news The Domain Industry Is About To Change BIGTIME!!!

[daj]

The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed.

The net's regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed.

If approved, it could allow companies to turn their brands into domain names while individuals could also carve out their own corner of the net.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7468855.stm

 

[ebatcave]

It really does matter how these are indexed. I am sure Google will still give priority to the established extensions, which is a huge downside for potential buyers here also.

Yeah, I would think it would be a substantial investment for the search engines to change everything (although I'm sure they have known about this for some time). I would think they could hold ICANN hostage while they decide if they want to implement this and how.

 

[Cuailean]

People are saying .com will still be king. IMHO Search engine results will be king.

I very much agree with this! I think fantastic SEO skills are going to become essential to rank anywhere near the top of Google even for very niche terms. The more extensions, the more prime generic names you will have to compete with to get anywhere. I think for people like me who can't afford $xxxxx + dot com generics, domaining could become much less attractive.

I have quite a lot of generic one word (and prime two word terms) in less popular extensions, such as org.uk. At the moment with these names I can make minisites with minimal effort that rank very highly in Google with little-to-no SEO and bring in a good ROI. I can then sell them as small sites with traffic and make a nice little profit on that too.

Obviously they succeed because they are the exact word(s) searched for by 'Googlers'. I only reg highly searched terms. In addition Google largely ignores the extension (or if anything seems to favour org.uk here in UK) so my names are at no disadvantage over .com etc. Also in my experience the keyword in the domain name generally seems to count much more highly with Google than the same word(s) placed in a subdomain or title, so again my top keyword domains are at an advantage despite their less desirable extension.

Now, if my pessimistic view of the future is correct, I will be competing with dozens (hundreds???) of domains, all using the same one word premium name as me, in front of a myriad of different extensions (which Google will presumably continue to ignore). Even the dot com owner will surely notice a drop in traffic as the person googling will be hit with a page full of sites all with the same top keyword (discounting the ext.).

I see this move making all but prime .com (and maybe orgs, co.uk and other main country ext.) much less valuable and in many cases worthless. At the same time income from PPC etc. could take a big hit, unless you do extensive development and SEO work on each site to make it stand out from the crowd (not something domainers with lots of sites can easily achieve).

So will it be worth paying renewal fees on large portfolios of names that have suddenly become both less saleable and less productive in generating ongoing income? I see a lot of dropping and liquidation sales coming along - maybe not this year but eventually as this new system takes hold. Please tell me I'm being too gloomy and that there will still be a profitable path for the less well off domain investor like me

 

[cityforums.com]

Why wouldn't Google not take into account the extension in a universe of

1000s of tlds ?

say for .berlin ...

it would be the height of folly for them not to eventually tweak their algo for it.

 

[ebatcave]

Then how would they rate the standard tlds? They ignore them today, so there would need to be a pecking order on future tlds should they decide to go that route. IMHO that would become very political...

Why wouldn't Google not take into account the extension in a universe of

1000s of tlds ?

say for .berlin ...

it would be the height of folly for them not to eventually tweak their algo for it.

 

[cityforums.com]

Then how would they rate the standard tlds? They ignore them today, so there would need to be a pecking order on future tlds should they decide to go that route. IMHO that would become very political...

Isn't everything political. :blink:

 

[dotnom]

My main concern right now after these news is a LLL.com purchase that is slightly overpriced
The name is good but if prices will stabilize or go down this would not be a real investment

I also don't know how market will react for the LLL.com / LLLL.com

 

[DiggleNamer]

Raredn.com: “What I meant is these new domain names will make .com stronger than it already is. As quality .com will be the most unobtainable in comparison to other newer extensions”
I AGREE WITH THIS COMPLETELY

onlinedomainsOO “could lead to more online identity scams.”
IT WILL CREATE THE CONFUSION WHICH ALLOWS SCAMS TO THRIVE

Mrdomainman: “what we may have is just domainer to domainer selling ... and we know how that will end up.”
IT WILL END UP WHERE WE ARE AT WITH LOW GRADE LLLL.COMs. AND .MOBI STILL THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE AS A SPECULATOR IF YOU RIDE THE HYPE AND TIME THE MARKET PROPERLY, BUT THAT IS NOT MY BUSINESS MODEL

Mwzd “it will take a considerable amount of money... not to mention tech to own your own TLD....”
THE TECH TO MANAGE THE EXTENSION WOULD BE QUITE A LOT I IMAGINE. ANY IDEAS ON COST ANYONE?

