new gtlds What are some use-cases or selling points for new gTLDs?

[thevictor]

Hey NP,

There are many threads dedicated to showcasing, appraising, discussing these new gTLDs, but I am having trouble finding any information as to why an end-user would want to invest in a ngTLD versus a .com domain name?
What are some use cases and/or selling points for a ngTLD? Aside from them being very unique and one-of-a- kind, how would you respond to a .com holder who asks this question?

Thanks in advance for any insights or success stories regarding this!

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Fertilizer?

 

[thevictor]

Fertilizer?

Verizon.Fertilizer?

 

[thevictor]

On a serious note though. Do you have any insight or just clowning around?

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Haha. Ok ok. I'm just laughing really at myself. Because I c
Bought into some new extensions.

Best use for these?

Url shortner.

Problem is some of these new extensions if you put them in the address bar it shows up as blank page.

How are you even going to start a new extension. When the browsers don't recognize it and it resolves to blank pages?

 

[thevictor]

www.mr.bet

That's a nice domain name. Is it one of yours?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Hey NP,

There are many threads dedicated to showcasing, appraising, discussing these new gTLDs, but I am having trouble finding any information as to why an end-user would want to invest in a ngTLD versus a .com domain name?
What are some use cases and/or selling points for a ngTLD? Aside from them being very unique and one-of-a- kind, how would you respond to a .com holder who asks this question?

Thanks in advance for any insights or success stories regarding this!

Whole books could be written in response, but let me give my views of a few of the reasons:
(a) You want a powerful, single word domain name, but that name is simply not available at any price to you in .com or .net. This is probably the driving reason behind the domain name sale of a couple of weeks ago of blockchain(.)ventures for $42,000.
(b) You believe that a domain name doesn't need to have a .com tacked on, and it is more aesthetic and elegant to simply have a domain name that describes exactly what your enterprise is. If you listen to the interview by the person who paid $500,000 earlier this year for home.loans that is essentially his reasoning (and he had earlier business success with a similar other name). Or about a year ago casino(.)online sold for $201,000.
(c) You can express the exact name of your company through a ngTLD, e.g. look at DXC.Technology. Their name is their website. Nothing added. Elegance defined.
(d) You do use a .com or cc for your main site, but you also want a descriptive domain name for a subset of your activity. Design is central to a business like Kohler. Surely it made sense for them to use Kohler.design? (and they do)
(e) What you do can be described perfectly and concisely using a ngTLD. That is probably why earlier this year Talk(.)show sold for $50,000.
(f) You want to use domain name phrases in a marketing campaign. Most of the legacy gTLDs and cc TLDs are difficult to make into domain name phrases. But this can express endless ideas when creatively using ngTLDs (see the recent examples over at the thread where people listed their 5 best ngTLD domain names for loads of great examples). I set up a few examples from my portfolio so you can see how they work - enter we.redefine.fun or all.curlers.win or help.diversify.science and it could redirect anywhere on the web (try them out). Phrases like this are easy for people to remember and can be entered into social media as clickable phrases. The good folks over at Names.of.London (yup just click the phrase) have great possibilities available at reasonable rates. You sell art? They have art.for.sale that you can rent very inexpensively!
(g) You are a small (perhaps single person) business, and you can combine your name with an extension to express exactly what you do. I describe this on my blog here.
(h) You want good value in your purchase price. There are countless small sales of ngTLDs, many below the $100 Namebio limit so don't show up.
(i) You feel that the dot com bubble burst in 1999 except for the domain name business. You find this is the era to have something new, something like The.club, and are willing to pay $300,000 for that as was done in January of this year.
(j) You can purchase single letter domain names in some of the ngTLDs. For example A(.)top sold for just over $96,000.
(k) You want to shake up things a little. The parent body of company Alphabet don't have a lot at abc.xyz, but who can argue that it isn't a cool and appropriate domain name? Speaking of cool, isn't 2(.)cool a rather unique domain name? It sold in the Namescon auction this year for $2900.

