The DEATH of "domaining" as we know it..

[mjnels]

I think its possible traditional domaining is going to die..or at least come to a slow crawl and take a lonnnnng nap. No, probably not in legacy TLD's like .COM, .ORG or popular ccTLD's. Although I think those prices are done going up for the most part. They're likely gonna level off, especially mediocre ones and longtail.

I'm mostly talking about newish gTLD's where people on this forum register them in hopes to sell them for more money than they paid with zero development, even Top-Tier words/phrases. There is so much choice now and the business model has changed to a Top-Down type of thing. The registries and registrars are the new domainers. With some exceptions - it probably isn't going to be like it used to or even close.

I include "older gTLD" like .INFO in this too... I guess I haven't been following sales prices lately, but I cant see "traditional domainers" making money off top-tier words in gTLD like they used to. Beyond the hype not being able to sustain itself and prices being spread too thin across the board, the number of choices offered will result in MUCH lower prices than when just 1 or 2 new gTLD (or re-purposed ccTLD like .co) were released every year.

The flood is coming.. it may seem like its already here but just wait until renewal time..and next renewal time, and the next one. Although, isn't that somewhat the point of the new gTLD? To give people that are actually going to use them more choice (and line ICANN's pockets..) Well, you can argue "we don't need the choice" but that is irrelevant because its here now regardless of the reason. Prices are gonna drop farther than they already have. Once the registrars/registries have sold the "good stuff" during the hype phase a good portion of them will likely start whoring them out at cheaper prices.

I'm talking "single letter" domains for at or under $100. You betcha. A lot of the reserved and ICANN restricted domains are not even out yet.. like the ones on the "name collision list." And yes, I am aware "single letter" isn't what it used to mean when the TLD itself is 12 characters long, but still..

I'm not saying gTLD wont eventually get used by businesses. I believe they overwhelmingly WILL be in the future. Too many cool intuitive phrases for it not to happen and now they're featured on the front page of every registrar. Its da future and the common person will know they exist now. But they're not going to be forced to buy top tier words from traditional domainers as much as they used to be... unless there is an influx of 100x as many "domainers" as there are now.

So all you people trying to "get in early" on the next big thing... become a registry or registrar with a good angle. Otherwise what you have here is mostly likely an expensive hobby/obsession/tax write off.

 

[VirtualT]

The reason why .xyz and .club go quite quickly, is they are cheap to register. The more expensive ones... less people take a chance on them. Some good generics are still available for many of the more expensive extensions... but its either at or over the value of the domain.

Ahha, you nailed it, and that is the whole point. Domainers were their own worst enemy, it's a bit like property speculation, if the investors buy all the cheap property where does Joe sixpack and his 3 kids go to live?
Thats why the gTLD took traction in the first place.

I saw the writing on the wall a couple of years ago and got out of everything except for com, tragic to watch some of the old forum peeps trying to peddle xxx.info/biz/net like its 2006.

Sure, some niche markets have held up well even increased in some areas like numerics, and kudos for those that the foresight, but for the most part anything apart from com or relevant cctld is tanked and probably will stay that way.

 

[ebiz]

RougeWriter-- You think the best way to go is to put affiliate sites up on good keyword domains? I have a shitload of them so your reply caught my eye. Do you think only the top TLD's are worth the effort?

Eh, domainers should be thinking beyond domaining, anyway. Some of the new tlds offer a chance to register great keywords that they can, at the very least, develop into affiliate sites. So what if the annual registration fee for an amazing domain is 25 bucks or 75 bucks? If you can't make 10 times that with an affiliate site, you aren't trying very hard.

Domaining can be a hit/miss proposition, generating some monthly income with a few affiliate sites can be downright handy in a cold stretch.

Now, the caveat here is, and always has been, how you define a great keyword. Many of the domains being registered in the newer tlds are going to need an act of mercy in order to be resold, they are terrible. And, some of the extensions are just awful. But selectively choosing a great keyword with an extension that is intuitive for that keyword offers an opportunity for long term monthly income if you just build it out.

