discuss Reported sales in new gTLDs - oh well, we are still comparing oranges to apples!

[Brands.International]

I think when new gTLDs sales are reported, we are in many cases truly comparing oranges to apples.
There are 2 main problems:

A) Ignorance of renewal fees: if you go to reliable source like namebio.com. you can filter for example aftermarket sales of .store extension. When you sort it by price, you see that highest reported sale so far is coin / store for 26 705 USD, and second one is aloyoga / store for 2408 USD. So far so good, this is clear, one is for 26 705 USD and one is for 2408 USD, no big deal.

But actually, there is a huge difference: afaik coin/store has premium renewal around 26k each year, while aloyoga / store has normal standard renewal for .store, which is between 7-45 at most registrars.

So, what is the actual selling price of coin / store which should be reported to reflect this huge difference?
If you report this simply is 26k, you ignore the fact that it is 26k every year. If it is registered for next 10 years, it is basically 260k sale. In another words, it is similar to 260k sale of .com, where payment terms are agreed as devided into 10 yearly payments of 26k.

But you do not know about that, because sales are reported, but renewal are not.

B) What about existing registrations?: recently someone asked me if it is true that such nice extension like .properties does not sell well. I asked the guy where this information comes from??? He told me, he filtered ".properties" extension in namebio.com, and there are only 3 sales reported, with keywords Pune, Sex and Foreclosure, sold for small prices of 995, 150 and 110. He thus concluded that this extension does not sell well, and there is no interest if only 3 such records are there in namebio.

I told him that (of course) reality of this extension is very very different:
a) There are more then 13000 domain names registered in this extension
b) All reasonable names are registered, almost nothing is left available (I have analysed this extensively)
c) Most good names are continuosly registered since General Availability, since Jun 2014
d) And the best part: many of those names are registered even when they carry higher premium renewals. Examples: keyword "dream" costs around 900/year, "usa" the same, "lasvegas" is for 120/year, etc.

So remember this: sources like namebio.com report aftermarket sales of new gTLDs, when someone is selling their names via venues like Sedo, Flippa or Afernic. But the fact that registrants are holding their names, and are paying even high renewals each year for them, and that there are hundreds or thousands of such names in given extension, is simply not reported in namebio (as those are not aftermarket sales).

In other words : at the moment, if you do not know anything about new gTLDs, and you will just filter namebio, you will get information that name 'foreclosure / properties sold for 110 in 2015 (and reason for that is that someone tried to flip it - not quite succesfully - in first year after acquisition, and this is recorded), but you will completely miss information about dozens/hundreds of names like dream/properties, which are registered from the very beginning and for which the registrants are paying anything between 120- 900 / year.

So such filtering alone will simply not give you a real status of that particular extension.

As a consequence of this over reliance on namebio, you can get this type of beautiful appraisal of your new gTLD name, check it here. Logic here goes like this: I am going to appraise your .capital domain name...I will have a quick look at namebio...ooh, I see only 7 reported aftermarket sales, so ..ehm...your name has no value..

I honestly find this rudiculous. This is the new peak of oversimplification of new gTLDs, but this appraisal made me to write this post, so it migh be useful after all.

So I think we are mixing oranges with apples and also bananas in many instances, particularly when we ignore fact that renewal fees play major role when it comes to new gTLDs.

Your opinions are welcome

 

[creataweb]

 

[Kate]

I have a question: how may bona fide purchasers of nTLDs are actually paying insane renewal fees of 26K per year ? The underlying question being, are there enough such purchases so that we should take notice ?
What does it mean to our bottom line ? Especially when so many sales are registry sales where no domainers benefit.

AFAIK reporting sources like Namebio never bothered with the renewal prices in the past, specifically in .tv, that is a pioneer of premium pricing. Besides, that information is not always available upfront. So it was never taken into consideration. We can't predict how long the domain will be kept and renewed.

If there are only 3 reported sales of .properties domains, it tells me one thing regardless of the money paid and to be paid in the future: the odds of a sale are pretty remote.

