The future of .COM after new gTLDs boom! Big DROP?!

[New.Life]

According to the data and this simple chart:

http://www.registrarstats.com/TLDDomainCounts.aspx

Is there a BIG drop? Coming soon?

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Don't forget Google owns YouTube

Here's the really funny part though
Google is spending millions of dollars on domain extensions, Gtlds in particular ... I believe they bid $80M for .shop but lost and they paid $25M for .app in 2016 ...

Also Google owns .Google and Apple owns .Apple ... They just don't show the public or use them really unless you look at Home.Google

https://www.google.si/amp/s/amp.bus...llion-to-buy-the-entire-app-web-domain-2015-2

https://www.google.si/amp/venturebeat.com/2016/03/30/google-domains-dot-google/amp/

 

[Registry Services]

dot-COM growth has stalled for the last 12 months - after years of almost linear growth, that has to be seen as highly significant.

dot-COM hasn't really been growing for over a year, and the vast majority of names are owned by speculators, but are worthless. You just have to read the valuation guide at Flippa to see a scathing condemnation of most portfolios that typically have a few really good names and then are padded out with 100s of long wordy dot-COMs that are never going to sell ... so you could argue "there aren't many good ones" never stopped dot-COM exploding.

I think the future for the nGTLDs is domain names you can actually say - we call them "[human]-readable-domain-names" - this will be the killer app for the nGTLDs

When Windows introduced human-readable file names and swept away the old 8.3 file names of MS-DOS we all breathed a sigh of relief (geez, I'm showing my age!) - I think the same will be true of readable-domain-names.

You just have to compare the on-line real-estate sites in the UK (Zoopla, Yopa, Tepilo, Emoov etc) with a domain like homes,for,sale to see which is preferable.

If for dot-COM a general rule is no more than (say) 8 to 10 letters, when you start getting domain names that people can say (to each other & their phones), that use natural language, the rule book changes. This also applied to the fact that the demographic of the internet has changed (since the dot-COM boom), both in terms of users and devices - it's now dominated by less-technical people using mobile devices - devices people are more likely to talk to than type on.

Because of this shift in demographic, we're seeing 1000s of people a day trying to use our readable-domain-names becuase they simply have little or no understanding as to why they wouldn't work.

But surely, it's not an either-or argument - you can keep your main branding in dot-COM, but use a range of readable-domain-names in TV, radio, poster & leaflets to promote specific products and help people find them on your site.

You can be sexywatches,com but still use watches,for,men to help people find the actual product they saw promoted - we call these WebShorts. QR codes are great, but hard to talk to a friend about.

Readable-domain-names let you promote just your brand. If you are "Harrods of London", then harrords,of,london (sales@harrords,of,london) presents your brand, and only your brand, much better than harrodsoflondon,com

Tweet a readable-domain-name / WebShort and its clickable - come and see our great watches,for,men, on discount till Feb - no ugly url shortening

When it comes to linking the real world with your online presence, which may be your primary way of generating actual sales, WebShorts come into their own - whether its TV, Radio, poster or billboard - if you can use a domain name people can say, they are more likely to remember it & tell their friends.

If you simply post your main brand URL, there can often be no end of frustration finding the actual product you saw. If people turn up to your site with money to spend, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to find the exact product they're looking for.

And then there's SEO - if your domain name matches the search term and you have relevant content, this can provide a significant boost to your rankings - right now our names have zero relevant content and yet we're already top ranking on a wide range of the readable-domain-names we have for sale.

Here's a pretty obscure search that acts as a good example - google "myC6is for sale" - despite the fact we have no Citroen C6 or Corvette C6 for sale, we dominate the front page of listings - taking places 1, 2, 3, 5 & 8 on the front page.

I heard, from a large nGTLD registry operator, that Google have said that where a search term matches exactly a nGTLD domain name, they will highlight the listing - I've not seen any highlighting in practice - other than the standard emboldening.


I better stop there, otherwise I might go on forever

Apologies for the commas instead of dots in the domain names - I'm new here so not allowed to post actual domain names!


James

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

They use abc.xyz as well for their investor page. So what? If they prefer nTLDs over .coms they would use search.google instead of google.com.
Google simply likes to experiment. But there's a big difference between experimenting and dropping your .com altogether for a new TLD. I don't see that ever happening.

