discuss THE DOWNFALL OF DOMAINING?

[artstar]

Has the influx of 400+ tlds contributed to the downfall of domaining?

have you found the industry take a dramatic drop in profits and sales?

Imo this industry is about to get a major tune up and its not in a good way.

millions of domains will be worthless or already are

drops will exceed any dropped stats in the past

millions of $ will/has been lost by domainers to registrars.

 

[TRY]

.

 

[TRY]

This is a fair question. I had similar worries. What will happen to my coms in the face of all these new names. how will it impact the industry. The short answer is - "Everything will work out and the business will grow."

I say: more names = more opportunity. If I exclude registry revenue this should still be one of our better sales years.. Not the best (unless the team pulls off a turnaround) but still good. Most of that sales revenue is in .com but a growing tranche (each day) is from new names which is "amazing" since 1. lots of people still don't know they exist and 2. lots of great names are available unregistered.

On the market side we are seeing lots of secondary market transactions go down on new GTLDs and will return to publishing a list of sales in the coming months. It's a large trove of deals going down across customer accounts at Uniregistry. Mostly Com and a bunch of new stuff

In the old days if you were a domainer with a portfolio of borderline pigeons-sh*t .com names (bottom percentile) you could shuffle along with the big dogs and roll like a domainer boss. That time is over and all these new names are separating the men from the boys. Nobody is going to imagine how great your average .com could be in the future and talk up your names or pay them attention when one word generics in new extensions are available unregistered. If you're the guy with that class of .com name you're going to feel a bit pissed and vulnerable. You lost some sparkle. The biggest dogs don't like it either because their "really" good names look less good when a viable new G stands next to it. That comment is going to have a bunch of folks spit back at me but it's the truth. GreatName.com doesn;t look that good to an outsider (non domainer) when great name.shop .link .web .club .online .world etc etc etc etc stand next to it. Anyone who says otherwise is a hater, a denier or just too close to their names. The world is absolutely changing. It's happening slowly right now but it will accelerate with the passage of time and as the 12 year olds today turn 20 in 8 years. MB selling his portfolio (which many of us valued at 100 million or more) for the low tens of millions and the value of the Marchex deal can't make the guys (including myself) holding vast swaths of premium names feel very good. We all lost some money there. My portfolio is not worth as much (wholesale) today because of new GTLDS. Retail sales prices are still holding up, but we are seeing lots of dictionary word sales in new GTLD's in the low thousands going down along side those now on the Uniregistry Market.

I say easy come, easy go.. You have to roll with it or retire and some are chosing the latter. To be fair, some of those retiring are plowing that new retirement money into new names. MB bought my.mom (one of the best) for 10k when we accidentally let it out. It's his, it has a low renewal and he's in the money IMO.

Where we are today is a flashpoint where those with average to low quality .com/net names are disillusioned by all the new stuff, while the chinese and new faces are flooding into the room with new money and think they never had it so good. They're right of course.. Today you have history, and guidebooks, and a university course (cyger) and tools and forums like this and lots of names to chose from. When I started there was none of that.

Some of the old timers are angry and freaked out - the newcomers are sweeping up, but some of the same sly foxes who took the good .com names back in the day are still participating (myself included). The game hasn't changed. You just need to get the best names. You can't hurry that. I built my portfolio over 15 years. It's a journey.. you can't hurry the curry.

Lastly and very important. Not everybody knows what they are doing in domaining.. that is, not everyone is good enough at this business to pick well, mine well, sell well - in a nutshell - not everyone is cut out for this business. Those who "can't" will hate on this business and blame the backdrop when they fail. That's a given. This change in tide and 400 new extensions (half of which shouldn't be bought) are going to show you who can and who can't. The only certainty is the names will get bought. I could stand here and shout STOP BUYING NAMES - DANGER!! and people will still buy them, the need, the hunger and the opportunity is just too great.

I was born broke and am blathering like this because I'm bored and have nothing to do 8 miles in the air, writing from my seat on N265QS as I fly from Houston to Canada. Every gallon of gas pushing this bird forward, bought and paid for with my own domains. Uniregistry? Funded with those names? The sales marketplace? Domains again. Stocks, real estate, my giraffe? All paid for by picking the right names. If I can do that in 10 years with no outside money or support, no debt, think what you can do with a whole world of new extensions if you're just prepared to take a prudent well thought out risk.

Good luck to all.

"This change in tide and 400 new extensions (half of which shouldn't be bought) are going to show you who can and who can't. The only certainty is the names will get bought. I could stand here and shout STOP BUYING NAMES - DANGER!! and people will still buy them, the need, the hunger and the opportunity is just too great. "

It is what it is.

