sales Why Are Companies Reluctant to Spend Money on a Good Domain?

[Whizzbang]

The last article on “Underpinning Domain Sales” sparked an interesting discussion on the domain forum, NamePros. One of the respondents asked the question, “Why are companies reluctant to spend money on a good domain?” In this article, I hope to answer that question.

In my opinion, the dominant reason businesses don’t spend money on domain names is because of ignorance. On the whole the domain industry has not been able to mobilise itself and communicate cooperatively to businesses about the importance of domain names. I’d like to unpack this a little further.

The biggest problem has always been the question of whom should put up the PR/Marketing money to generate interest and understanding in domains. Some people point to the registries, others the registrars while others say the current domain owners should all chip in. These discussiona often degenerate into name-calling and a lot of inaction.

What domain investors need to appreciate is that once they have purchased a domain name the registries and the registrars have effectively done their job. There is NO incentive for them to try and market on behalf of existing owners to increase the demand for already registered domains so the price goes up. That’s an almost impossible job.

The job of registries and registrars are to convince existing owners to renew and to get new registrations from wherever they can. On the whole, new gTLD registries have been excellent at selling their product to the domain investor constituency based on scarcity. “If you don’t buy this domain you’ll miss out like you did in the .com rush.”

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[guilty]

I have not contradicted myself in any way, and you clearly know nothing about marketing and appear to be unaware that all you're doing is helping to prove my point!

Lol you seem to have a background in marketing. Do you?

Ok, i'll bite. Explain to me how those companies have actually benefited from owning those particular domains... I'd love to know!

Ok. What do business want? They want more customers. Every single customer count. Toys.com got 500 visitors this month and the past month, and (75%) of them are type-in traffic.

Loans.com received 20,000 visitors last December. They got 2000 visitors this month and the last month as well, and (86%) of them are type-in traffic. Are you going to tell me that 1720 type-in traffic visitors a month do not count?

 

[Ben Price]

Lol you seem to have a background in marketing. Do you?



Ok. What do business want? They want more customers. Every single customer count. Toys.com got 500 visitors this month and the past month, and (75%) of them are type-in traffic.

Loans.com got 2000 visitors, and(86%) of them are type-in traffic. Are you going to tell me that 1720 type-in traffic visitors a month do not count?

Good, I knew you'd want to talk about type-in traffic, and I will admit that this really is a real value to a business, because it's all about leads and potential income.

Type-in traffic 'though only occurs on generic and very obvious domains (so a tiny fraction of domains in existence then, perhaps less than 0.00001%) and even then the figures for type-in are not nearly as high as domainers think they are...

But, let me take you at your own figures... Do you really think that 1720 type-in hits per month is of any interest at all to one of the largest companies on earth?!..

It's like giving a penny to a millionaire in the hope that he will become excited by that...

 

[guilty]

Good, I knew you'd want to talk about type-in traffic, and I will admit that this really is a real value to a business, because it's all about leads and potential income.

Type-in traffic 'though only occurs on generic and very obvious domains (so a tiny fraction of domains in existence then, perhaps less than 0.00001%) and even then the figures for type-in are not nearly as high as domainers think they are...

But, let me take you at your own figures... Do you really think that 1720 type-in hits per month is of any interest at all to one of the largest companies on earth?!..

It's like giving a penny to a millionaire in the hope that he will become excited by that...

It adds up. Not always 1720 visitors since I mentioned that they previously received 20000 visitors last December but i'm not sure how many of those are type-in traffic.

Look at affiliate programs. Why do companies such as eBay and Amazon....etc offer that? Only few websites that uses affiliate program succeed. So in a way, companies do not earn that much from the affiliate programs they provide if you compare it to their annual revenue.

 

[Landov]

Big companies spend large sums for top domains because of vanity and image.

The best domains will always be expensive.

 

[lock]

Try buying the best name you can and developing it yourself and you will then start to agree that it isn't as easy as it sounds to get the return back on the domain.

 

[Geodomain]

How many people agree with me that Amazon is probably committing a felony affecting a great number of affiliates worldwide, whereas you sign up to become an Amazon affiliate and then a short time after they tell you the code that you put in doesn't work you have to redo it anything that you have for that code is not going to be credited to your account Amazon is a big f****** sca*. and it severely pisses me off see rollerblading.com it goes to Amazon but they tell me that I won't get any credits because the code is blah blah blah whatever the f*** they said I'm not into designing websites anymore I don't have the time to put into it I thought I could do an auto forward make some money as an affiliate but of course Amazon the s****ming people unless I'm wrong anybody disagree with me?

in other news I noticed Bitcoin is under a thousand when I went to bed last night

It adds up. Not always 1720 visitors since I mentioned that they previously received 20000 visitors last December but i'm not sure how many of those are type-in traffic.

Look at affiliate programs. Why do companies such as eBay and Amazon....etc offer that? Only few websites that uses affiliate program succeed. So in a way, companies do not earn that much from the affiliate programs they provide if you compare it to their annual revenue.

 

[Oliver zhou]

Learned much, thank you!

 

[likemike]

I stumbled upon this old thread and was surprised that I never saw it before. This thread is as accurate and informative today as it was 4 years ago when it was started. Some times it's true and the old saying rings through, "The more things change. The more things stay the same!"

There are still plenty of businesses all over that don't see the value of high quality domain names and I suppose there will always be those types of businesses. But as we enter a new era as a worldwide society with Covid raging back across the globe in far too many locales, the web is growing at an unprecedented speed with new businesses being born everyday online. Many more are realizing that getting the best domain name possible for their business is a key ingredient to being in business. Still, others will "never get it." Many will follow the pack and pay up so to speak for some domain names in the future that are increasing in value at historically unprecedented levels.

It's very interesting to see all of it play out.

 

[Priya009]

I really think you underestimate business owners. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think the majority of business owners have a basic understanding of domain names. They know they are going on their ads, they know they are going on their refrigerator magnets or whatever...of course they want a decent domain, but they aren't going to spend the same amount of money as a new car for one. So how exactly are 'educating' them?

I would like to add my point that most business owners do not understand the value of the domain.

 

[alliedchandigarh]

Domains are incredibly valuable. Getting the right domain for your business could instantly increase its chances of long-term success