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.org Why I am bullish on .ORG: Plutocratic guilt!

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Are you going to be buying more .ORG in Q4 2019?

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  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

Rob Monster

Founder of EpikTop Member
Epik Founder
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A few folks have been asking about why I have recently become more bullish on .ORG. I thought the topic deserves a post, and perhaps some debate.

In short, the reason why I think .ORG will have a healthy after-market in the coming years is because of what some have called "Plutocratic Guilt". It is a term I learned from a fellow Seattleite named Nick Hanauer who probably has a bit of it -- he is really rich and he likes to talk about it, but then he also likes to philosophize about how rich people need to give back more to society. It started with his 2014 TED Talk:


The sad reality of the world is that the rich do keep getting richer and the poor are mostly staying poor and/or getting poorer, while much of the middle class gets obliterated. The GDP per capita data uses an average to mask this trend but the Gini coefficient of inequality clearly shows that income inequality is getting worse.
upload_2019-11-3_13-53-32.png

As for what to do about, it, my recipe is really simple: sell to rich people. We already do that at Epik, e.g. during October we sold 3 domains above $250K each. However, eventually rich people have enough stuff, and enough businesses. At some point, they start to care a lot more about their "legacy", which is one reason you see elaborate donor recognition walls in high visibility places. More examples here.

upload_2019-11-3_14-36-27.png


However, if you are really rich, you set up a Foundation e.g. the Gates Foundation, or more recently, the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative, etc. It is some mix of estate planning, philanthropy, tax shelter and (hidden) agenda. Most philanthropic funds are actually in the US and likely that pattern continues for the foreseeable future. Most US philanthropies choose .ORG as their extension.

upload_2019-11-3_13-46-39.png


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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
.org and crypto domains do a lot better than yall think. I sold them like hotcakes on bitcointalk.org years back. Domains that wouldn't even bid $1 for here were sold there QUICKLY for xxx.
 
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sold a couple lately @ sedo bin
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skims.org... $195
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1bit.org...$350
 
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Chiming in as a sorta newbie, I hear the voice of the seasoned members and I do believe they are right. No need to go running regging 100s of org just for a promo sake. But if you have quality .orgs sort-listed, by all means take advantage of the promo to reg the best of your shortlisted names (though need to be highly selective, as newbies, and I can speak for myself here, aren't the best judge of domain quality) ..

First of all .. welcome to NamePros .. and thanks for writing a really intelligent post. The general warning that newcomers stick to .com when they start is because of the huge difference on average in both value AND in probability of sale between .com and all the rest. A common mistake is that newcommers will see a two-word .com sell for big money and then assume the alternate extensions are worth 10% of that huge amount. (It actually is somewhat true .. but people ignore the other fact that along with the 90-95%+ price decrease .. there's also the factor that the probability of sale also decreases over 95% .. and when looking at it as an investment, you need to combine both factors .. which when you do .. generally leads to a domain that is not worth the investment)

But yes .. if you're smart about it and choose the correct SLD for the TLD, kinda like you tried to do with OldAgeCare (although it's borderline, see below), then there is no problem at all (decent acquisition though for someone starting out).

So in general there's a broader range of mistakes that can be made outside of .com .. but if you read my posts earlier in this thread it should be clear that serious mistakes can also very easily be made with .com domains. In fact, I'd say the majority of .com domains you see in various places all over NamePros are simply not good enough to ever sell.

So you're right in that the warning doesn't make much sense and that it should actually be do not buy ANY domains until you've learned a lot .. because it definitely is true that money can be made with other extensions .. it's just that you need to be aware that you need to be VASTLY more selective with your acquisitions.

In the end I think a lot of people issue the "only buy .com" warning, because they assume most newcomers are going to want to start buying right away and/or too soon before they've learnt enough. So the warning is usually given in good faith .. and yes .. if a newcomer is determined to start buying right away without basic industry knowledge .. then the probability is that they will make fewer mistakes with .com domains .. but in the end .. it's just the difference between acquiring unsellable .com domains and very unsellable non-com domains .. at the end of the day they're both unsellable, so the warning as well intentioned as it is .. doesn't really change much ... if anything, it wrongfully gives the impression that newcomers should register .com domains .. when in fact newcomers should not register ANY domains (until they've learned enough).