 

[JB Lions]

This is a fair question. I had similar worries. What will happen to my coms in the face of all these new names. how will it impact the industry. The short answer is - "Everything will work out and the business will grow."

I say: more names = more opportunity. If I exclude registry revenue this should still be one of our better sales years.. Not the best (unless the team pulls off a turnaround) but still good. Most of that sales revenue is in .com but a growing tranche (each day) is from new names which is "amazing" since 1. lots of people still don't know they exist and 2. lots of great names are available unregistered.

On the market side we are seeing lots of secondary market transactions go down on new GTLDs and will return to publishing a list of sales in the coming months. It's a large trove of deals going down across customer accounts at Uniregistry. Mostly Com and a bunch of new stuff

In the old days if you were a domainer with a portfolio of borderline pigeons-sh*t .com names (bottom percentile) you could shuffle along with the big dogs and roll like a domainer boss. That time is over and all these new names are separating the men from the boys. Nobody is going to imagine how great your average .com could be in the future and talk up your names or pay them attention when one word generics in new extensions are available unregistered. If you're the guy with that class of .com name you're going to feel a bit pissed and vulnerable. You lost some sparkle. The biggest dogs don't like it either because their "really" good names look less good when a viable new G stands next to it. That comment is going to have a bunch of folks spit back at me but it's the truth. GreatName.com doesn;t look that good to an outsider (non domainer) when great name.shop .link .web .club .online .world etc etc etc etc stand next to it. Anyone who says otherwise is a hater, a denier or just too close to their names. The world is absolutely changing. It's happening slowly right now but it will accelerate with the passage of time and as the 12 year olds today turn 20 in 8 years. MB selling his portfolio (which many of us valued at 100 million or more) for the low tens of millions and the value of the Marchex deal can't make the guys (including myself) holding vast swaths of premium names feel very good. We all lost some money there. My portfolio is not worth as much (wholesale) today because of new GTLDS. Retail sales prices are still holding up, but we are seeing lots of dictionary word sales in new GTLD's in the low thousands going down along side those now on the Uniregistry Market.

I say easy come, easy go.. You have to roll with it or retire and some are chosing the latter. To be fair, some of those retiring are plowing that new retirement money into new names. MB bought my.mom (one of the best) for 10k when we accidentally let it out. It's his, it has a low renewal and he's in the money IMO.

Where we are today is a flashpoint where those with average to low quality .com/net names are disillusioned by all the new stuff, while the chinese and new faces are flooding into the room with new money and think they never had it so good. They're right of course.. Today you have history, and guidebooks, and a university course (cyger) and tools and forums like this and lots of names to chose from. When I started there was none of that.

Some of the old timers are angry and freaked out - the newcomers are sweeping up, but some of the same sly foxes who took the good .com names back in the day are still participating (myself included). The game hasn't changed. You just need to get the best names. You can't hurry that. I built my portfolio over 15 years. It's a journey.. you can't hurry the curry.

Lastly and very important. Not everybody knows what they are doing in domaining.. that is, not everyone is good enough at this business to pick well, mine well, sell well - in a nutshell - not everyone is cut out for this business. Those who "can't" will hate on this business and blame the backdrop when they fail. That's a given. This change in tide and 400 new extensions (half of which shouldn't be bought) are going to show you who can and who can't. The only certainty is the names will get bought. I could stand here and shout STOP BUYING NAMES - DANGER!! and people will still buy them, the need, the hunger and the opportunity is just too great.

I was born broke and am blathering like this because I'm bored and have nothing to do 8 miles in the air, writing from my seat on N265QS as I fly from Houston to Canada. Every gallon of gas pushing this bird forward, bought and paid for with my own domains. Uniregistry? Funded with those names? The sales marketplace? Domains again. Stocks, real estate, my giraffe? All paid for by picking the right names. If I can do that in 10 years with no outside money or support, no debt, think what you can do with a whole world of new extensions if you're just prepared to take a prudent well thought out risk.

Good luck to all.

You're just talking about the gas? Because that plane is owned by:

NETJETS SALES INC
OKLAHOMA CITY , OK, US
(Co-owned)

Unless that's yours. Do you own Netjets Sales Inc.?

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N265QS

The whole post is basically an ad. You're in the business of selling new gtlds.

"Most of that sales revenue is in .com"

Right. Most of your money spent in the Aftermarket is spent on what extension, can you share that with everybody?