 

[tomcarl]

It may devalue prices, won't kill them.

 

[garptrader]

While there will be outliers the launch of hundreds of new TLDs will make it more difficult to sell .Net, .Info, .CO, .ME, .TV domains for four or five figures. We may be looking at the commoditization of this industry which means low $XXX or even high $XX sales. Premium renewals will not be sustainable for investors with large portfolios. I believe one and two-word .COMs will be OK though three-word .COMs may feel the impact of numerous alternatives.

 

[Kate]

I'm going to speculate that the new gTLDs is going to make "domaining" larger than ever. Especially when Google enters the game and offers domains for next to nothing, and possibly nothing.

Give domains for free, and they'll be used massively for spamming or other nefarious purposes, .info or .pw are testimony to that.

A domain name will be like a Cell phone number or personal email address, everyone will have one.

I wish, but that should already be a reality then. The truth is that the majority of people still use free E-mail, even for a blog subdomains à la blogger or wordpress are very common if not the norm.
Yet a owning a domain + hosting is not more expensive than owning a mobile phone.

So I think it's wishful thinking, I tend to disagree with those who say the Internet is still new and the domain market is going to grow exponentially... I would say it nearly plateaued a long time ago.

Domaining is far from dead, it's simply evolving to something far more grand.

I agree. Watch the market rather than allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the doom and gloom. If I am to judge by Dnjournal reports new extensions have had no noticeable impact and the rush to new extensions has not materialized. Of course, things take a long time to take shape but the early trends are not encouraging (go figure lol).

While there will be outliers the launch of hundreds of new TLDs will make it more difficult to sell .Net, .Info, .CO, .ME, .TV domains for four or five figures.

Predictably, 'non-established' extensions were going to most be affected by the mass release of new extensions. After all it's already hard enough to sell .com domains.

 

[BrandChimp]

Ask yourself why .net still not worth as much as the .com. It has been out for years.
People don't need new extensions. There's plenty of good names to register in the .net for only $10/year.

Now we will need to put some coma in the middle of domain names.
AllMiamiCondos.net = Fluid.

Miami(DOT)Condos = Why not Miami(hyphen)Condos then?

Fluidity wins

 

[McDuke]

So I think it's wishful thinking, I tend to disagree with those who say the Internet is still new and the domain market is going to grow exponentially... I would say it nearly plateaued a long time ago.
.

Wowzers, you seriously think this is it? We have seen the pinnical of the internet? Will user demand decrease form here?

 

[DomainVP]

The internet is still new, and peoples awareness and how to use it correctly has not permeated society at all yet.

We all may have been doing this for a while... but most people on this planet have no clue how to use the internet correctly for business.

I've been blessed to know a lot of people in my life. Out of all of those people very few know how to build a website, even less know SEO, even less know php/mysql, and even less know about domains.

5 to 7 years from now will be the 'peak' of domains, and then it will level out maintaining that value for at least another 3 to 5 years. Where it will level out, who knows, but the prices will be much higher than most prices today.

I've seen this played out repeatedly in many 'intangible' (digital) industries.

.COM is king, and it always will be. There is a certain sense of authority and trust imbued in the .COM extension. Plus most .COM owners are big money powerhouses, they won't let their domain assets be seen as junk ever. Money controls the market.

I define the 'death of domaining' as the point where the auction prices meet the end user sales prices.

The 'death of domaining' will be here in 5 - 7 years. That's when most companies will have a domaining/marketing expert on their staff that specifically watches out for names they have a vested interest in.

Some big 'media' companies have that now, and large corporations that know how to use the internet effectively do the same. It's not just about trademark protection, it is about asset acquisition. Business is catching on, but it is nowhere near as saturated as it should be.

