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?

 

[Registry Services]

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.

not exactly - I don't want the dot-COM, I don't use the dot-COM, but I wouldn't want anybody else to own it. Its more about brand protection - Rolex own most ccTLD names, but don't use huge numbers of them.

 

[Wannabean]

"is that traffic filtered"

Bots. If your parked at somewhere like bodis, they will provide a fairly accurate assessment of human traffic.

Sedo, godaddy don't filter traffic at all and provide hugely inflated figures, 95+% of which is just bots.

 

[Wannabean]

I don't want the dot-COM, I don't use the dot-COM

But your customers do... and that's what matters.

 

[Registry Services]

the gTLD registries are the new domainers.

Sort of - for many it's the only way they could ever be financially viable as they will never get into the kinds of volumes dot-COM enjoys.

But I see an opportunity for nGTLD names to be used as a form of human-readable web shortener - e.g. homes,for,sale or watches,for,men or bmw,for,sale - in this context the overall demand for domain names would go up and we might all benefit.

 

[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 !

This is an important scene related to Gtld investors versus the ICANN and the Registrars rule ...

Some will rank up there with Jesus, but not all

 

[Registry Services]

Bots. If your parked at somewhere like bodis, they will provide a fairly accurate assessment of human traffic.

Sedo, godaddy don't filter traffic at all and provide hugely inflated figures, 95+% of which is just bots.

If you include bots its ~50K a day .... for some reason every now & then Google goes mad on our names and does ~100K a day

So the few 1000s a day is real human traffic - 85% high end mobile

 

[Wannabean]

Everyone roots for the winner !

Isn't it 'everyone roots for the underdog' ?

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Isn't it 'everyone roots for the underdog' ?

Hahaha, touché ... Depends on the circumstances ! We tell our kids that message, but the real one is everyone roots for the Winner !

That's why Google is used more then Bing and why more people drink Coca Cola then Pepsi ...

You can still rank among winners but being a winner is another rank, not understood by most

 

[Registry Services]

But your customers do... and that's what matters.

no - we get zero traffic to our old GTLD names - we own names in COM, NET & ORG and a few TV

but, to be far, as dot-COM names, they are garbage - they really only work well as nGTLDs

We are names[dot]of[dot]london - so namesoflondon[dot]com is (lets face it) garbage. none of our promotion uses our dot-COM names.

 

[Wannabean]

If you include bots its ~50K a day .... for some reason every now & then Google goes mad on our names and does ~100K a day

So the few 1000s a day is real human traffic - 85% high end mobile

Interesting. Since it's mostly mobile, I'm assuming it's typo traffic. Adds value to your names either way. Now, I don't actually expect you to reveal the names or what you paid for them but it's difficult to gauge true 'value' of this traffic without knowing the cost of acquisition.

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

no - we get zero traffic to our old GTLD names - we own names in COM, NET & ORG and a few TV

but, to be far, as dot-COM names, they are garbage - they really only work well as nGTLDs

We are names[dot]of[dot]london - so namesoflondon[dot]com is (lets face it) garbage. none of our promotion uses our dot-COM names.

I am an avid Gtld investor but let me just point out something wrong with your "particular" way of investing

Names.London would be much better then NamesOf.London and NamesOfLondon.com
... Actually looking at the three, I think we can all agree what looks better on a business card or billboard

 

[Rick Ace]

There were a lot of fads last year that are clearing up (remember the chip domain craze?), and there were also a lot of newcomers to the industry, particularly foreign investment.

Nonetheless, new TLDs such as .xyz have been doing quite well.

 

[Wannabean]

We are names[dot]of[dot]london - so namesoflondon[dot]com is (lets face it) garbage. none of our promotion uses our dot-COM names.

I think both of these work very nicely for a business. There wouldn't be any concrete reseller value but your using them so what does that matter?

 

[Registry Services]

Interesting. Since it's mostly mobile, I'm assuming it's typo traffic. Adds value to your names either way. Now, I don't actually expect you to reveal the names or what you paid for them but it's difficult to gauge true 'value' of this traffic without knowing the cost of acquisition.

my guess is you're right - there's a lot of typo-traffic, but think there's also a lot of traffic simply becuase people expect it to work and try it out, who knows!

we're not planning to monetize the traffic itself, but sell third level domains to be used either as human readable domain shorteners, or as actual domains - like watches[dot]for[dot]men

We're names[dot]of[dot]london - you can see the full list on the front page.

Or just type any domain name, with one or our endings, into your browser and it will tell you if its taken or not.

And, yes, like most nGTLDs we have premium pricing in most of our domains, except [dot]for[dot]sale which has a few reserved, but otherwise flat pricing.