 

[artstar]

Jeez, F Shilling a fellow canuck from BC too posting to 1 of my threads!!
sweet....

rarified company coming in from rarefied air, now how about spending some of that big $$$ on some of my domains FS? lol

well my thread headline may have been a bit over the top but that what it takes sometimes.

tons of great posts folks!

my issue with some of the new gtlds is the high rereg fees but if bankrolled enough that's not really an issue for some but how many of us are domainers with seemingly unlimited doe?

probably 90% of us missed the .com heydays regging premiums for reg fees and selling for tens of thousands + , that's where the gtld goldrush is now filled with those wanting the FS success.

all I can say is good luck to all who partake.

I personally am in one niche now , VR and only dot com.

specialize as RS stated years ago

 

[urlurl]

The new extensions can be compared to the great old gold rush's. The real winners were the ones selling the equipment to the prospectors... there were a few who struck it rich, but the real money was made selling goods and services to those hopping at striking it rich!

 

[4better]

Downfall of domaining? I don't really think so. Just look around, new gtlds are everywhere. In fact, they're flourishing. And whether we like it or not, there will always be people embracing them. These new gtlds are like menus... some like the taste, some don't. Sweet taste for some, sour taste for others. Anyway, for me, I like the sweet and sour menu.

 

[DnEbook]

We are just in a slight lull after what was a HUGE year

 

[dordomai]

Downfall of domaining? I don't really think so. Just look around, new gtlds are everywhere. In fact, they're flourishing. And whether we like it or not, there will always be people embracing them. These new gtlds are like menus... some like the taste, some don't. Sweet taste for some, sour taste for others. Anyway, for me, I like the sweet and sour menu.

They are everywhere on domaining blogs and in the namepros sales threads.

If you exclude the fake Chinese XYZ sales only 2 nGTLD sales out of the top 100 on Dnjournal this year. That is 2% and the total sales amount is $1xx,xxx. At least one of the sales was a domainer. So out of 100 sales only 1 single end-user?

How many millions have been spent by domainers on .VIP alone? Will the crowd lose money on average?

Will the .VIP investments as a whole be profitable?

At the moment they are not flourishing at all. If you talk about future potential then that's another story. No one knows what will happen 10-20 years from now.

But if we stick to the facts as of today there is still very little usage and sales. Let's see how sales are 2 years from now.

Also I believe that if there is an opportunity it must be for the most part for the registries. After all they have already premium priced everything that they believe to be valuable. What you can get today is mostly what they believe to be not worth more than regfee.

 

[Kate]

The bottom line is that domain sales are always happening. The so-called new paradigm doesn't change that. You don't have to have great sales skills, it's all about the inventory. Good names sell for themselves. If you are not making sales, it's your fault. If you buy turds and you are not making sales you should not be surprised. Rather than posting doom about the end of domaining (which death has been announced so many times) you need to readjust. Spend your money wisely.

Downfall of domaining? I don't really think so. Just look around, new gtlds are everywhere. In fact, they're flourishing. And whether we like it or not, there will always be people embracing them.

I look around me, always. And I don't see any, or very rarely. They aren't mainstream at all. I don't know where you live, but I travel often, and I always pay attention to the local Internet landscape. I always see .com and ccTLD and a scattering of extensions such as .eu .org etc.
I haven't seen a lot of new extensions so far, most were in print in magazines.
Ironically, I don't think all people understand that something like superbhosting.site is a real URL, maybe adding www. in front would help.
The problem is not that few people use new extensions, the problem is the lack of critical mass.

 

[Mr. Deleted]

People will have more website-naming options, sure, but as far as .com being king, that is not likely to change for a long time. Even for ngTLD websites, they need the .com to forward to their site. It is that simple.

 

[garptrader]

I go back to the soccer jersey analogy - people are willing to pay more than $5 for a colorful, well-designed jersey made of quality fabric and which represents a favorite team. A retailer that tries to sell these for $XXXX will be sitting on a lot of inventory as most buyers are just not interested in paying that sort of money for a soccer jersey. While domain investors like to use the real estate analogy, most potential buyers / end users just do not value domains as something worth paying a lot of money for. Thus, they migrate toward reg fee options which may include extra words, hyphens, abbreviations and alternate extensions. So alternate extensions have a place because most domain buyers are not willing to pay much for domain names. That does not make investing in inferior extensions a good investment. Either way, even if you have a decent-quality jersey for sale for $100, if there are dozens of competing options available for $35, potential buyers will migrate toward the lower-priced inventory.