99.9% of new gTLDs are junk, they will never permeate the market for any value other than their reg fee. It's just not proven... go reg a .info with a high search value and try to sell it. .info has had plenty of time to establish itself. Not saying that there aren't valuable ones, because there are, but most of them wouldn't even make sense.

Most people that think domaining is dead are just a part of the 'old guard' of domainers.

If you are into this for profit, then you must adopt new effective strategies... its just like anything else.. evolve with the times or quit.

 

[Kate]

Wowzers, you seriously think this is it? We have seen the pinnical of the internet? Will user demand decrease form here?

No,what I am saying that it's not 1994 anymore. The landscape is set, just because we have an oversupply of extensions now doesn't mean they will have so much of an impact.

One argument is sometimes made, that I find funny, that the new generation (unlike us domain veterans/dinosaurs) will be more open to new extensions and embrace them. It is wishful thinking because the youth of today have always known the Internet and they have grown up with the shadow of .com over their cradles. It's not a question of generation gap, some domainers just hope that the new generation will bail them out and redeem their bad registrations.

I define the 'death of domaining' as the point where the auction prices meet the end user sales prices.

LOL people are routinely paying more than end user price at auctions. Overpaying... I am dropping out of auctions often, because there is no point competing against 100 of your peers. Sure, there are still bargains to be made but the new game is now about contacting long-time domains holders to acquire domains that may be undervalued.

 

[mjnels]

the youth of today (or tomorrow, really) will be open to new extensions because every registrar will be pimping them. there wasnt much to pimp out before.. .mobi, .info, .pro, .travel, etc...

that doesnt mean domainers registering gTLD today are going to benefit... likely they will just be placeholders for the next couple years.. then the domain will drop and some other wannabe dough mainer will register it for the super great price of $77 per year.. then it will drop in 4 years after having been a parked page at domainnamesales and some actual end user will register it at $14.95.

something like that. every gTLD registered by an end user takes away from what would have been registered in .COM or possibly bought on the aftermarket. starts out as a small percentage and it will eventually snowball into being.normal

 

[RogueWriter]

Ask yourself why .net still not worth as much as the .com. It has been out for years.

But .net is not without value, it is not worthless. Money has been made off of that extension. I sold MilitaryHistory.net . Could I have made more if I had sold MilitaryHistory.com? Yeah I could have, but then I could not possibly ever have owned the .com. It was unavailable.

Simply because an extension does not currently sell for more than ".com" does not make it worthless. .com will still be worth a lot a decade from now simply because a trillion dollars worth of development has been expended on that extension, and businesses are not going to toss that investment away.

But new business, now that's another thing altogether. They will have the option of choosing a crappy, unmemorable .com to register, or pick up a killer keyword in a relevant extension.

There are going to be -terrible- domains registered in the new extensions, but you know what, a crappy 'keyword' won't sell in .com, so gives a rat's hind end?

People don't need new extensions.

Yes, they do. It has always been about choice. If not, then we would all be driving black Model T Fords. I think a domain like Pet.Supply would be a nice alternative to Pet.Net, since that domain had been registered already for years. Even if that is a bad example, if Pet.Supply was held back by the extension's creator, there are hundreds of similar examples I could site where a business could thrive - and the .net has been registered for years.

-shrugs-

Naysayers suggest the extension creators are in it for the money only and fleecing everyone stupid enough to register a domain. I would suggest that, while there are inherent dangers down any path, the new extensions offer opportunity for those who 'choose wisely', who choose keywords that are specifically relevant to the extension, and who are not worried about holding the domains long term, five or more years, waiting for the public to catch up to them.

 

[DomainVP]

There is no new information in any of this. It's as pointless of arguing opinions of politics. Good luck.

 

[Kate]

the youth of today (or tomorrow, really) will be open to new extensions because every registrar will be pimping them. there wasnt much to pimp out before.. .mobi, .info, .pro, .travel, etc...