But I agree we are comparing apples to oranges

 

[Brands.International]

I have a question: how may bona fide purchasers of nTLDs are actually paying insane renewal fees of 26K per year ? The underlying question being, are there enough such purchases so that we should take notice ?
What does it mean to our bottom line ? Especially when so many sales are registry sales where no domainers benefit.

AFAIK reporting sources like Namebio never bothered with the renewal prices in the past, specifically in .tv, that is a pioneer of premium pricing. Besides, that information is not always available upfront. So it was never taken into consideration. We can't predict how long the domain will be kept and renewed.

If there are only 3 reported sales of .properties domains, it tells me one thing regardless of the money paid and to be paid in the future: the odds of a sale are pretty remote.

But I agree we are comparing apples to oranges

This is a very good question @Kate and it is something what I am having a look at the moment. One can get very good glimpse of what is going on using source like mrdomain.com and checking some high-value trending keywords, like "blockchain", "coin", "virtual", or something more classic like "car" or :holiday.

So let's take for example keyword "coin": short search will show us those registered names
(extension, yearly renewal fee in Euro ):
online, 1134
space, 283
app, 438
page, 572
store, 28 349
games, 228
love, 907
radio, 250
site, 1134
fun, 2834
xyz, 1134
and dozens of others, just for keyword "coin".

So, as an example: that means, someone paid at least 2834 for coin / fun, and maybe more, if that was some EAP name. And will continue paying 2834 as long as it is registered. Do we have that reported in namebio? No. And what is reported there at the time of writing? We have there 24 entries, all coming from Flippa, for lower quality .fun names which sold in range USD 170-199 ...someone was probably mass selling that in Flippa, maybe as 1 set of 24 names.

Imo such data have nothing to do with reality, or actual status of .fun extension. If someone who does not know much details about new gTLDs is using this as an guide or to judge how the .fun extension is doing, or how .fun names are selling, that someone will get very inaccurate picture.

So how one can get good picture? I would say one needs to consider reported sales in sources like namebio, PLUS also one needs to consider distribution of higher renewals in set of registered names in certain new gTLD extension. This second part seems to be much more important for many new gTLD extensions comparing to first part, but each extensions is different and should be analysed separately.
This is another reasons why it is not clever to put all new gTLDs in one bag. Your success is in detail

 

[Brands.International]

I looked at your portfolio and there are numerous quality words however the new-tld market would need to skyrocket in end-user popularity for your names to sell well, imo. For example, who could be an end-user for a name like Gay.Coach which seems weird and awkward, when combined with Coach extension.

P.S. I never heard of the extension before.

Thank you about your kind words about my porftolio. As for new gTLD market, this is rising each year, and there is no reason to anticipate otherwise. I am testing it on my 1k portfolio of new gTLD names personally and know it from my own experience, it is not what I have read from someone somewhere on the forum

I do not think there is anything weird when it comes to name like Gay/Coach. There are thousands of suitable end users for it. Google will show more if one search for these 2 words. I checked some of their websites, they usually operate on horrible names like JohnBlackSanFranciscoGayCoach.com .. this short name will be authoritative upgrade for them. It immediatelly shows that someone made some serious effort when it comes to domain name and website. It has standard renewal for .coach, and imo can esily sell at least for 2-5k ( I predict the end user will be probably individual, not some organisation). So it make sense as an investment, at least for me.

I have not heard about .coach extension either until recently, but who cares...the logic goes that if you are a professional coach, and learn about .coach extension, it will be probably attractive for you.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I have been thinking lately about why the .com/.net and ngTLD community seem to so totally misunderstand and not accept each other (with obvious exceptions of course!).

I am going to write on this in (too much ) length in the futue, but here is a snippet related to the .coach extension discussion.

In the legacy world the extension is super important. The same word is worth hugely different amounts if the extension is .com vs .info for example, even though both are legacy.

In the legacy world the match with extension is not important really. Like many brand on a .com even though they are not commercial so in a sense it is a mismatch. The ..com has value because it is sort of an entry to a valuable domain name. It is like gold being a monetary related commodity standard. It really is not so much related to its actual value as a commodity (although it does have that) but more it is accepted as the standard.