I do not know how many millions of aftermarket domains there are but based on the explosion of new TLD registrations and speculation in CHIPS and numerics, there are a lot more aftermarket domains now than a few years ago. Meanwhile the number of end users looking to buy an aftermarket domain probably has not changed much over that time. Supply and demand dictates there will be a lot of unsold inventory.

 

[4better]

I look around me, always. And I don't see any, or very rarely. They aren't mainstream at all. I don't know where you live, but I travel often, and I always pay attention to the local Internet landscape. I always see .com and ccTLD and a scattering of extensions such as .eu .org etc.
I haven't seen a lot of new extensions so far, most were in print in magazines.

I might have been misunderstood. When I mentioned "Just look around, new gtlds are everywhere. In fact, they're flourishing.", I was referring to hundreds of new gtlds coming out available for registration. When one searches a domain name say at Godaddy, lots of ngtlds are being shown listed as options. For me, they're flourishing in the sense that these ngtlds are made especially to attract attention. So far, they have multiplied and I don't see them stopping at all...yet.

 

[DTR Alex]

The obvious change here is supply. There are simply more domain names available. Which puts pressure on existing domains. But it depends of course on what kind of domainer you are and what domains you have.

Well, I don't agree with you!

If you are afraid of new TLDs increasing the supply then only think of good domains names.......

In new TLDs, there is very less percentage of good domain names, those names are composed of high searches of two-word phrases such as latest.car, in latest.car the last word "car" is TLD so here only one-word that has high searches and high relevancy to the new TLD is a good domain name...... I don't think that the supply has increased in the relation to new businesses are increasing.

 

[PNW]

Also with the real estate analogy: Wetlands, flood zone, below flood zone, agricultural, designated forest land, etc. Is it located next to a super fund site? What are the yearly taxes? Many of these new extensions fall into these categories imo and have renewals far surpassing tax equivalents and you can't even go camping on them.

Domaining will continue with good / bad names selling, along w/ shill bidding, false market plays. I made a post about the MLM movie Believe some time ago. It's not great by any means, but it's closely related to this market w/ similar "leadership" imo.

BTW I do find joy in the success of others, but not when it's at the expense of others through manipulation or many of the types listed in the warning section.

 

[GoKaizen]

Agree.

Registry premium domains at ridiculous pricing is a big WTF?

By "let us" who are you referring to? Domain investors? People here certainly won't "use" new gTLDs. They'll try to sell them.

Do you want your domains to be used by many????? Reduce your price and let us register and USE the names we want!

 

[BrandChimp]

Agree.



By "let us" who are you referring to? Domain investors? People here certainly won't "use" new gTLDs. They'll try to sell them.

Even end-users are not willing to pay up to $20,000 a year for a .word domain name.

This is crazy, investors are sellers so they help end-users to understand the value of great domains.

Some registry premium.word are actually not bad but the price is.

 

[JB Lions]

This reminds of affiliate marketing threads over the years. Affiliate marketing is dead/dying type of threads. It usually was for the person starting the thread. A lot of times people views are thru their own experience. If you went thru this forum you can find a bunch of these types of threads.

So with most businesses, you'll have people failing and succeeding. You have some people always negative about the business in general, they are most likely failing. There are people that do this for a living, so it's very possible.

 

[GoKaizen]

Wishful thinking!

investors are sellers so they help end-users to understand the value of great domains.

 

[TheWatcher]

Oops double post.

 

[TheWatcher]

I want to believe you Mr. Frank Schilling but your one of the registry sucking revenue to investors like us. You eliminated a competition when you price your name at ridiculous high price.

The .game is $318 registration/renewal. What the fudge? Three letters or numbers in four figure registration/renewal.
Oh you can register plenty of names, yeah these names you called pigeons-sxxt.

I will change my view when you bring down your price to under $10/yr/reg/renewal.

As of right now, you're one of the vulture in our industry. Greed clouded your vision that we look up in the past as inspiration.

Best regards,
EM@KING.NET

This is a fair question. I had similar worries. What will happen to my coms in the face of all these new names. how will it impact the industry. The short answer is - "Everything will work out and the business will grow."

I say: more names = more opportunity. If I exclude registry revenue this should still be one of our better sales years.. Not the best (unless the team pulls off a turnaround) but still good. Most of that sales revenue is in .com but a growing tranche (each day) is from new names which is "amazing" since 1. lots of people still don't know they exist and 2. lots of great names are available unregistered.