The registrars have a role to play obviously (Nodaddy in particular is influential due to their market share and raunchy advertising).
But the registrars alone don't shape the market. It's more mimicry. I don't feel like using an unfamiliar .whatever when everybody else is using .com (or the local ccTLD).

 

[gina ferrano]

I dropped out of domaining for awhile...and I'd like to spend most of my energies as the end user, with the occasional domain sale, or purchase for good measure.

 

[mjnels]

I don't feel like using an unfamiliar .whatever when everybody else is using .com (or the local ccTLD).

it was "everyone else" in 1998. in 2014 its almost everyone else.

in another generation i doubt it will be "everyone else"

 

[Horizonconcepts]

I have to say that I agree completely with a lot of the these comments.HOWEVER,Domain investors have to change with the times,we must adapt and overcome.I have been domain investing for over15 years,I missed the early boat,but still have made good money along the way.
The days of being lazy and just sitting on domains hoping they sell is over,domainers have to develop.A quick real example is this,we wanted to build out a site a few months go,but to get the domain we wanted to hatch our cunning plan would be over 1million in the .com,all other major extensions were taken.So we brought a new gtld with a short extension,and our required key word in front of it.The site launched 6 weeks ago,and we already have over 1million page views and 80K uniques in the first 6 weeks,we are currently monetorizing it to make it profitable,so it can be done.

 

[Horizonconcepts]

Thank you,whoever gave me the"like" appreciated.

 

[Kate]

The days of being lazy and just sitting on domains hoping they sell is over,domainers have to develop.

Well, this is not pure play domaining anymore, but web development. I do development but I also 'sit' on domains that will get sold, unless I find the time to use them. As long as I can sell domains passively, domaining is not dead for me.

 

[kippy]

it depends on adoption and recognition by the public. something like .condos has a different meaning to most people than .apartments, .realestate, .housing, etc - it's specific to a style of housing that people look for.

If the public can get acclimated to the right side of the dot being a specific word that mean's it's a web site, then there will be a market for it. If the world still thinks miami.condos is a typo in 5 years, then it's not going to go so well.

Or worse, imagine sending an email to miami.condos.

[email protected]

Hmmm..I think I'd rather send to [email protected]

 

[kippy]

Some of this commentary treats domains like trading cards.
There will be new speculators creating artificial spikes in value. There will be corrections.

In the end all domains that one can build a business around will be valuable. As always.
All domains that drive customer acquisition will be sought for.
Those that are less meaningful, memorable, have poor syntax, etc... will be less desirable. As always.

Miners pull more gold from the ground EVERY day.
Consumers and industries absorb that supply handily.
When you correct for currency supply, gold prices are quite stable.

Domains are like cyber gold. Nothing is dead.

Who made the money during the gold rush? It wasn't the ones who found gold. It was those who sold the picks and shovels. Hmmm...it appears registrars and icann have quite the business plan. How about we invest in their businesses instead?

 

[xpimp]

After launching the first extensions in the 90's, they made sure that they will never repeat the same mistake by let everyone to take the goodies on the new gtlds. That's why i didn t register even one single new gtld. Why bother, really? if the registrar holds the best ones and sells them at a higher price because they are "premium" and lets everyone else to take the garbage.

 

[tomcarl]

My .COM sales have been better than ever in the last couple of months. Businesses will realize that the whole new gTLD will lead to nothing but mass confusion and owning Miami.condos will be no more beneficial than owning MiamiCondos.com because you're only risking putting your business into a dogpile of 1000 other Miami.keyword domain names and your visitors won't know where to place their dots and when one keyword starts and the other one ends. Yeh these are 'cutesy' names to own but at the end of the day del.icio.us purchased delicious.com

You want people to find you conveniently without any chance of them forgetting your brand, what way to do that by sticking random dots in the middle of keystrings? This is the reason the majority of businesses stuck with .COM, the main pool, rather than .NET, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, that have all been around for years. If the argument the Internet will be changing within 10 years and .COM will be dead, that means every website address is basically going to be a hack? BuyOur.Shoes, TheBestMiami.condos? As I've said before, the only winners are going to be a handful of single keyword domains on extensions that fit perfectly, like a .Club

You think these companies who've invested hundreds of thousands and millions are going to devalue their assets by switching their entire business models up because every dictionary word now has a dot before it? I don't think the internet is 'evolving' to all website addresses that are keyword hacks and smart developers know anything more than single keyword on a non .COM is headed toward failure.