.ORG really needs to be a stronger term in my experience.
I would say terms like Elder Care, and Senior Care are dominant terms in the field.
Those would be example of some with high resale potential in .ORG.
@Crypto2020 .. That's pretty good advice there .. anything non-com needs to be extremely strong .. and more importantly, while not necessarily a single word, it should be the root term at it's most basic. However .. just to say your mistake wasn't a blatant one .. you're certainly on the right track and at least have a basic understanding of what to look for .. there's hope for you in domains! :)

PS: as far as getting a bounty for domain suggestions, I believe that the person who has suggested a domain that has been sold to and end user later on should also get a percentage of the sale (between 10 to 25 percent) in addition to the $15 dollars finders fee that they originally got.

It really is something that's between the two people involved. Depending on volume and time involved, $15 could be very good .. or very bad .. but either way if both parties are clearly agreed, then the rest is their business. Percentage would certainly be fun and more motivating, but probably a bit of a pain to manage

As an example, as a new investor, did you know that with nGTLDs the renewal prices can change overnight? It's not a reason to not register a name, but a fact you should definitely know in advance.

Actually ... they need to give ~6 months notice. Which I'll agree is short .. but not quite overnight! ;)
 
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You should only buy .com, learn with .com, and once you have experience buy quality .org and learn from them.
Buying lots of random .org is suicide and a waste of resources.
 
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I have 2 .org
GlobalHood dot org
PhonePrivacy dot org
 
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my last .org sale via Uni, now being used commercially > www.pmm.org
and one sold via Sedo > www.rvx.org

so, yeah, .org can be used like .com

imo...
 
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I see that Walton(org), a last name, was sold on DAN.
I wonder for how much it was sold
 
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Do not over-simplify the following, please, but I did want to point out that the sell through rate is better in .org than .com if you define the sell through rate as number of sales divided by number of domains of that type for sale.

Dofo Advanced search15,264,642 .com domain names actively for sale today.
Dofo Advanced search 500.961 .org domain names actively for sale today.

NameBio listed sales over past year as of today (to get overall sales probably need to scale 5x or more in both cases but does not affect ratio)
NameBio listed .com sales 90,900 in last 12 months.
NameBio listed .org sales 5349 in last 12 months.

Computed sell-through ratio:
.com 0.60%
.org 1.06%


Now for the not over-simplifying the message. This is not at all saying an .org is better than the similar .com (in most cases it is definitely not). Nor is it saying what your experience will be - that will depend on what you invest in - this is simply the probability for all the names anyone has decided to acquire. As someone said above, in most cases, both in .com and .org, the names for sale will never sell.

I think the numbers do demonstrate something that is too easy to overlook. We read NameBio lists and see mainly .com and assume that must be the best thing to invest in. That may well be true, but simply seeing a lot of sales does not prove it. We also need to look at prices, costs and especially how many names are being offered for sale.

I agree you need to be nuanced in your .org acquisitions, more so than in .com. In that sense I, somewhat, agree with the often-quoted advice to start in .com, but I strongly disagree with the sometimes added "and you will be fine". People can, and easily do, easily lose money in all TLDs. That is why I think it is best to define a small amount of money you can afford to lose, and then only make further acquisitions after you have sold one or more of those, and in that way bootstrap your success (which I know is one element of the digital empowerment idea @Rob Monster has proposed).

So this is not an argument for or against .org. It is simply to ask that we not overlook the fact that most domains that sell are .com, but so are the majority of domains for sale. It is our probability of a sale and the net proceeds, compared to the holding cost, that decides whether any domain investment is sound.

I think it is hard in both TLDs to find names with a good probability of sale at a price that will make your entire portfolio positive. Don't rush into any acquisition without doing your analysis.

Bob
 
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hard to understand .org sales prices. especially low prices for one word domains.
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some nb sales
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napkin...$336
robber...$225
willoughby...$149
roadster...$665
disloyal...$329
rodney...$270
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while clpgh went for $5900, rcctvm $2550, and iccidd $3800.
 
