information Should Car Dealerships Use a Geo .CARS Domain Name?

[bhartzer]

It's been a while since I have released a New TLD case study. I recently completed a 30 page case study where I looked at 3 different .CARS web sites. One moved from a .COM to a .CARS domain, the other two launched new web sites on .CARS domains.

The site that moved, ArizonaUsedCars.com, moved to Arizona.CARS. They saw a 75 percent increase in visitors from Google organic search (just by moving the site). The others have done pretty well, also.

In the PDF, I detail all of the Google Analytics data, as well as SEMrush.com search engine ranking data.

You can download the case study here.

I'd love to hear any feedback you have--positive or negative.

 

[bmugford]

I just can't take any registry sponsored "case study" seriously. There is too much of a vested interested in cherry picking results that paint a certain picture.

This is a $3K/year extension. That alone is likely to turn off 99.9% of end users.

Brad

 

[Kate]

The TLD only has 331 regs. If they are all paid, then it can be viable.
But the pricing is exorbitant for normal end users.
It looks more like the Centurion program from Amex but with fewer benefits, than a regular domain extension.

I'm afraid you are preaching in the desert, because the pricing is designed to lock out almost everybody. So who is going to benefit from the alleged merits of the TLD ? Almost nobody.
So even if we take your analysis at face value, and accept that the price paid has been cost-effective for one client, it's not the kind of operation that can be replicated easily. It is a magnified example, not a generalization.

Also, I like your quote:

However, in the .CARS registry, there are no premium domain names—none are held back by the registry except for a few select domain names that are used for internal purposes by the registry.

A more accurate statement would be that all domain names are premium.

If TLDs are so good for SEO, then I wonder why end users are not embracing them massively, even for satellite sites. SEO professionals would be pushing nTLDs in front of their customers massively. There are more parameters that come into play. Domain names don't build websites: they simply translate the level of commitment (or lack thereof) of end users into their branding.

 

[Casey L]

If your car business plans to stay open for the next 20 years, that’d be $60k sunk into a single domain name.

Any sensible business person would be better off spending ~$10k on ArizonaCars.com, PhoenixCars.com, and other alternatives, and using the remaining $50k for advertising, marketing, or anything else.

 

[clasione]

I feel the pricing on the .cars Domain, in hind sight, is viewed as a giant mistake by the registry, but a mistake that is very difficult to back track on.

The price of the domain is exactly what is and has stunted its growth and adoption. Not to mention the normal difficulty of growing a new TLD by itself; that’s hard enough, but the price is just a giant mistake.

It will probably be reduced at some point, after enough registrations are dropped.

I still feel the initial buzz factor is the biggest benefit. I agree that if the rankings are better than a .com that the price is well worth it, but most of Google rankings are dependent on so many other factors then the domain by itself, that it is unlikely to make that much of a difference.

https://www.strategicrevenue.com/gr...w-gtlds-is-temporary-buzz-factor-link-equity/

But even if it did, the cost of the domain by itself is not the only problem. It’s the added confusion of the TLD; they are tougher to brand, and you risk lost traffic from people forgetting that the right of the dot is different. It’s entirely different and added branding endevour.

Nowadays it is difficult enough to get found and then be remembered. Adding the confusion of another type URL, if you do not also own the .com equivalent, is actually putting yourself in a very dangerous position from a marketing perspective.

https://www.strategicrevenue.com/new-gtld-not-so-fast-new-right-of-the-dot-could-total-failure/

In the end, rarely will you find people spending extra money to put themselves in a more difficult marketing position.

 

[DnEbook]

Wow 40 posts in ten years .......slow down!

 

[Silentptnr]

There are many factors that support using brandable names, even longer names, to secure a .com.

I won't get into all the factors as most already know many of them. I will say that arizona.cars has captured good search position and subsequently, is more than likely, seeing increased traffic. The answer to the question as to whether a new gTLD "can" capture top search position for competitive keywords is evidenced by what arizona.cars has achieved as well as other sites that have gained in search with a new gTLD.

However, with all that said, the cost structure for .cars is above what domain "investors" would invest in. With 300-400 total registrations, it appears the general public concurs.

Perhaps the case study could be used by .cars to support making additional sales to retail customers.

It is unfortunate that many great .cars domain names will likely not be registered by domain investors or the general public due to it's current price structure.