You know what they say about over-saturation of anything...they'll be a few winners, a few big reported sales, yet you'll never hear of those sites again after they're acquired.

 

[kippy]

My .COM sales have been better than ever in the last couple of months. Businesses will realize that the whole new gTLD will lead to nothing but mass confusion and owning Miami.condos will be no more beneficial than owning MiamiCondos.com because you're only risking putting your business into a dogpile of 1000 other Miami.keyword domain names and your visitors won't know where to place their dots and when one keyword starts and the other one ends. Yeh these are 'cutesy' names to own but at the end of the day del.icio.us purchased delicious.com

You want people to find you conveniently without any chance of them forgetting your brand, what way to do that by sticking random dots in the middle of keystrings? This is the reason the majority of businesses stuck with .COM, the main pool, rather than .NET, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, that have all been around for years. If the argument the Internet will be changing within 10 years and .COM will be dead, that means every website address is basically going to be a hack? BuyOur.Shoes, TheBestMiami.condos? As I've said before, the only winners are going to be a handful of single keyword domains on extensions that fit perfectly, like a .Club

You think these companies who've invested hundreds of thousands and millions are going to devalue their assets by switching their entire business models up because every dictionary word now has a dot before it? I don't think the internet is 'evolving' to all website addresses that are keyword hacks and smart developers know anything more than single keyword on a non .COM is headed toward failure.

You know what they say about over-saturation of anything...they'll be a few winners, a few big reported sales, yet you'll never hear of those sites again after they're acquired.

Good analysis...so it appears the single generic keyword domains (that are typically already registered by big time investors, registries, or those who invest a lot) are the only viable options for these new investments.

Why would a brand like Victoria Secrets switch from VictoriaSecrets.com to VictoriaSecrets.Club as their main brand. Not to say they wouldn't use the second one but their main brand is not going to change to a club. That would be like saying now Victoria Secrets is no longer Victoria Secrets, they've now rebranded their entire company name to Victoria Secrets Club. That is ludicrous. Now the only other option is a generic extension like .xyz. But that is really silly. I mean .xyz sounds crazy. Maybe I'm part of the new generation x/y that thinks .com is everything though.

Good point, I need to send an email to buy our shoes...so when I go to send my email I'll type [email protected] or is it [email protected], [email protected] or is it [email protected] or something else? I mean it crazy to think about all of the mistakes just in sending the emails. Let alone in typing in the wrong address from the memory. Just by you typing out that string, I immediately thought of buyourshoes.com.

Sometimes us investors get too smart for the average person. We think they are a lot smarter...but they are actually pretty basic. I mean really simple people who need it so dumb simple to remember.

My theory is the ones who are really going to make out on this are top registries and the players providing the picks and shovels to those of us "gold diggers"...unfortunately gold is limited in supply and thus few will find genuine nuggets while most of us will wish we had sold picks and shovels.

 

[kippy]

My .COM sales have been better than ever in the last couple of months. Businesses will realize that the whole new gTLD will lead to nothing but mass confusion and owning Miami.condos will be no more beneficial than owning MiamiCondos.com because you're only risking putting your business into a dogpile of 1000 other Miami.keyword domain names and your visitors won't know where to place their dots and when one keyword starts and the other one ends. Yeh these are 'cutesy' names to own but at the end of the day del.icio.us purchased delicious.com