Dgridley “I think it will even the playing field. We may not see so much in the way of parking or speculation and it may mean we'll see more in the way of development because domains will be affordable.”
I DON’T THINK THIS WILL DRIVE DEVELOPMENT SO MUCH AS DEPRESS PARKING. THE IDEA THAT PARKERS AND SPECULATORS WILL SUDDENLY BECOME DEVELOPERS IS NOT LIKELY IMO. ONLY A SMALL PERCENTAGE WILL MAKE THE SWITCH TO THIS MORE INTENSIVE BUSINESS MODEL WHICH REQUIRES A DIFFERENT SKILL SET.

Owntype: “Then I will set a big $$$$$$ budget to secure the following extensions: .con… [etc.]”
I BELIEVE FRANK SCHILLING HAS ALREADY FILED A PATENT IN RESPECT OF .COM TYPOS AND REROUTING YEARS AGO

Domaintalker: “In this scenario, the only real competitive commercial drivers for the value of the names would be traffic”
THIS IS THE REAL DRIVER BEHIND THE ASSET THAT IS THE DOMAIN NAME. IN THIS IMMATURE STAGE SPECULATION IS RIFE, BUT THIS AND OTHER FORCES WILL ALL PALE IN COMPARISON TO THE INCOME PRODUCING POTENTIAL OF THE ASSET AS DEFINED BY THE TRAFFIC AS THE MARKET ADVANCES

James0306: “We will pretty possible to see following things once the revolution comes.
(1) In the beginning, nice keyword and brandable .com prices rise, due to the confusion brought by new extensions.
(2) Because of the high price of .com, new companies start to pick up nice and cheap names with new extensions. Some nice sites show up gradually.
(3) After 7-10 years, new generations are totally used all the creative extensions. Premium .COM are still favorites of big companies which show credibility and trustable. However, type-in traffic will drop dramatically. We will see huge drop of Poor quality .com then.
(4) People use search engines heavily, SEO become much more important.”
I AGREE WITH ALL THESE POINTS AND NOTE THAT WE ARE YEARS AWAY FROM THE IMPACT AND THE FORCES OF SPECULATION WILL CONTINUE

Autotim: Geo's also look like a big wind-up as google and yahoo let advertisers opt out of parked page sites. It's real simple now - develop or let your DN's die.
GEOS ARE A BIG WIND UP. HOW ARE THEY MONETIZED – DEVELOPMENT. CAN YOU DEVELOP NON-GEO-SPECIFIC NAMES FOR GEO SPECIFIC CONTENT – YES. IS THE NAME PREMIUM JUSTIFIED NOW – NO. WILL IT BE FURTHER REDUCED IN THE FUTURE – MAYBE, BUT THEY ARE SO OUT OF WHACK NOW ANYWAY. HMMM DO I AGREE WITH WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN – I JUST DON’T KNOW, GEOS ARE CONFUSING TO ME, RATHER THAN THE SIMPLE PLAY THEY ARE PRESENTED AS

Beachie: “My guess is that ICANN will only allow a company to operate a generic extension if that company allows the public to register domains for that extension.
THIS IS KEY. ALL BUSINESS MODELS I CAN THINK OF AROUND THIS RELY ON A PRIVATE EXTENSION

 

[DADomains]

Someone prob already posted this, but just in case:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9978448-7.html

 

[DomainTalker]

There's been a lot of clever and creative thinking posted about this issue....great discussion.

...But, I wonder if, in the end, this will be a storm in a teacup....Just a sideshow, in the big scheme of the internet?


For example, I don't know why .travel failed....Its a perfect term for a TLD .extension IF ever a category keyword .extension was going to work....But, it didn't work....Was it poor execution? Poor strategy? Insufficient funds to promote it?...

...Or, was it just an unnecessary, counter-intuitive, fragmentation too far...?...ie 'Nice-sounding idea - lousy practical concept'?


If I want to check out travel options, I wouldn't type in Hawaii.travel, Or, London.travel....I'd just type in 'Hawaii', or 'London'....Or, I might type in 'Hawaii.com, if I thought of it - or, 'Hawaii.mobi', if I was on a mobile phone, and see what options come up, and so on.....But, 'Hawaii.travel?...Well, history has shown us that people just don't type that in.


So, how would people react to an extension like, say, .beauty?...Would we type in cosmetics.beauty? perfume.beauty? facials.beauty?...


...But, what if (as will be likely) there are ALSO extensions like: .cosmetics? And, .perfume? And, .facials? etc etc


...ie a cascading fragmentation of '.extensions' within the 'Beauty' category - but, separately owned, and separately promoted?


...And, the same for every key category??


Very quickly all these keyword categories would become a mess - with totally splintered markets - and, like .travel - be virtually worthless, imo.