In the new extension world the extension really does not matter much but with ngTLDs the match matters for everything. The question is not whether coach is a gook extension or not, or even how popular it is, but is it a good extension to match with the word.

This is all obvious, and I know you know it very well @lolwarrior but I think some who comment on the ngTLD threads who have never invested in them or tried to sell them have not clearly realized this fundamental difference. There are other differences which my longer post will deal with.

Bob

ps Here is a nice real world site using the .coach extension.
https://www.tailored.coach/

And another one:
http://www.sweetspot.coach/

I would not actually have immediately thought of either as a first idea match with coach, but when you delve into how each brand themselves, the fit is almost perfect.

ps disclosure I hold zero .coach domain names. This discussion actually prompted me to see if any naming/branding/marketing/domains etc. ones were available, but alas they are all gone

 

[namemarket]

....Picking through ANYONE's holdings makes no contribution in my opinion.

I was not necessarily picking on the domain it was only a more or less random example about it being best if the name goes well with the extension as far as end-user actual use and value is concerned.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Here is a question actually related to the thread @lolwarrior

If there is a ngTLD domain name already registered by someone else, how can I readily find what the renewal rate is on that?

Like for example new (.) earth (a nice name!) sold for $18,800 this week according to the DNjournal weekly report. How can I see what the renewal fee is for this great domain if I wanted to do an analysis like the one you start the thread with, say a 10 year cost.

Thanks.

Bob

 

[namemarket]

What is this @wormfood , genuinely trying to pick the worst names from my domain portolio, or what? Lol

I actually like newhomesfor.sale a lot which I believe has very good end-user potential and valuation. It's one of your best names not on a worst list. That name can be very attractive to a builder, developer or Realtor.

 

[maya-zir]

New gTLDs have no value.
How you can talk about thier value if only few of them have value as "short" alternatives?
.com, .net, .org, .info etc can be used with any keyword, but new gTLDs just with very limited ones.
You mentioned .life and .properties, but they can be used just with very specific keywords.

 

[JB Lions]

If you report this simply is 26k, you ignore the fact that it is 26k every year. If it is registered for next 10 years, it is basically 260k sale. In another words, it is similar to 260k sale of .com, where payment terms are agreed as devided into 10 yearly payments of 26k.

? Seems like you're trying to inflate the actual selling price, since it's not really looking that good when people use Namebio. If a new gtld sold for $26,000, it sold for $26,000, not $260,000

 

[Asfas1000]

And the fact that buyer needs to pay 900 each year would not be mentioned there...

Only problem being this $900 per year are going into the registry's pocket, not the seller's.....

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It is interesting perspective that I had not considered before @lolwarrior and thank you for the clear explanation of your thinking. While I am hesitant (because of the various possible interpretations) to adjust how we view sales (as you know in my analyses I use the simple cash paid up front model), I totally accept that it is a reasonable argument to do it the way you suggest.

If the lifetime registration model being promoted by Epik takes off, perhaps it will become the norm to view a cost as long term for all domain names.

The payment plans now promoted for both legacy and new extensions bring up a similar situation. If I agree on a price, but only pay a portion now and agree to pay the rest over 10 years, and sell it on instalment is that really a sale or not?

Of course if the new extension registries would change their model to premium only once, and all renew at standard, that would simplify, build confidence, and make it clear what the price should be!

Thanks again.

Bob

 

[Brands.International]

It is interesting perspective that I had not considered before @lolwarrior and thank you for the clear explanation of your thinking. While I am hesitant (because of the various possible interpretations) to adjust how we view sales (as you know in my analyses I use the simple cash paid up front model), I totally accept that it is a reasonable argument to do it the way you suggest.

If the lifetime registration model being promoted by Epik takes off, perhaps it will become the norm to view a cost as long term for all domain names.

The payment plans now promoted for both legacy and new extensions bring up a similar situation. If I agree on a price, but only pay a portion now and agree to pay the rest over 10 years, and sell it on instalment is that really a sale or not?