You want people to find you conveniently without any chance of them forgetting your brand, what way to do that by sticking random dots in the middle of keystrings? This is the reason the majority of businesses stuck with .COM, the main pool, rather than .NET, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, that have all been around for years. If the argument the Internet will be changing within 10 years and .COM will be dead, that means every website address is basically going to be a hack? BuyOur.Shoes, TheBestMiami.condos? As I've said before, the only winners are going to be a handful of single keyword domains on extensions that fit perfectly, like a .Club

You think these companies who've invested hundreds of thousands and millions are going to devalue their assets by switching their entire business models up because every dictionary word now has a dot before it? I don't think the internet is 'evolving' to all website addresses that are keyword hacks and smart developers know anything more than single keyword on a non .COM is headed toward failure.

You know what they say about over-saturation of anything...they'll be a few winners, a few big reported sales, yet you'll never hear of those sites again after they're acquired.

The only possibility of trumping .com I can see is if they start giving .whatever away for free as a loss leader. I mean how are they going to beat a $.99 .com registration for the first year unless they do it for free? So many people see that discounted .com when they go to register versus the discounted $15+ for the first year and then increased pricing of the new tlds each year.

Unless they have some major major dollars to spend on advertising and media, do they think they are going to retrain the public to go to .whatever overnight?

Why would brand X want to go with a .apple, .microsoft, .google, .amazon gtld. Yeah, I can see Samsung.com switching to Samsung.Apple because .apple is the "hot" new gtld. Hilarious to think about! Don't you realize brands will not go with any gtld that is descriptive or boxed in any way. That's like saying Bing is going to switch to .google when Google starts offering free gtlds with .google. So now we have Bing.Google...but wait...bing is google's competitor? Or now .amazon is the hot new one...so we have microsoft.amazon....so Microsoft is now Amazon or vice versa? Or what about walmart...now it's costco.walmart...wait don't they compete with sams.club or is it samsclub.com? Are they the same company? Wow, this is a little confusing?

 

[tomcarl]

Not only that.... the pricing structure for some of these 'Premium' domains on the new gTLDs is laughable, the smart business knows they pay a 1 time price for a good 1 or 2 keyword trusted .COM domain name and that's all, they're paying $8-$12 bucks a year to renew it and it's done with. Some of these registrars are practically pimping their names at hundreds, some even thousands of dollars per year to renew.

Especially that ICANN now changed policies again on allowed renewal rates, Look at a 1 word domain that doesn't even make sense: Lawyer.rentals is charging 129 to reg, and 129 a year to renew. 5 years of operating on that crappy domain and you paid 650 dollars, 10 years you paid 1300. You could probably buy LawyerRentals.com for $xxx and pay only $8-$12 a year to renew and you're operating on safe waters and PLUS you may be holding onto an asset that you can resell if you desired to get your original investment back *with* profit, that 129 renewel every year is going to hurt your pitch... risky waters.

Then you've got a lot of people registering 1 word domains on these new TLDs only because the 2 words together make sense meanwhile the 2 words *are available* to be reg'd on .COM and haven't even been touched in years. What is this saying about all of this hype going on right now in the domaining community? People aren't thinking straight and they think this is still the mid 90s and they're jumping on a bandwagon to get rich, like they've got casino fever.

BET.Kiwi sold for $8,818 dollars and guess what, BETKIWI.com was available for regfee at the same time and someone else registered it probably with a $2 coupon - Unbelievablely wasteful and illogical "investments" going on and the more I'm seeing this the more I realize when renewals come around, wow, are we going to see a landrush of drops and we won't be speculating anymore about .COM remaining king.

Next time you folks go to register Chemicals.xyz or GoldBuying.ninja - Be sure to add ChemicalsXYZ.com and GoldBuyingNinja.com to your carts because in a couple of years from now if your site does take off I bet you'll be looking to acquire those .COMs you didn't even bother to check to see if they were available at regfee and *they* were, but you were "blinded by the dot" and thought you had something premium, but you really only had something brandable with a dot in the middle of it that a visitor would probably trust less then if it was just the exact keystring on .com