The cool thing about threads like this that we can look back a year or two from now and see what's happened!

Thanks for sharing the report.

 

[DNWon]

A very pricey extension, so unless the domain change is worth $2,000 to $3,000 more in profit annually, then it probably wouldn't be worth it. But at those prices you can probably get some very memorable .car or .cars names, so to some car professionals, it may be worth the extra annual expense for a more memorable or shorter domain name!

 

[creataweb]

Too expensive. I see so many car ads on TV I think that's where most of their budget goes.

 

[bmugford]

Who sponsored this case study, or is this something you do on your own?

From the article -

While this research and case study is sponsored by the .CARS TLD, in no way was our professional opinion or the data we reveal biased in one way or another.

 

[clarkemarketing]

This gtld is beyond expensive... even crypto.cars is available for registration lol. If I owned a car dealership here in Toronto, I'd rather invest $100k to buy cars.ca (which I can always resell) than drop $3000/year for toronto.cars and it's worthless when I'm done with it.

 

[Name Trader]

Renewal fee of 3k per year is always a topic! You have to count the profit per car not the revenue.

That's what I'm having a hard time to get my head around. How much profit would a $20k car sale generate for the seller? I only went to Arizona.Cars after I posted my comments above. I assumed because of them using Arizona.Cars they would be an Arizona-wide car dealership. But their website looks like a smallish 1 lot used car dealership. Which is probably correct since they were called ArizonaUsedCars.com before the rebranding. They also own MesaCars.com which is forwarded to Arizona.Cars. Personally, I think, since they are based only in Mesa, I think that would be the perfect domain for them to use. Visitors to Arizona.Cars would be expected to see an Arizona-wide franchise, IMHO. I don't know how far a customer is prepared to travel to buy a used car in Arizona. Perhaps they might only be interested in travelling a short distance. Which would make MesaCars.com preferable to Arizona.Cars, IMHO. And as others have said, they could buy ArizonaCars.com at GoDaddy and either forward Mesa to Arizona or visa versa. And save a bundle on Arizona.Cars registrations.

 

[GoKaizen]

The author of this study uses .COM for his websites.

That tells you everything you need to know.

 

[jmcc]

I think that the assumptions about the market are flawed, Bill,
The primary market, as the study indicates, is the US market. For this market, the tiny .CARS gTLD is competing with the massive .COM TLD and even .US ccTLD. Outside the US, the dynamics are overwhelmingly away from .COM to the ccTLD. If a business isn't using a .ccTLD as their primary brand in some of these countries, then it effectively is losing traffic.

The main problem that the .CARS gTLD has is brand awareness. The opinion polls from ICANN CCT about awareness of new gTLDs are irrelevant. The reality is that new gTLDs are in a highly contested market and the lack of awareness means that people may not recognise a new gTLD like .CARS as being a real TLD.

The other aspect for a TLD is usage. This isn't the seriously iffy "parking" stuff from ICANN's CCT and elsewhere but real usage analysis. If a TLD is being used for websites and e-mail, people see it. If it is trustworthy, then people begin to develop websites on the TLD and more people see the TLD. This is the virtuous circle of which registries speak. The problem for .CARS gTLD, at the moment, is that there are not that many active .CARS websites. It is therefore almost completely invisible to both potential registrants and customers.

Regards...jmcc

 

[imadoer]

As a ex car dealer/rebuilder/wholesaler/exporter

The answer is NOOOO!

 

[bmugford]

I wouldn't be thinking that getting ArizonaCars.com for 3k would be that easy. But that one could get something decent for 3k in dot com, yes.

What would the registry recommend to an Arizona car dealer to use now that Arizona.Cars taken?

It is $3K/year for a .cars, so even if the .COM was $10K that is $10K + $10/year over a decade vs $30K over a decade.

Brad

 

[bhartzer]

From the article -

While this research and case study is sponsored by the .CARS TLD, in no way was our professional opinion or the data we reveal biased in one way or another.

Yes, it was commissioned ("sponsored") by the .CARS TLD. I personally take my reputation seriously--and didn't put any bias whatsoever into this. They paid me for my time--which was about 40 hours of researching, looking at data (Google Analytics, SEMRush.com, Google Search Console data) and then writing/rewriting/updating.