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while clpgh went for $5900, rcctvm $2550, and iccidd $3800.
These are probably abbreviations for some existing and well-known orgs.
 
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These are probably abbreviations for some existing and well-known orgs.

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that doesn't explain the prices, they are still out of whack. makes it difficult to set bin prices or negotiate on make offers. i think we are letting our one word domains go for too low a price.
 
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Do not over-simplify the following, please, but I did want to point out that the sell through rate is better in .org than .com if you define the sell through rate as number of sales divided by number of domains of that type for sale.

Dofo Advanced search15,264,642 .com domain names actively for sale today.
Dofo Advanced search 500.961 .org domain names actively for sale today.

NameBio listed sales over past year as of today (to get overall sales probably need to scale 5x or more in both cases but does not affect ratio)
NameBio listed .com sales 90,900 in last 12 months.
NameBio listed .org sales 5349 in last 12 months.

Computed sell-through ratio:
.com 0.60%
.org 1.06%


Now for the not over-simplifying the message. This is not at all saying an .org is better than the similar .com (in most cases it is definitely not). Nor is it saying what your experience will be - that will depend on what you invest in - this is simply the probability for all the names anyone has decided to acquire. As someone said above, in most cases, both in .com and .org, the names for sale will never sell.

I think the numbers do demonstrate something that is too easy to overlook. We read NameBio lists and see mainly .com and assume that must be the best thing to invest in. That may well be true, but simply seeing a lot of sales does not prove it. We also need to look at prices, costs and especially how many names are being offered for sale.

I agree you need to be nuanced in your .org acquisitions, more so than in .com. In that sense I, somewhat, agree with the often-quoted advice to start in .com, but I strongly disagree with the sometimes added "and you will be fine". People can, and easily do, easily lose money in all TLDs. That is why I think it is best to define a small amount of money you can afford to lose, and then only make further acquisitions after you have sold one or more of those, and in that way bootstrap your success (which I know is one element of the digital empowerment idea @Rob Monster has proposed).

So this is not an argument for or against .org. It is simply to ask that we not overlook the fact that most domains that sell are .com, but so are the majority of domains for sale. It is our probability of a sale and the net proceeds, compared to the holding cost, that decides whether any domain investment is sound.

I think it is hard in both TLDs to find names with a good probability of sale at a price that will make your entire portfolio positive. Don't rush into any acquisition without doing your analysis.

Bob

Thank you for the stats...

Three points here to consider when looking at this data:

1. .org sale prices are much lower than .com, perhaps 2+ times in average?
2. .org renewals are 40-50% higher than .com
3. The half a million listed .orgs might be close to the exhaustive limit of what is investment grade .orgs, meaning that your hand regs there will probably not do nearly as good.

Also, it would be great to be able to exclude GD auction sales below $250, maybe, to exclude the wholesale acquisitions.

0.6% .com reported for listed is way high, considering that most sales go unreported.
 
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hard to understand .org sales prices. especially low prices for one word domains.
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some nb sales
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napkin...$336
robber...$225
willoughby...$149
roadster...$665
disloyal...$329
rodney...$270
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while clpgh went for $5900, rcctvm $2550, and iccidd $3800.

Domains are not commodities. It doesn't go like "if clpgh sold for xxxx, then roadster for more". And that is excluding the fact that this NB is a wholesale market and buyers have to account for all the risks and holding costs.

If they were, you'd be out of business, as companies like HD would write an algorithm to grab anything with the profitability above 10-15%.
 
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Interestingly, .org took the top two spots for October's Namejet/Snapnames.

https://www.thedomains.com/2019/11/...ctober-sales-report-led-by-knowyourstuff-org/

and took the 2nd spot for the weekly Sedo report.

https://www.thedomains.com/2019/11/05/sedo-weekly-sales-led-by-kama-co/

That one looks like they were just getting their domain back, the cfah.org. Didn't dig too deep so I could be wrong. But the site that is up now, is the site that's been up for years. Earlier this year it was some parked page. Founder and President died in 2014.

PC.org, yeah, but no hand regs of those sort happening today.

Probably a better chance at getting a decent .org in the Aftermarket, than hand regging.

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"Supported by the Jessie Gruman Memorial Fund, cfah.org resources will remain online until January 2020."