There may be a case for some major corporates to have their own brand extension - eg .microsoft, or .ibm, or, .toyota - because they could educate the market to expect to find everything you need to know about their own specific products/services...And, they are big enough - with a broad enough product range to justify it.


But, generic .extensions?...And all the sub generic .extension category fragmentation every one of them will attract??


I think people will just go on as they've always gone on - ie just type in the keyword(s) they want info about - and, leave it to the search engines to find stuff for them...and, the 'extension', per se, will add little, or no, value.


I don't see this 'Balkanisation' of internet extensions going anywhere - in the same way .travel failed to gain traction - and, probably for the same reasons.


Quite simply - the market doesn't need them.

.

 

[DiggleNamer]

This is what i was talking about, not sure how it will be impacted by latest announcement: "Frank Schilling, owner of one of the world’s largest domain portfolios, originally filed for a patent application in May 2001 with attorney John Berryhill, with the idea of recovering traffic lost to error pages that resolve when Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are mistyped (i.e. .CIM, .CPN, .DOM etc., returning traffic solely to the .COM domain). This patent named the "Generic Top-Level Domain Re-Routing System" in April 2006" (source: Sedo newsletter)

 

[Seraphim]

For example, I don't know why .travel failed....Its a perfect term for a TLD .extension IF ever a category keyword .extension was going to work....But, it didn't work....Was it poor execution? Poor strategy? Insufficient funds to promote it?...

The CEO of .travel registered the top 25,000 .travel domains for his own portfolio.

http://www.namepros.com/411587-ceo-travel-buy-25-000-domains-print.html

 

[hullswingerscom]

Quite simply - ..good for the registrar
bad for the domainer .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7476205.stm

 

[recluse99]

I just had a vision of the future,

ALL corporations will have their own ccTLD .

dotMcDonalds

dotFord

dotMicrosoft

and the domain names will be theirs for the making




Take a screenshot, for this is the future :o

Just back in town,
and what do I see,
has anyone else quoted me?

 

[Badger]

The domain buying/selling industry will become completely defunct in less than 5-10yrs.

As the day draws nearer prices will fall and domains will drop. Starting soon.

Direct navigation is already on the decline - which a look at the alexa traffic stats of all the major parking companies will show.

Currently this is because of user apathy (ie that which makes regular web users visit only those site for which they know they need on a day to day basis)

Search will also become negligible as more and more web users become "mature".

Its only a natural progression & domainers shouldnt feel singled out. What it does signify the beginning of the dawn of a new typo market.

 

[SonnyCooL]

all this new extension only bring up the prices of domain hack ...

 

[vitalir]

I hear The Doors playing... "...this is the end"

 

[shreder]

I saw that it will cost $100,000 to register an extension.
It was posted in a local newspaper.

A company that can afford to pay $100,000 on an extension will surely have or will purchase a matching .com domain.
Most end users are not huge companies and cannot afford the $100,000 so .com will still be the best extension.

 

[CHILLY]

The domain buying/selling industry will become completely defunct in less than 5-10yrs.

Because of these new TLD's or something else? (anybody can answer)

Search will also become negligible as more and more web users become "mature".

In age, web use, ?

Its only a natural progression & domainers shouldnt feel singled out. What it does signify the beginning of the dawn of a new typo market.

Wouldn't that just be a continuation of what is already going on, and isn't that an extension of search? So if I created typos on these new TLD's, wouldn't that create more of a market to buy and sell domains? If there is "typos" then why would it be any different from what is going on with the tld's we have now? Am I missing something?

From what I gather, Icann auctions off a new tld, would the buyer have to make it public or not? If not, then you would have: http://eidkdufgjddksakik27843654jdikgjg98373.ws/
on any new tld extention and typos would be defunct. If so, wouldn't that just increase the value & function of the normal tld's

 

[gazzip]

..

...But, I wonder if, in the end, this will be a storm in a teacup....Just a sideshow, in the big scheme of the internet?


For example, I don't know why .travel failed....Its a perfect term for a TLD .extension IF ever a category keyword .extension was going to work....But, it didn't work....Was it poor execution? Poor strategy? Insufficient funds to promote it?...

...Or, was it just an unnecessary, counter-intuitive, fragmentation too far...?...ie 'Nice-sounding idea - lousy practical concept'?

.

Thats exactly how I see it ending up even if they were only charging $7 reg fee.

The price they're suggesting will help kill it stone dead in no time IMO


.

 

[dotnom]

I hear The Doors playing... "...this is the end"

Maybe you must hear another song of Doors
"Take it as it comes"

or the "People are strange" dedicated to ICANN