Well that's like asking if ICANN will go bankrupt in the next 5 - 10 years
... No ... No ... Probably not

But will there be competitors building other cities, yes ! Absolutely, humans love conflict, it's true. Think of anything and everything in the world, there is more then one company making that idea or product ...

From rubber tires to your girlfriends pleasure toys ... Everything for sale has another company or someone selling it ... Unless it's unique "Art" "limited edition cars" "expensive watches" "specific land realestate"

 

[dordomai]

I think the future for the nGTLDs is domain names you can actually say - we call them "[human]-readable-domain-names" - this will be the killer app for the nGTLDs

I think we used to call these domains with hyphens but they weren't too popular so far.

 

[Registry Services]

The only domain that is better than sex.life is sex.com?

I absolutely agree, but I also think times are changing - the demographic of the internet is changing, both in terms of users and devices - mobile, emerging markets and new (teen) users don't remember the dot-COM boom and expect sex,life to work as much as they would expect sex,com to.

Its also hard to deny how much cost is a factor, when there is an order of magnitude of difference (if not more) between the cost of these two domains.

Start-ups are already shunning the high price of dot-COM in favour of domains like dot-IO - as the market matures and nGTLDs are more common, there will be a further shift away from dot-COM.

Personally, if I was invested heavily in dot-COMs that are of questionable value, I'd be cashing in now - assuming you still can.

dot-COM will never loose its cache, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't halve in size in five years.

 

[dordomai]

new (teen) users don't remember the dot-COM boom

????? Most people came online after the .com bubble and teens mostly use .com sites ...

 

[dumindu89]

nope.. capitalG.com

What do you mean?

 

[Registry Services]

I think we used to call these domains with hyphens but they weren't too popular so far.

No, not hyphens - but with dots, but then all domain names have dots - watches[dot]for[dot]men ... I can't post the real domain name as I'm a "new user"

 

[dordomai]

No, not hyphens - but with dots, but then all domain names have dots - watches[dot]for[dot]men ... I can't post the real domain name as I'm a "new user"

if hyphens failed why do you think dots will be popular? I never had problems reading a domain name BTW.

 

[dordomai]

What do you mean?

They renamed and did not use a new TLD.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/04/google-capital-changes-its-name-to-capitalg/

 

[Registry Services]

????? Most people came online after the .com bubble and teens mostly use .com sites ...

if hyphens failed why do you think dots will be popular? I never had problems reading a domain name BTW.

1) domain name have dots already - dropping the ".com" is a benefit, not a disadvantage.

2) I find "homes for sale" easier to say than any of Zoopla, Yopa, Tepilo, Emoov

 

[dordomai]

Personally, I find "homes for sale" easier to say than any of Zoopla, Yopa, Tepilo, Emoov

HomesForSale.com works well? Better than Homes DOT For DOT Sale..

 

[Wannabean]

I'm seeing lots of talk about the high price of dot coms as a plus point for new g's and it's nonsense. Holders of new g's are asking just as much for premium domains and actually more in a lot of cases. Then the end user has to add on extortionate renewal costs and suddenly new g's are much more expensive. Plus they don't get type in traffic. So what are you getting for your extra yearly fee? Nothing, except a hole in the bottom of your site that leaks traffic to the com version of your name.

New g's have been priced wrong and it's going to kill them before they've had a chance to gain traction.

 

[dordomai]

I'm seeing lots of talk about the high price of dot coms as a plus point for new g's and it's nonsense. Holders of new g's are asking just as much for premium domains and actually more in a lot of cases. Then the end user has to add on extortionate renewal costs and suddenly new g's are much more expensive. Plus they don't get type in traffic. So what are you getting for your extra yearly fee? Nothing, except a hole in the bottom of your site that leaks traffic to the com version of your name.