On the market side we are seeing lots of secondary market transactions go down on new GTLDs and will return to publishing a list of sales in the coming months. It's a large trove of deals going down across customer accounts at Uniregistry. Mostly Com and a bunch of new stuff

In the old days if you were a domainer with a portfolio of borderline pigeons-sh*t .com names (bottom percentile) you could shuffle along with the big dogs and roll like a domainer boss. That time is over and all these new names are separating the men from the boys. Nobody is going to imagine how great your average .com could be in the future and talk up your names or pay them attention when one word generics in new extensions are available unregistered. If you're the guy with that class of .com name you're going to feel a bit pissed and vulnerable. You lost some sparkle. The biggest dogs don't like it either because their "really" good names look less good when a viable new G stands next to it. That comment is going to have a bunch of folks spit back at me but it's the truth. GreatName.com doesn;t look that good to an outsider (non domainer) when great name.shop .link .web .club .online .world etc etc etc etc stand next to it. Anyone who says otherwise is a hater, a denier or just too close to their names. The world is absolutely changing. It's happening slowly right now but it will accelerate with the passage of time and as the 12 year olds today turn 20 in 8 years. MB selling his portfolio (which many of us valued at 100 million or more) for the low tens of millions and the value of the Marchex deal can't make the guys (including myself) holding vast swaths of premium names feel very good. We all lost some money there. My portfolio is not worth as much (wholesale) today because of new GTLDS. Retail sales prices are still holding up, but we are seeing lots of dictionary word sales in new GTLD's in the low thousands going down along side those now on the Uniregistry Market.

I say easy come, easy go.. You have to roll with it or retire and some are chosing the latter. To be fair, some of those retiring are plowing that new retirement money into new names. MB bought my.mom (one of the best) for 10k when we accidentally let it out. It's his, it has a low renewal and he's in the money IMO.

Where we are today is a flashpoint where those with average to low quality .com/net names are disillusioned by all the new stuff, while the chinese and new faces are flooding into the room with new money and think they never had it so good. They're right of course.. Today you have history, and guidebooks, and a university course (cyger) and tools and forums like this and lots of names to chose from. When I started there was none of that.

Some of the old timers are angry and freaked out - the newcomers are sweeping up, but some of the same sly foxes who took the good .com names back in the day are still participating (myself included). The game hasn't changed. You just need to get the best names. You can't hurry that. I built my portfolio over 15 years. It's a journey.. you can't hurry the curry.

Lastly and very important. Not everybody knows what they are doing in domaining.. that is, not everyone is good enough at this business to pick well, mine well, sell well - in a nutshell - not everyone is cut out for this business. Those who "can't" will hate on this business and blame the backdrop when they fail. That's a given. This change in tide and 400 new extensions (half of which shouldn't be bought) are going to show you who can and who can't. The only certainty is the names will get bought. I could stand here and shout STOP BUYING NAMES - DANGER!! and people will still buy them, the need, the hunger and the opportunity is just too great.

I was born broke and am blathering like this because I'm bored and have nothing to do 8 miles in the air, writing from my seat on N265QS as I fly from Houston to Canada. Every gallon of gas pushing this bird forward, bought and paid for with my own domains. Uniregistry? Funded with those names? The sales marketplace? Domains again. Stocks, real estate, my giraffe? All paid for by picking the right names. If I can do that in 10 years with no outside money or support, no debt, think what you can do with a whole world of new extensions if you're just prepared to take a prudent well thought out risk.

Good luck to all.

 

[GoKaizen]

You can reg/renew .link and .click for $10. and under. North Sound Names, Schilling's company, owns all the desirable phrases and words.

I will change my view when you bring down your price to under $10/yr/reg/renewal.

As of right now, you're one of the vulture in our industry. Greed clouded your vision that we look up in the past as inspiration.

Best regards,
EM@KING.NET

 

[TheWatcher]

Yeah ... I still don't register any of his extension because what I want is reserved, pigeon shxx is left for resellers hoping to get a miracle sales.

You can reg/renew .link and .click for $10. and under. North Sound Names, Schilling's company, owns all the desirable phrases and words.

 

[dordomai]

, pigeon shxx is left for resellers hoping to get a miracle sales.

Unfortunately this sums up a large part of the nGTLD program.

 

[TheWatcher]

Unfortunately this sums up a large part of the nGTLD program.

I agree because the registries kept the best keywords for themselves ...

 

[GoKaizen]

Yup, slim pickings.

Yeah ... I still don't register any of his extension because what I want is reserved, pigeon shxx is left for resellers hoping to get a miracle sales.

I agree because the registries kept the best keywords for themselves ...