What is your forecast for the next couple of years when it comes to domaining.

[oldtimer]

What is your forecast for the next couple of years for domaining and what are you doing to adjust to the new landscape of the domain Industry.

It used to be that first tire .com domains were fetching six or even seven figure prices on a regular basis, even second and third tier domains in .com were selling for a hefty sum up to just a couple of years ago. But now it seems like the million dollar sales are all but gone and the average selling price for .coms has fallen to the low to medium four figures.

In my opinion .com is always going to remain popular and most people are probably going to prefer it over all the other alternatives, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the average price for keyword .com domains dropping down to the three figure range in the near future especially if some of the big companies start giving away free domains (in their New gTLDs) to their customers and clients as a means of attracting and keeping more visitors.

Even the .com traffic domains that have enjoyed a steady level of traffic in the past might lose some of their value as people start typing in New gTLD combinations out of curiosity instead of the many popular keywords in .com that they have been used to typing before.

At this time I have come to believe that one of the domaining categories that has the best chances going forward even in the new landscape of the domain Industry is Brandable domains especially those that are suitable for broad use and that can be sold in the low to medium four figures.

IMO

What is you forecast for the next couple of years.

 

[mjnels]

I think we need some sort of recruitment drive, to get some new domainers into the business. Gotta find somebody to reg domains in all these new extensions.

.co and .me are represented by number of characters in A. New extensions in B.

A. cm (2)

B. apu3e0tdko48djh34ke843kajslijai4jqw49i4890vajw4q4[98ef;jkdq327495rbl0842tvsblkmlxjsbjr348i7t948vnlsa8yg409ohan8y4'a84ghifsj0eaurikfj0eurgirjdfjiu0b9ure90ud09ffbaofiboifjuboisjhoaiuhbopay9re8oiszjhobihoiahjoisahjoirhjboih480434874u4n4n0v8u0349ut34n0u40u0df0940844j09840987v04f09u40bjspjbrep9u09bufd4807r874=34fsoy34kjv03jiv0842igkp09784t34jh908uvi42l3nv098u43298jv08748923nv08u4j34y984u089usoij4840s[400vuo23ifdkk398vj32909uu-4-9u34u3q4u34uu43u43ugb74n49u9dnnvds;34932t5bvj230vuf9e99bas[34020gu0p[a[q=t3jh094jdf09bu4vbjp9ui5409u9hu09eur094uojv094809kgpudjo4e8i739jdlj0984jakdjf094u09t4iaj9d0u09f4u948u09ua90u094u09390u309u90u09049ajc09u90390uc900303u0u09u0f93u03uxj098409uc309309u309098x09830f9833 (700+)

"We’ll keep you updated about the domains we choose to move forward with."

Do you think that could be a make it or break it for a lot of these extensions? Not being available at GoDaddy would be a pretty bit hit I would imagine. Being available in the drop down would be nice, or course it would be an endless scroll now.[/quote]

i think eventually they will come up with something else. drop down menu's might work for the first batch but if it ever becomes several thousand theyll need a new approach to make it more effective. (or effective at all, cause a drop down menu with 1,000 choices isnt effective at all).. probably something like google does with auto-complete... you type domain.a and it will show everything with the "a" ending... like domain.animals domain.assholes and so on.. probably would be more effective once there are near endless TLD's..

maybe even more effective choose categories or something first but then they'd want to put some TLD's in multiple categories since there would be some overlap..

 

[En]

If we are making the extension pointless, where one can call a site anything.wow, anything.realestate, anything.web, anything.great, then why are people investing in a new gTLD? What is the point of spending any money at all on a new gTLD?

The extension will not matter at all for Google SEO, or it will matter even more (such as with .realestate?). If your a real estate company, you should use .realestate, or your local extension (such as .london, not .co.uk), or you should get the .brand, for SEO purposes?
Or it will not matter at all?

So I might as well just use .wow?

Unless it is for branding purposes only, that we are introducing all these new gTLDs? So that in the real world people will see hi.realestate, hi.web, hi.domain, hi.wow, hi.net, hi.tv, hi.news, web.hi and they will be able to remember who is "hi"?
And the correct email address (unless we are ditching email addresses also?).
So in the real world it will become more important to advertise your 'dot' or to not advertise it at all?

What is THE extension to own (as with now it is .com, as it is embedded into the human brain)? Is it .brand? Why would I spend so much money on a .brand, when a .wow will do? For video, it is .video now? So the next YouTube should buy YouTube.video? Or YouTube.wow? Or You.Tube? Or Video.YouTube? Or doesn't it matter about the URL? So there is no point spending all that money for a .brand?

In the future you will just search for YouTube and that will be all. So it could be YouTube.lol for all anyone cares?

So what is the point in investing in a gTLD then? Well if no one invests, then it will never happen...

Or perhaps the plan is that the early adopters will make a bit, others will follow by buying a gTLD themselves, then brands will follow, until eventually the dot is pointless and everyone goes bust?

 

[dax]

Let me drop my own opinion in short.
I work in hosting and domain industry for 12 years now.

IMHO the history is the best teacher: lets see some examples of newly adopted gTLDs in the last decade:
.info - the best standing TLD mostly because the popular 1$ promotions, however real usage is small
.biz - going good for first years, but incresingly dropping in popularity. Usage now almost none.
.museum, .aero, .coop etc. - noone outside domain industry ever heard (or saw) them in practice.

I think the ccTLDs will come out stronger then ever when new gTLDs arrive, and all but .web and .shop of newcoming gTLDs will probably fail. However, i agree that value of other TLDs will increasingly drop, even .com, and particulary .net, .org and every other TLD (it is simple economy: larger supply, lower price).

.com and the ccTLDs will prevail, no matter the SEO, apps and everything else mentioned. People use TLDs that are mostly communicated to them.

 

[InternetMoney]

One major reason the other extensions haven't been good is that the same name with the .com will benefit from the others promotion. If someone advertises on the net with a link the address can be anything and is often some long crazy url but promoting a web site and creating a brand you need something simple and you will likely need the top domain and that's .com. Would you spend a lot of money promoting something with an extension other than .com and benefit your competitions .com? The .com will probably take your business. If the two web sites are different types of businesses it won't happen but that will be confusing to consumers.

Until something changes and it may .com is king.