New g's have been priced wrong and it's going to kill them before they've had a chance to gain traction.

https://www.dynadot.com/domain/search.html?domain=junk.blog&search=
https://www.dynadot.com/domain/search.html?domain=junk.shop&search=

 

[Registry Services]

Personally, I find "homes for sale" easier to say than any of Zoopla, Yopa, Tepilo, Emoov

HomesForSale.com works well? Better than Homes DOT For DOT Sale..

you mean "homes for sale DOT COM" ? - same number of words, if you're going to be pedantic.

but, yes, of course you are right, it can work equally as well, IF it's obvious enough, but quite a lot of dot-COM multi-word names can take some time to decode - and given that the "dot-COM" suffix is irrelevant to the business, and therefore superfluous, why not drop it if you can?

 

[dumindu89]

They renamed and did not use a new TLD.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/04/google-capital-changes-its-name-to-capitalg/

But they used a nTLD for geographical news service. They use their CorpTLD for Registry service, they started using their CorpTLD for domains service and rank domains.google over domains.google.com in their own search engine.

 

[dordomai]

you mean "homes for sale DOT COM" ? - same number of words, if you're going to be pedantic.

but, yes, of course you are right, it can work equally as well, IF it's obvious enough, but quite a lot of dot-COM multi-word names can take some time to decode - and given that the "dot-COM" suffix is irrelevant to the business, and therefore superfluous, why not drop it if you can?

if you have long and complicated multi-word domains that can not be decoded you screwed up anyway and should rename.

 

[Registry Services]

I'm seeing lots of talk about the high price of dot coms as a plus point for new g's and it's nonsense. Holders of new g's are asking just as much for premium domains and actually more in a lot of cases. Then the end user has to add on extortionate renewal costs and suddenly new g's are much more expensive. Plus they don't get type in traffic. So what are you getting for your extra yearly fee? Nothing, except a hole in the bottom of your site that leaks traffic to the com version of your name.

New g's have been priced wrong and it's going to kill them before they've had a chance to gain traction.

You do get type-in traffic - we're seeing 1000s a day

But I totally agree - right now there is no choice but to also own the dot-COM or you will leak visitors there.

 

[Registry Services]

if you have long and complicated multi-word domains that can not be decoded you screwed up anyway and should rename.

Totally agree - but is Zoopla, Yopa, Tepilo, Emoov any better?

Yes, with enough spend you can build a brand and people will remember it, but its a high risk strategy

 

[Wannabean]

https://www.dynadot.com/domain/search.html?domain=junk.blog&search=

Wow. Yeah this is pretty much the problem in a nutshell.

Where is there room for an investor in this market? People just don't get it. If new g's succeed, domaining is over.

And there's gonna be people like 'aw yeah but I only reg the non premium priced stuff.'

Well, soon as you make a profit selling one of those things you've just let the cat out the bag and the price will go up on those too.

Why does it matter whether or not new g's will succeed? This is a domaining forum so it is the domainers angle on new g's that matters. For those who haven't figured it out yet here it is: We've been squeezed out

 

[Wannabean]

You do get type-in traffic - we're seeing 1000s a day

But I totally agree - right now there is no choice but to also own the dot-COM or you will leak visitors there.

On how many domains though and is that traffic filtered?

 

[Wannabean]

But I totally agree - right now there is no choice but to also own the dot-COM or you will leak visitors there.

Then why bother with the new g at all? What your really saying here isn't you have to own both, it's that you only need the com.

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Jesus (ICANN) and Liam (Registrars) may keep on getting strikes and leading the game but we will catch up ... Who could blame anybody for supporting what "seems" to be a professional ? Everyone roots for the winner !

 

[Registry Services]

On how many domains though and is that traffic filtered?

18 nGTLD names - but good ones - so some weren't cheap - but no different than you'd expect to pay for similar dot-COMs

I'm not sure what you mean by "is that traffic filtered"

 

[Bram C.]

Well, soon as you make a profit selling one of those things you've just let the cat out the bag and the price will go up on those too.

Indeed, gTLD registries make their own lists of premium priced domains. Of course when they see that a gTLD sells for a high price, and the keyword isn't yet in any premium priced lists, you can expect that this keyword will most likely be premium priced when the next new gTLD gets released.

For a domainer it's extremely hard to make money with gTLDs but this will worsen in time. Soon any premium priced domains lists will be so huge it will practically be impossible to find any decent gTLD domain for a non-premium price. I have said it before and will say it again: the gTLD registries are the new domainers.