I sincerely hope that this has at least partly provided what you are looking for. Have a nice day.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

PS I decided to refine a little bit my ideas from the preceding response, and I have now placed them on my domain investing blog. It is available at the link below. I will update and refine the posting there as time goes on, and at some point add a part 2 that will show additional cases. Thanks for reading!

http://agreatnameforyou.blogspot.ca/2018/03/why-would-anyone-want-new-extension.html

 

[thevictor]

Whole books could be written in response, but let me give my views of a few of the reasons:
(a) You want a powerful, single word domain name, but that name is simply not available at any price to you in .com or .net. This is probably the driving reason behind the domain name sale of a couple of weeks ago of blockchain(.)ventures for $42,000.
(b) You believe that a domain name doesn't need to have a .com tacked on, and it is more aesthetic and elegant to simply have a domain name that describes exactly what your enterprise is. If you listen to the interview by the person who paid $500,000 earlier this year for home.loans that is essentially his reasoning (and he had earlier business success with a similar other name). Or about a year ago casino(.)online sold for $201,000.
(c) You can express the exact name of your company through a ngTLD, e.g. look at DXC.Technology. Their name is their website. Nothing added. Elegance defined.
(d) You do use a .com or cc for your main site, but you also want a descriptive domain name for a subset of your activity. Design is central to a business like Kohler. Surely it made sense for them to use Kohler.design? (and they do)
(e) What you do can be described perfectly and concisely using a ngTLD. That is probably why earlier this year Talk(.)show sold for $50,000.
(f) You want to use domain name phrases in a marketing campaign. Most of the legacy gTLDs and cc TLDs are difficult to make into domain name phrases. But this can express endless ideas when creatively using ngTLDs (see the recent examples over at the thread where people listed their 5 best ngTLD domain names for loads of great examples). I set up a few examples from my portfolio so you can see how they work - enter we.redefine.fun or all.curlers.win or help.diversify.science and it could redirect anywhere on the web (try them out). Phrases like this are easy for people to remember and can be entered into social media as clickable phrases. The good folks over at Names.of.London (yup just click the phrase) have great possibilities available at reasonable rates. You sell art? They have art.for.sale that you can rent very inexpensively!
(g) You are a small (perhaps single person) business, and you can combine your name with an extension to express exactly what you do. I describe this on my blog here.
(h) You want good value in your purchase price. There are countless small sales of ngTLDs, many below the $100 Namebio limit so don't show up.
(i) You feel that the dot com bubble burst in 1999 except for the domain name business. You find this is the era to have something new, something like The.club, and are willing to pay $300,000 for that as was done in January of this year.
(j) You can purchase single letter domain names in some of the ngTLDs. For example A(.)top sold for just over $96,000.
(k) You want to shake up things a little. The parent body of company Alphabet don't have a lot at abc.xyz, but who can argue that it isn't a cool and appropriate domain name? Speaking of cool, isn't 2(.)cool a rather unique domain name? It sold in the Namescon auction this year for $2900.

I sincerely hope that this has at least partly provided what you are looking for. Have a nice day.

Bob

Thanks a lot for your great input and examples Bob! Some of the recent ngTLD sales have been pretty impressive to say the least. So basically, the main selling points are - marketing/ aesthetics and social media "clickability"? Would you say that ngTLDs are positioned more as add-ons to .com owners and not as a stand-alone products? Again, I am just trying to see the value from the end-users perspective.

Thanks again for your insights NP!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

So basically, the main selling points are - marketing/ aesthetics and social media "clickability"? Would you say that ngTLDs are positioned more as add-ons to .com owners and not as a stand-alone products? NP!

I think its probably fair to say that at the current time most big companies that purchase ngTLDs view them as an add on, to be used in a specific marketing campaign or a subset (as NPR, Facebook and Kohler do with their .design domains for example). There are exceptions, such as home.loans and DXC.technology who view it as their main site.

At the low end of the market, I think local companies/organizations buy them because they think they seem catchy and modern, and short single words are available at costs they can afford.

I wish clickable phrases would take off, but I think they are still relatively unused. Despite having some great options, lots of good phrases are not yet rented at Names.of.London, and I have not yet had success finding clients who want to try them in the more specialized areas I have domain phrases. I do believe it will come - will that be in 2 yrs, 5 yrs? Not sure.

I think that part of the market might change quickly once it starts. If one significant advertising agency started making them a core strategy, I could see a huge change in a year.

Anyway, we will see. Although I hold many, it is harder to sell, even at low prices, most ngTLDs. Thanks for your interest.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

ps The Names of London have a post about getting a phrase on the first page of Google within the day, which is pretty impressive.

Doing no promotion other than mentioning the examples on my domain website (and in a blog posting and associated Twitter post), I was surprised one day to see that for 2 of my 3 examples I was high up on page one of Google too. At least from Canada if I type "help diversify science" or "we redefine fun" my rather holder status pages come up at positions 3 and 4 on page 1 of Google. (the curlers one does not). So I think both as type in, in social media and in Google searches phrases could work well, as long as simple enough that the end user will more or less remember the phrase.