Of course if the new extension registries would change their model to premium only once, and all renew at standard, that would simplify, build confidence, and make it clear what the price should be!

Thanks again.

Bob

Thanks a a lot Bob. I honestly only got that understanding recently when I saw the appraisal for .capital name mentioned in my initial post. Also the recent new idea of lifetime registration model promoted by @robepik sparked this as well. If all names were sold in the model of lifetime registration, we would be comparing apples to apples, but this is not a case now.

And the more I think about it, the more I feel that those statistical data many are using (like average sale price of new gTLD name vs average sale price of .com) are saying pretty distorted picture about what is going on in new gTLD space. If we get those higher renewal into consideration, the new gTLD space might be much stronger then we initially though

 

[Brands.International]

I think people see what you're trying to do here.

I hope so.

 

[kriss05]

I'm not saying you are wrong, but can you share what evidence you have that this is actually happening I'm not asking for specific names, just how you know and what the extensions were.

Many high quality ngtlds end up being reserved by the registries instead of getting available for registration after they drop. Everyone can see it by monitoring dropping domains. Regarding extensions, for example, Donuts does it on everyday basis.

I know that most of the registries reserved premium domain names initially. But I take it that you are not talking about that, but rather names that had not been designated originally as premium, someone bought them,and then if they later drop, they now become premium?

I'm talking about ngtlds, both premium and standard priced, being once registered, then dropped and reserved by ngtld registries.

So can you share which extensions you know for sure it happens with, and how you know. Thanks.

It can be almost anything. .life, .tech, .land etc etc etc

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thank you very much for the detailed answer @kriss05. When you say reserved do you mean reserved in the technical sense or in the sense of converted to premium, or both?

Does anyone here know of a free and efficient way to track names about to drop in a specific extension? Like if I want to know all of the .loan extension domains that will drop in the next week, is there a free way to do it? Or even better, does someone highlight the best ones in the way is done for .com and some country codes?

ps Something else that would be useful would be a list of those ngTLD registries which have no premium renewal rates. Has anyone compiled such a list? Ideally also ones that do not reserve/change to premium drops.

Thanks again.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

But why would a Gay person need a coach? Teaching them to do what?

If you Google your question there are over100 million results, so there must be reasons (and the top couple of pages at least are relevant, it seems at a glance)

 

[wormfood]

But why would a Gay person need a coach? Teaching them to do what? Baseball.coach tennis.coach investor coach etc I can understand but what purpose would be a gay coach other than teaching someone how to be gay or better at being gay, I don't get it.

lol..and
newhomesfor.sale
newhousesfor.sale
unfriendly.life
xmas.loans
blockchain.kitchen

jesus

 

[Brands.International]

I have been thinking lately about why the .com/.net and ngTLD community seem to so totally misunderstand and not accept each other (with obvious exceptions of course!).

I am going to write on this in (too much ) length in the futue, but here is a snippet related to the .coach extension discussion.

In the legacy world the extension is super important. The same word is worth hugely different amounts if the extension is .com vs .info for example, even though both are legacy.

In the legacy world the match with extension is not important really. Like many brand on a .com even though they are not commercial so in a sense it is a mismatch. The ..com has value because it is sort of an entry to a valuable domain name. It is like gold being a monetary related commodity standard. It really is not so much related to its actual value as a commodity (although it does have that) but more it is accepted as the standard.

In the new extension world the extension really does not matter much but with ngTLDs the match matters for everything. The question is not whether coach is a gook extension or not, or even how popular it is, but is it a good extension to match with the word.

This is all obvious, and I know you know it very well @lolwarrior but I think some who comment on the ngTLD threads who have never invested in them or tried to sell them have not clearly realized this fundamental difference. There are other differences which my longer post will deal with.

Bob

ps Here is a nice real world site using the .coach extension.
https://www.tailored.coach/

And another one:
http://www.sweetspot.coach/

I would not actually have immediately thought of either as a first idea match with coach, but when you delve into how each brand themselves, the fit is almost perfect.

ps disclosure I hold zero .coach domain names. This discussion actually prompted me to see if any naming/branding/marketing/domains etc. ones were available, but alas they are all gone

@Bob Hawkes this is very spot on. People here are endlessly asking questions like "how .solutions sells" or "is .store better then .shop" or "should I invest in .live or .online"? and hundreds of other threads like that.