 

[wwwweb]

Yes, it was commissioned ("sponsored") by the .CARS TLD. I personally take my reputation seriously--and didn't put any bias whatsoever into this. They paid me for my time--which was about 40 hours of researching, looking at data (Google Analytics, SEMRush.com, Google Search Console data) and then writing/rewriting/updating.

Fair enough, but what about your other data points, if we only took the good from every report, we would live in a totally alternate universe. There could have been different factors around the time you took those stats, maybe the Barrett Jackson car auction in Arizona... you cherry picked it, a true unbiased report has all data points.

 

[GoKaizen]

No

https://www.strategicrevenue.com/wh...o-suck-it-will-rebrand-with-king-of-all-urls/

Yes, initially I was very excited about .cars domains. Two years later, after watching what I feel has been significantly poor adoption overall, I did not want to spend another $2,100 (I did still had access to the discount) on renewing even just one of them. After two years of watching less than stellar growth, and a poor retail and wholesale market of the TLD as a whole, keep it mind, I watched Cheap.cars not even attract bids over $100.00; I decided that there was no longer any point to continue to hold the domain and build a business on it as its value and the anticipated competitive edge of having it early had diminished to me.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...d-with-king-of-all-urls.1056962/#post-6496609

@clasione

 

[mr-x]

Maybe a better title... We spent money marketing

>> But what happens if Google decides to change their algo

This isn't *all* about the Google algorithm. In fact, if you read the case study, there's information about direct traffic to the sites, which can be type-ins. One site was doing iHeartMedia advertising which caused a bunch of direct traffic, type-ins and Google organic traffic to go up. Another did GeniusMonkey advertising (not organic search traffic) and also saw more direct traffic and type-ins.

"Just by moving from ArizonaUsedCars.com to Arizona.CARS, the dealership saw a traffic value increase of $40,611 ($69,618 of value annualized)."

These two sentences don't jive very well or I'm missing something. Sounds like "can be type-ins" is due to increased advertising, not name recognition.

 

[enlytend]

You compared 7months to the prior period - what about the YoY comparison?
I can definitely see it driving more direct traffic if presented well in the iheartmedia advertising - more memorable.
How did these perform in the local pack?

(Too effin lazy to download the whole study, besides its Friday )

 

[platey]

A very pricey extension, so unless the domain change is worth $2,000 to $3,000 more in profit annually, then it probably wouldn't be worth it. But at those prices you can probably get some very memorable .car or .cars names, so to some car professionals, it may be worth the extra annual expense for a more memorable or shorter domain name!

If the dot cars extension was $20-50 to buy and renew each year ever car car retailer would be using a dot cars gtld

But as good as the extension is the price is restricting sales and always will do at current pricing structure

But dot cars is a great gtld for anyone with that sells cars with a few quid that can see its potential

 

[1Darko]

If the dot cars extension was $20-50 to buy and renew each year ever car car retailer would be using a dot cars gtld

But as good as the extension is the price is restricting sales and always will do at current pricing structure

But dot cars is a great gtld for anyone with that sells cars with a few quid that can see its potential

As domainers we are always evaluating our domains - What makes your domain so valuable in comparison to other domains? The same thinking should be applied if we compare extensions - What makes the extension .car so valuable in comparison to other extensions? Is it worth the 3k renewal per year in comparson to $10 renewal per year? Imagine you can feed the .com for 300 years with one payment of 3k.

 

[1Darko]

Renewal fee or domain price isn't important for industries that sell high priced items like car. As written in a previous post, they pay for TV ads too. High renewal fee shouldn't be a problem. Assume you are making $500k sales daily (10 cars, 50k each), then think about the "high" renewal fees again. "high" is a relative term

Renewal fee of 3k per year is always a topic! You have to count the profit per car not the revenue.

 

[bmugford]

A while back, I wrote about stl.cars, and mentioned wichita.cars in that case study, as well.
https://globerunner.com/stl-cars-case-study/

The stl.cars moved from a .COM to a .CARS.

Wichita.cars was a one-page site for a while, and then upgraded to an actual site with more pages and content. Even when Wichita.cars was a one-page site it still did fairly well in organic search.

Yeah, from STLMotorcars.com to STL.CARS. If you really want proper testing you need the same keyword in .COM as well. ArizonaCars.com vs Arizona.Cars for example.

Also, it seems like there is other stuff going on in the background as well like re-design, SEO optimization, advertising, etc. It is not just related to the domain. This is not an A/B test.

Brad