 

[guillon]

Hey NP,

There are many threads dedicated to showcasing, appraising, discussing these new gTLDs, but I am having trouble finding any information as to why an end-user would want to invest in a ngTLD versus a .com domain name?
What are some use cases and/or selling points for a ngTLD? Aside from them being very unique and one-of-a- kind, how would you respond to a .com holder who asks this question?

Thanks in advance for any insights or success stories regarding this!

1. Precision when in a niche market;
2. Future generations will grow up with new gTLDs.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I only learned this trick not long ago, so in case some others don't know it, you can enter into Google a search such as:

about site:group

And it will show you websites with the word about in them but only those that use a .group TLD extension. You can apply this to find organizations/companies using any of the new (or other) extensions. It's a good way to see who is right now really using the extension in a way significant enough that it gets high in Google. Of course you can try something different than the word about.

 

[thevictor]

1. Precision when in a niche market;
2. Future generations will grow up with new gTLDs.

2 is an interesting point. Can you elaborate a bit more?

 

[thevictor]

[How about we try a short role play? Let's use "Mr.Bet" for example. I am the owner of MrBet(.)com and you reached out to me via email letting me know you are selling "Mr.Bet". I am not overly familiar with ngTLDs, but I am interested since it looks cool and modern and exactly mirrors my brand name. So I ask you to tell me a little more about it and how it would benefit my business.

How would you approach this and how would you articulate the value to the .com owner?

Also, as a disclaimer, I am not the owner of either of the domain names mentioned above. Just a basic example.

 

[Premiums]

mr.bet has more value than mrbet.com

 

[thevictor]

mr.bet has more value than mrbet.com

How's that?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I like the creative idea of a role play re domains @thevictor - I think something that could provide insights, and I don't recall others using it on NPs. My answer would be....

I would start off by listening - how long has .com presence been established, has it met their expectations, how much they have invested, what concerns do they have about ngTLDs.

When the question is valid, e.g. some end users have never heard of many of the new extensions so isn't it risky, I would show them the ICANN surveys on it, but agree that yes it is a realistic concern. In a very minor way it is improving, but slowly.

However if some of their concerns are "urban truths" (often repeated even on NPs!) that are not based in fact I would show them the evidence. Like if they think Google discriminate against ngTLDs in search (most rank low but not because they are a ngTLD, but rather because they are not well placed in other ways like valued backlinks or quality of content, etc.). Or that all ngTLDs are spammy and abused, I would take them to Spamhaus data to show that is far too generalized a message. For spam some are worse, but many are better than .net and .com. Re phishing, would point out that the vast majority of that abuse comes from .com, and a very few mainly country code TLDs.

Primarily they probably wonder about marketing advantages and disadvantages. I would share with them the excellent Huffington Post article re domain name phrases and ngTLDs (see link).

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5947826be4b0d188d027fff9

Let me quote a couple of compelling examples quoted in that article.

"Bill McClure purchased coffee.club for $100,000 in November 2014 – within a week of the website’s launch, it ranked on page 1 of Google US for the term “coffee club." When I first learned that it super impressed me. Getting to first page of Google is not easy and it is valuable.

"Wix recently ran an SEO competition with a prize of $50,000 to see who could rank best for a search term of their choosing. The winner & runner-up both used new-GTLD domain names that strongly matched the competition search term."

At this point I would probably share a snippet from the interview with the owner of home.loans. But maybe more impressive mention his previous enterprise, https://www.multifamily.loans/. I was not familiar with the term, but he launched that with a .loans, and almost immediately got on first page of Google and had a successful business.

I would be honest with the potential purchaser, and tell them that ngTLDs have been slow to catch on, many in the branding and naming establishment are against them and feel that a .com is the only real choice most should consider.

I would probably suggest a strategy where the owner keep the .com, with all its advantages, fully operational and try out for a period of time a ngTLD and use it in a marketing campaign and use Google Analytics to track how effective it is.

I would share some of Names.of.London data re that particularly with mobile devices and social media clickable domain name expressions seem to work with consumers.

Anyway.... my answer... thanks for the opportunity to respond.

 

[deez007]

A few things to keep in mind and consider.

The market is changing and evolving, the younger crowd are much more open to nGTLD's. You see nGTLD's being used openly and frequently in the cryptospace and no one bats an eyelid nor is there any confusion.

As @MetBob said, one can write entire book about this subject (I think he almost did with his detailed, well thought out response :P)

Think about this for a second, you are a new business thats about to launch, you have some investment capital but don't have a huge budget. Let say for example you are looking at a domain like wallstreet.com which sold for over $1million back in 2005, now lets say it's up for sale again now for $1.25million..then you notice that wallstreet.club is for sale right now for $10 000. Wallstreet.com is a stronger domain no doubt but is it worth paying an extra $1 240 000 for? As a new business, what do you think would build a stronger brand, spending $1.25 million on a .com or buying the .club domain and spending the remaining $1 240 000 on an aggresive online marketing and branding campaign? ... For a new business, the second option makes more sense.