Totally ignoring the fact that the most important factor for value of the new gTLD domain names is a semantic relationship between keyword and extension (in simpler language: whether the combo makes sense)

And then some another domainer (usually with 0 new gTLDs) goes on appraisal threads with answers like "I have checked namebio and ther there only 7 sales reported in this or that extension, so no value"...and I am thinking, reading it, that sometime such free advice is not usually the best

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I see things at top like a Porn Coach and the Gay 49ers Football Coach (not surprised it is in San Francisco) but that's about the openly gay coach herself and not on the coaching job, or the gay woman needing a coach herself.

Look I know zero about this topic and don't plan to continue a discussion on this topic. I just was pointing out that from a domain perspective one thing I look at is to Google the term and see how popular the phrase is. When I did that with the words in your question, there were huge number of hits. That tells me that the match is not at all ridiculous for actual use.

Here are a few links that may, or may not, be helpful if you are genuinely wanting to establish that there is a real field related to the term. The second link points out that the entire field of personal life coaches is about $2 billion a year (not just gay, in total).

http://www.thegaycoaches.com/

http://wellfellow.com/gay-life-coaches/

I am in no way endorsing anything in any of the links. Just saying it looks to me like there is a potential domain market.

Let's get this thread back to general arguments on the topic. Picking through ANYONE's holdings makes no contribution in my opinion.

 

[Brands.International]

Ok but back on topic, lets kindly stop discussing (fabulous) names my porfolio, is that would be possible, lol

 

[namemarket]

Ok but back on topic, lets kindly stop discussing (fabulous) names my porfolio, is that would be possible, lol

Not possible and not at all surprised it had offers already because of the excellent match with extension. It's extremely good new-tld name and one I would like to own myself but likely way out of my price range.

P.S. Would you take 1k on a fast sale (assuming renewal fee is low)? offer good for 1 hr.

 

[Brands.International]

Here is a question actually related to the thread @lolwarrior

If there is a ngTLD domain name already registered by someone else, how can I readily find what the renewal rate is on that?

Like for example new (.) earth (a nice name!) sold for $18,800 this week according to the DNjournal weekly report. How can I see what the renewal fee is for this great domain if I wanted to do an analysis like the one you start the thread with, say a 10 year cost.

Thanks.

Bob

That is a very good question. So far I use 2 main methods:

a) go to www.mrdomain.com, and insert the name in search box. It will show you renewal fee. This has 95% of accuracy, but it is not 100% accurate, because for example I have some names in my portfolio which it reports very incorrectly (it says they have USD 10 000/year renewal, while I pay USD 5/year for them. Not sure how such gross innacuracy can be there, but it is, while it is still the most accurate tool I know atm.

b) to exclude those 5% innacuracies from a) - start transfer to you registrar (but do not pay for it) and see what it wil charge for a year. This can again differ very much between registrars, but you will know for sure what YOUR registrar plans to charge for a particular name.

 

[Brands.International]

New gTLDs have no value.
How you can talk about thier value if only few of them have value as "short" alternatives?
.com, .net, .org, .info etc can be used with any keyword, but new gTLDs just with very limited ones.
You mentioned .life and .properties, but they can be used just with very specific keywords.

.Life and .Properties can be indeed used only with few specific keywords - new gTLD investors call such extensions "narrow" or "niche" extensions. That does not mean they do not have any value, it means there is only specific set of names (keywords) which makes good sense. That makes such names even more valuable, and it is great if you (as domain investor) can get them for standard renewal.

There are new gTLD extensions like .xyz, which are very broad - you can put almost any keyword in front of .xyz, and it still makes sense. Such new gTLD extensions are called "broad"..they have value as well.

There is also bunch of extensions which are somewhere in the middle - many keywords will make sense, but not such broad set as in case of .xyz. In this group we have extensions like .online or .vip. They also have a value, if you choose right keyword.