So who knows what's going on with them.
 
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0.6% .com reported for listed is way high, considering that most sales go unreported.
I agree, it would imply the real rate is maybe 3% which seems high. I think it is so high because increasingly the $100 to $200 range has quite a few wholesale sales, as you allude.
Also, it would be great to be able to exclude GD auction sales below $250, maybe, to exclude the wholesale acquisitions.
I don't know how to exclude based on both criteria together but I did run the following that perhaps partly does what you ask.

If I only consider sales >$250 but from all venues the sell through rate for .org is 0.54% and for .com is 0.28%. This verifies that many sales not much above $100, probably mainly to domainers, are the result of the high sell through rates.

If I consider all sales >$100 but exclude all sales at GoDaddy auctions the sell through rate is 0.53% for .org and 0.21% for .com.

.org sale prices are much lower than .com, perhaps 2+ times in average?
If go back to the original dataset (i.e. all $100+) the average price in .org is $773 and the average in .com is $1187. However, the $30 million voice sale has really affected .com averages. So if you take out that one sale the .com average is $857.

.org renewals are 40-50% higher than .com
Definitely .org are higher. The current wholesale prices are $7.85 for .com and $9.93 in .org (plus in both cases $0.18 to ICANN) as I understand it. So there are savings of the order of $2 per year wholesale, and since less competition in .org probably the retail difference is more like $2.50 (I tried to compute it from history graphs at TLD-list - might be argued almost $3 difference, near to the 40%). That can definitely add up if you anticipate holding a domain name for a couple of decades.

The half a million listed .orgs might be close to the exhaustive limit of what is investment grade .orgs, meaning that your hand regs there will probably not do nearly as good.
I agree there are far more investment grade .com than .org. I don't feel qualified to put a number on it, and I think the use of .org has been steadily widening, but agree that many types of domains that sell daily in .com almost never sell in .org.

Thanks again for your comments. This is the best i could do in trying to answer the points you asked about.

And as I stressed before, even though the sell-through seem promising, whether .org is a good investment is a far more complex question.

Bob
 
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I agree, it would imply the real rate is maybe 3% which seems high. I think it is so high because increasingly the $100 to $200 range has quite a few wholesale sales, as you allude.
I don't know how to exclude based on both criteria together but I did run the following that perhaps partly does what you ask.

If I only consider sales >$250 but from all venues the sell through rate for .org is 0.54% and for .com is 0.28%. This verifies that many sales not much above $100, probably mainly to domainers, are the result of the high sell through rates.

If I consider all sales >$100 but exclude all sales at GoDaddy auctions the sell through rate is 0.53% for .org and 0.21% for .com.

If go back to the original dataset (i.e. all $100+) the average price in .org is $773 and the average in .com is $1187. However, the $30 million voice sale has really affected .com averages. So if you take out that one sale the .com average is $857.

Definitely .org are higher. The current wholesale prices are $7.85 for .com and $9.93 in .org (plus in both cases $0.18 to ICANN) as I understand it. So there are savings of the order of $2 per year wholesale, and since less competition in .org probably the retail difference is more like $2.50 (I tried to compute it from history graphs at TLD-list - might be argued almost $3 difference, near to the 40%). That can definitely add up if you anticipate holding a domain name for a couple of decades.

I agree there are far more investment grade .com than .org. I don't feel qualified to put a number on it, and I think the use of .org has been steadily widening, but agree that many types of domains that sell daily in .com almost never sell in .org.

Thanks again for your comments. This is the best i could do in trying to answer the points you asked about.

And as I stressed before, even though the sell-through seem promising, whether .org is a good investment is a far more complex question.

Bob

Thanks, Bob, you are awesome!

No matter how we look at it, these numbers are better than what I would have assumed for .org

I prefer to keep my names at GD, but unfortunately there the difference between .org and .com is 3.7$ or about 45% higher for .org

I would suggest the following rule of thumb for this:

Buy a .org if all below is true:

- its .com would be priced by an experienced seller at $xx,xxx or close to it
- it makes perfect sense for a non-profit, crypto, motivational, spiritual
- your overall .org holdings are not over 5% of your portfolio
- you are a long term investor.
 