Off course if you are an established multi national company that has been running for years and has deep pockets then spending $1.25 million on wallstreet.com would make perfect sense.

 

[thevictor]

I like the creative idea of a role play re domains @thevictor - I think something that could provide insights, and I don't recall others using it on NPs. My answer would be....

I would start off by listening - how long has .com presence been established, has it met their expectations, how much they have invested, what concerns do they have about ngTLDs.

When the question is valid, e.g. some end users have never heard of many of the new extensions so isn't it risky, I would show them the ICANN surveys on it, but agree that yes it is a realistic concern. In a very minor way it is improving, but slowly.

However if some of their concerns are "urban truths" (often repeated even on NPs!) that are not based in fact I would show them the evidence. Like if they think Google discriminate against ngTLDs in search (most rank low but not because they are a ngTLD, but rather because they are not well placed in other ways like valued backlinks or quality of content, etc.). Or that all ngTLDs are spammy and abused, I would take them to Spamhaus data to show that is far too generalized a message. For spam some are worse, but many are better than .net and .com. Re phishing, would point out that the vast majority of that abuse comes from .com, and a very few mainly country code TLDs.

Primarily they probably wonder about marketing advantages and disadvantages. I would share with them the excellent Huffington Post article re domain name phrases and ngTLDs (see link).

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5947826be4b0d188d027fff9

Let me quote a couple of compelling examples quoted in that article.

"Bill McClure purchased coffee.club for $100,000 in November 2014 – within a week of the website’s launch, it ranked on page 1 of Google US for the term “coffee club." When I first learned that it super impressed me. Getting to first page of Google is not easy and it is valuable.

"Wix recently ran an SEO competition with a prize of $50,000 to see who could rank best for a search term of their choosing. The winner & runner-up both used new-GTLD domain names that strongly matched the competition search term."

At this point I would probably share a snippet from the interview with the owner of home.loans. But maybe more impressive mention his previous enterprise, https://www.multifamily.loans/. I was not familiar with the term, but he launched that with a .loans, and almost immediately got on first page of Google and had a successful business.

I would be honest with the potential purchaser, and tell them that ngTLDs have been slow to catch on, many in the branding and naming establishment are against them and feel that a .com is the only real choice most should consider.

I would probably suggest a strategy where the owner keep the .com, with all its advantages, fully operational and try out for a period of time a ngTLD and use it in a marketing campaign and use Google Analytics to track how effective it is.

I would share some of Names.of.London data re that particularly with mobile devices and social media clickable domain name expressions seem to work with consumers.

Anyway.... my answer... thanks for the opportunity to respond.

Thanks a lot for letting me pick your brain and your suggestions @MetBob !!! This is great information and definitely answers many of my questions! I can see how things are transitioning towards "clickable and type-in phrases" and away from "exact domain name browser type-ins". Instead of typing the entire url in the browser, most just search for the term/phrase in Google and click on whatever relevant search result that shows up on top. In any case, it sounds like it all comes down to customer education and assurance by whatever precedent has been established thus far.

 

[thevictor]

A few things to keep in mind and consider.

The market is changing and evolving, the younger crowd are much more open to nGTLD's. You see nGTLD's being used openly and frequently in the cryptospace and no one bats an eyelid nor is there any confusion.

As @MetBob said, one can write entire book about this subject (I think he almost did with his detailed, well thought out response :P)

Think about this for a second, you are a new business thats about to launch, you have some investment capital but don't have a huge budget. Let say for example you are looking at a domain like wallstreet.com which sold for over $1million back in 2005, now lets say it's up for sale again now for $1.25million..then you notice that wallstreet.club is for sale right now for $10 000. Wallstreet.com is a stronger domain no doubt but is it worth paying an extra $1 240 000 for? As a new business, what do you think would build a stronger brand, spending $1.25 million on a .com or buying the .club domain and spending the remaining $1 240 000 on an aggresive online marketing and branding campaign? ... For a new business, the second option makes more sense.

Off course if you are an established multi national company that has been running for years and has deep pockets then spending $1.25 million on wallstreet.com would make perfect sense.

Thanks @deez007 I definitely agree with you. From a new business standpoint it makes total sense to save an extra million or 3 on a domain name purchase and to reinvest in more fruit-bearing initiatives.