 

[Registry Services]

I think both of these work very nicely for a business. There wouldn't be any concrete reseller value but your using them so what does that matter?

thanks - i'm just not a big fan of the crunched-word dot-COM domain, in general - may be its the dyslexia kicking in

iwantmycarfixednow[dot]com - yuck!

I just really like the way the nGTLD exposes only our brand in a clean uniform way - our web site is names,of,london and our email is stuff like sales@names,of,london etc - its looks really nice on the business cards etc

 

[Wannabean]

i'm just not a big fan of the crunched-word dot-COM domain

I get you but namesoflondon flows nicely. Imo you can add some length to any domain as long as it reads smoothly.

Tbh, I prefer the namesoflondon com version to namesof . london. The pause that's kind of involuntarily implied by the .london is a little clumsy. It's fair to say I'm biased though, as you may have guessed.

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Working with Gtlds

Working with Registrars

Working for Tlds, (or) being ICANN

 

[Registry Services]

I get you but namesoflondon flows nicely. Imo you can add some length to any domain as long as it reads smoothly.

Tbh, I prefer the namesoflondon com version to namesof . london. The pause that's kind of involuntarily implied by the .london is a little clumsy. It's fair to say I'm biased though, as you may have guessed.

you missed the other dot - its names·of·london - but we just don't say the dots, unless we're specifically trying to tell someone the website / email over the phone, which is pretty rare. Face-to-face we just give out a business card or similar.

So we actually bought of·london and so own all subdomains below that - like major·of·london tower·of·london, city·of·london etc etc - not to mention the 3000 of so business already registered in the UK as "<something> of London" - we get a lot of their traffic too

 

[Registry Services]

Names.London would be much better then NamesOf.London and NamesOfLondon.com

names[dot]of[dot]london ... names·of·london

If I could write the real domain name, life would be *so* much easier, but I'm a "new" user so keep getting my posts banned if I try and post a domain name

Looks like using a UTF8 "middle dot" (·) gets round that to a certain extent.


Basically we see a big market for nGTLDs in domain names you can actually say - nobody says "names london" in terms of normal spoken language, its weird, awkward and computer-geeky, whereas the phrase "of london" is a widely used extension for businesses so "names of london" flows nicely - its the sort of thing people might say anyway.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

I was watching my first name .blog
was $699 per year, good luck ha ha
It shows now as registered... at uni
Which is great, cause i own driverless dot blog and some days i hope I'll at least get my money back.
But if someone will pay $2 a day for perpetuity for a .blog, maybe mine will be worth something

Love all the opinions on this thread, so full of emotion. Emotions in motion.lol
Some new |G's will do good, but no big drop in .com
Thats what the title/thread is about, the big drop of .com after New G's take off like air force 1

No big drop now, there will be no big drop in .com in the future either, other than all the chinese crap that got bought

 

[Registry Services]

there will be no big drop in .com in the future either

Personally, I disagree - I've seen a copy of the dot-COM zone file and it is so full of garbage

Flippa have a very good guide on what domains are worth auctioning and what are not - if you ran their filter on the dot-COM zone you'd lose 75% of it - lots of people have invested in haste and will never see their money back - multi-word concatenations of more than (say) 10 to 15 characters will never sell.

Loss Aversion and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

 

[dordomai]

Personally, I disagree - I've seen a copy of the dot-COM zone file and it is so full of garbage

Flippa have a very good guide on what domains are worth auctioning and what are not - if you ran their filter on the dot-COM zone you'd lose 75% of it - lots of people have invested in haste and will never see their money back - multi-word concatenations of more than (say) 10 to 15 characters will never sell.

Loss Aversion and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

most regs in .com zone have nothing to do with speculation..

 

[Registry Services]

most regs in .com zone have nothing to do with speculation..

I'd disagree - you just have to look at the number of names that use parking sites for their Name Servers.

 

[dordomai]

I'd disagree - you just have to look at the number of names that use parking sites for their Name Servers.

what is the percentage using parking services?

 

[Wannabean]

most regs in .com zone have nothing to do with speculation..

My gut feeling says actually they are mostly speculative registrations in com. Although I'm prepared to be proven wrong if anyone has data to back up.

Speculation is what keeps the renewal fees down at around $10 and makes .com viable for everyone.

For every huge name that sells for millions,even though the initial reg cost was only a few bucks, there are thousands and thousands of variations that are registered as a result by investors.

To put this in perspective. If sex.com was $10 to register and was resold for say $14,000,000 by an investor, it would spark many speculative renewals in the .com extension with the keyword sex in it. So although a loss was seemingly made on the initial sale (technically an opportunity cost), it is gained back later through the registration of other names.

The low initial costs ensure a vibrant market with ample liquidity, whilst maintaining excellent cash flow for the registry and registrars. Whether by design or not, it works very well for everyone.

New g's don't have this and it makes being involved in them in any way a great financial strain with significant risk.