renewal of $99.....remember, everything is negotiable.

I plan to experiment with financing, leasing/renting and licensing my domains. I also plan to form a "users group" where end users actually have an interest in promoting the .online extension to the world.

Few domains and especially .online domains will sell themselves Thus I plan on having an "outbound" sales/marketing team who share my vision to make .online both available and affordable.

Finally, I owe a bit of gratitude to the monopoly Verisign for confirming my suspicions about the nature of the .com beast. While the beast is slowly dying, alternative solutions are ready, willing and able to take over.

Thank you!

The one thing I agree on with this post is the positive association the prefix work can have with the domain extension. Someone recently said of .coin that it was hard to make a case for it, but that's before you put slotmachines, or wishingwell, or casinoslots in front of it. So yes, .online can be a useful extension for some words and/or businesses. However, the big drawback, leaving aside the high renewal fees, is that you never own a .online, just as you never own a .com as both can be cancelled any time at the discretion of ICANN. Which is where .coin, .crypto and other incoming blockchain domain scores the knockout blow.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

The one thing I agree on with this post is the positive association the prefix work can have with the domain extension. Someone recently said of .coin that it was hard to make a case for it, but that's before you put slotmachines, or wishingwell, or casinoslots in front of it. So yes, .online can be a useful extension for some words and/or businesses. However, the big drawback, leaving aside the high renewal fees, is that you never own a .online, just as you never own a .com as both can be cancelled any time at the discretion of ICANN. Which is where .coin, .crypto and other incoming blockchain domain scores the knockout blow.

Thanks for the tips punk I really didn't know what you meant by blockchain domains scoring "the knockout blow", but after a little research i registered the following;

UnstoppableDomains.online
UnstoppableTeam.online and
UnstoppableTalent.com

With regards to the "high renewal fees" for .online. My renewal fee for .online is $29.99, and even that's negotiable. I really fell in love with the non keyword "unstoppable", and since I view myself as unstoppable, I felt the need to register the domain UnstoppableTalent.com because it was both available and affordable. If it wasn't available or affordable, i would have registered UnstoppableTalent.online. And since it's just a buck, I may skip lunch (save $10) and buy it anyway.

Thanks again punk

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Well, my personal opinion is that the pacificwine.com would be similar in price to pacific.wine. I was just noting what I've seen businesses using 10+ years after most of these extensions were released. So I would expect pacificwine.com to sell before pacific.wine if listed at the same price.

But as far as .online, I can see potential as there have been a number of .com sales ending in online in the last 5 years. I just haven't put a lot of thought or research in that area so didn't want to give a real opinion beyond sharing that many businesses seem to add words to the .com to make new options. In these cases there probably isn't any resale value with the .com version anyway as they are just looking for a cheap domain.

I don't have an opinion about .online specifically, but on the topic of nGTLDs, in general, I did lose about $7,000 as well as as losing about $28,000 in opportunity cost because I could have bought .com domains that I statistically know would have sold in the same time period. But I didn't give it a lot of time, so maybe I was bad at it.

I have a few detailed posts here.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/no...ened-by-new-gtlds.1147822/page-2#post-7342190

As investors, we have a tendency to only see what we want ... 5 years ago your statement about seeing only .com would’ve been true, 95% of business’ only knew .com, however in the past year, many businesses’ have had to transition to online, hence we have seen many domain sales even in the pandemic ^

Last year alone, I’ve see “many many” examples of new extensions that are being heavily marketed, and or are making a lot of money and usually when companies make a lot of money, they have a lot of eyes on them, wether it’s media, speculators, or investors and investors usually hang out with other investors,

I wouldn’t bash on someone like TNG who is only making the domain market more valuable for everyone here ... if he wants to own all the .online domains, by all means,

I’m comfortable co owning - easy.credit - when easycredit.com is $26M ^ and I am not even asking $500K for - easy.credit - TNG makes a fair point, valuable .com domains have reached a peak, and the balancing act is based on wether or not a fortune 500 company wants to own the names we horde ... well you cannot have a market with just domain investors trading amongst each other, haha

All that said ^ I thought you may enjoy a few examples of successful GTLDs that are growing the value of your domain investments, wether you know it or not

https://coinflip.tech

https://chain.link

https://yearn.finance

https://polkadot.network

https://green.energy

https://apple.watch
(reroutes to .com)

https://registry.google

https://amazon.shop & https://amazon.store
(reroutes to .com)

https://shop.app
(acquired by Shopify for $200K)

https://the.club
(reroutes to invitedhome.com)

https://vacation.rentals

https://casino.online

https://mortgage.biz
(reroutes to Citi Bank)

https://block.one
(paid $35M for https://voice.com)

~

The companies I listed above combined have a market valuation of $1T + ... and in 5 years, some major moves have been made, I expect it will not be long till we see a public seven figure GTLD sale

Maybe more then https://sex.xxx for $3M

So if you’re gonna invest, invest in strong exact match keywords in valuable industries, wether a .com or a GTLD

 

[bmugford]

As investors, we have a tendency to only see what we want ... 5 years ago your statement about seeing only .com would’ve been true, 95% of business’ only knew .com, however in the past year, many businesses’ have had to transition to online, hence we have seen many domain sales even in the pandemic ^

Last year alone, I’ve see “many many” examples of new extensions that are being heavily marketed, and or are making a lot of money and usually when companies make a lot of money, they have a lot of eyes on them, wether it’s media, speculators, or investors and investors usually hang out with other investors,

I wouldn’t bash on someone like TNG who is only making the domain market more valuable for everyone here ... if he wants to own all the .online domains, by all means,

I’m comfortable co owning - easy.credit - when easycredit.com is $26M ^ and I am not even asking $500K for - easy.credit - TNG makes a fair point, valuable .com domains have reached a peak, and the balancing act is based on wether or not a fortune 500 company wants to own the names we horde ... well you cannot have a market with just domain investors trading amongst each other, haha

All that said ^ I thought you may enjoy a few examples of successful GTLDs that are growing the value of your domain investments, wether you know it or not

https://coinflip.tech

https://chain.link

https://yearn.finance

https://polkadot.network

https://green.energy

https://apple.watch
(reroutes to .com)

https://registry.google

https://amazon.shop & https://amazon.store
(reroutes to .com)

https://shop.app
(acquired by Shopify for $200K)

https://the.club
(reroutes to invitedhome.com)

https://vacation.rentals

https://casino.online

https://mortgage.biz
(reroutes to Citi Bank)

https://block.one
(paid $35M for https://voice.com)

~

The companies I listed above combined have a market valuation of $1T + ... and in 5 years, some major moves have been made, I expect it will not be long till we see a public seven figure GTLD sale

Maybe more then https://sex.xxx for $3M

So if you’re gonna invest, invest in strong exact match keywords in valuable industries, wether a .com or a GTLD

I agree with some of what you said, but you need to be honest with yourselves and other new gTLD investors. The first of these extensions launched more than 7+ years ago.

At the time all the people jumping in were talking about them being a game changer, paradigm shift, etc. I am pretty sure most of these investors expected far more traction 7+ years later.

.COM certainly was not "AM Radio". It has only become more valuable and in demand since new extensions launched.

If you own top tier terms/combinations an argument can be made for new extensions.

There is no world where marginal two word terms in .online are going to have resale value, in a sea of 1000+ extensions. Without a primary market there is no secondary market.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

It will please you to know that I'll also be sharing Nameworth's appraisal of $29,500 of the .com version, and pointing out the FACT there's zero technical difference between using .com and .online for they're only a means to an end/website

The same argument can be made for .horse or .hiphop, or any other lame domain extension as well.

Brad