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Interesting topic Rob Monster. I've always liked .ORG but haven't had huge success in the aftermarket, mostly with business focused names. I only hold a couple though. Pikevile.org and ShareTrading.org.

Best of luck to those targeting this market, bring on the sales :)
 
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hard to understand .org sales prices. especially low prices for one word domains.
-
some nb sales
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napkin...$336
robber...$225
willoughby...$149
roadster...$665
disloyal...$329
rodney...$270
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while clpgh went for $5900, rcctvm $2550, and iccidd $3800.

clpgh org is parked and the other two are male supplement sites

as far as those one word names listed, most are names i would pass on
what can you do with napkin.org, robber.org, disloyal?

i don't try to analyze past sales prices, i set my own pricing.

imo...
 
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EnergyChain is probably my favorite org in my portfolio...
 
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Well i buy .org very very rarely ..

Right now i am holding on Loom.org , Celeb.org , Backend.org , Branded.org thats all

i have sold Users.org & Trending.org in 6k approx this year

now come to handreg names or lowprice names which i picked in xx range

1. Mizuho.org i sold in 995 usd within 30 days of purchase from closeout
2. cryptotrust.org i sold in 888 usd within within 2-3 months after bought in 23 usd

i have bought 3-5 low end names in low xx range from them i sold 2 as mentioned above
rest now i have portos.org sonography.org & turek.org

if you pick right names from drops you can make money def on org but its exceptional if you will do handreg of mygreatkeyboard.org ofcourse u cant sell it...

i would say focus on First name like i picked mizuho or other language word from drops which make sense with .org .

this is all i can say about .org

Play at your own risk :)
 
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I agree, interesting thread. I really like the .org extension however sales are few and far between for me.

I did sell SDIS(.)org for $5K a while back and receive inquiries on other names such as SACE(.)org, JRT(.)org and Honour(.)org, but unfortunately, none of which have resulted in a sale thus far. I have recently added ClimateActivism(.)org to my portfolio, a trending term thats receiving a lot of media coverage of late.

Names worth the gamble are good 3L and 4L acronyms, dictionary words, short phrases and trending terms that are a perfect match for the extension eg. relating to health, education, the environment, religion etc etc.

Other than these, it becomes an expensive gamble with higher renewal costs.
 
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I agree, interesting thread. I really like the .org extension however sales are few and far between for me.

I did sell SDIS(.)org for $5K a while back and receive inquiries on other names such as SACE(.)org, JRT(.)org and Honour(.)org, but unfortunately, none of which have resulted in a sale thus far. I have recently added ClimateActivism(.)org to my portfolio, a trending term thats receiving a lot of media coverage of late.

Names worth the gamble are good 3L and 4L acronyms, dictionary words, short phrases and trending terms that are a perfect match for the extension eg. relating to health, education, the environment, religion etc etc.

Other than these, it becomes an expensive gamble with higher renewal costs.

The renewal fees are a double-edged sword.

So, yes, the renewal fees are a bit high, above $10, but not above $20 like .CO and with no premiums.

Let's say the .ORG renewal price creeps up to $15-20 in the next few years. What happens? It creates an expiry stream where it becomes possible to hand-reg a new .ORG from the expiry stream for $7.49.

As for after-market, the Chinese have not been trolling 2 and 3 letter .ORG, so there is still market inefficiency in .ORG.

Curious to hear which categories of .ORG after-market has done well for folks, particularly for larger exits.
 
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The renewal fees are a double-edged sword.

So, yes, the renewal fees are a bit high, above $10, but not above $20 like .CO and with no premiums.

Let's say the .ORG renewal price creeps up to $15-20 in the next few years. What happens? It creates an expiry stream where it becomes possible to hand-reg a new .ORG from the expiry stream for $7.49.

As for after-market, the Chinese have not been trolling 2 and 3 letter .ORG, so there is still market inefficiency in .ORG.

Curious to hear which categories of .ORG after-market has done well for folks, particularly for larger exits.

True. I guess what I mean is it becomes expensive if one is planning to invest in a large quantity of names. For those like me who have a small number, the renewal cost is fine, particularly in comparison to that of .CO and .IO etc.
 
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