debate Will .xyz flourish in 2019?

[Laguna]

What are your thoughts on .xyz in the coming year or two ?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Great sales, right?

Let's take the first one, would you be willing to keep renewing it for few years until & if it sells?

Assuming the renewal is x,xxx?

Knowing that x,xxx & xx,xxx will cover your .com renewals, a portfolio of hundreds.

Thank you for using a sale to demonstrate the argument. Here is my take on the questions you ask, now that the former owner, as well as an independent check, has confirmed that the renewal on the name is standard, at about $10 per year.

To respond to your points:

1. "would you be willing to keep renewing it for few years until & if it sells?" Would I renew token (xyz) for a few years? At $10/yr for sure. Good investment.
2. "Assuming the renewal is x,xxx?" It is not. The name token (xyz) is a standard renewal. Those who invest in ngTLDs always check whether premium renewal and only in rare cases invest in those with high renewals.
3. "Knowing that x,xxx & xx,xxx will cover your .com renewals, a portfolio of hundreds" And it also would cover renewal for a portfolio of hundreds of .xyz, if you chose to renew them. I think legacy investors do not understand though that many ngTLD investors take advantage of reduced first year costs to see if a domain name generates interest, and only a small portion will be renewed. But if you did want to use register and hold (obviously sensible for this domain) the costs are almost identical to .com. The wholesale renewal cost on .com is currently $7.85 and for .xyz it is $8.00.

But are there any other messages from this one sale since a critic of .xyz domain investment chose it as the example of why any .xyz investment makes no sense. I have no idea whether @DNGear hand registered (it appears from Whois to have been registered in October of 2016) or bought it from someone else, but I do know he paid only standard renewals. He successfully had a 4 figure (barely) aftermarket sale. It was bought by one of the smart domain investment leaders, and with a hold time of about a year (according to his tweets re the sale) he sold it for a 5 figure price. It was purchased by a VP of one of the world's largest companies, Alibaba. So the name was held by three domain smart people, sold at least twice in aftermarket (not registry sales) over less than two years, for increasing prices, and is held now by a business leader in a huge company.

I seem to miss why this would be a bad domain investment? Seriously congratulations to the three owners of the domain name who saw the value in it and that at standard renewal it was a great investment. I think this case nicely demonstrates how to be successful in ngTLDs. Buy quality. Find standard renewal names that are still strong words. Try to be ahead of others in a niche. Effectively list and negotiate sales. Be objective and smart and quantitative in thinking. Congrats to all.

Bob

 

[Internet.Domains]

Many of us watching the roll out of the New Gtld program know there was many suspicious sales in the beginning with this extension. At the same time there was an over abundance of hype coming from the registry. For that reason there will be little trust, from many of us, when sales happen.

Sure legitimate sales will happen, mostly due to the previous fictitious hype, but every sale is now questioned by many.

https://onlinedomain.com/2016/04/05/opinions/xyz-domains-name-sales-real/

 

[atinc]

I agree that the use appears to be simply to attract traffic to try to sell domain names. For price, that may be worthwhile. One should keep in mind this is just a few months after sale, and ultimate use may be down the road. While use is one piece of evidence, I also place a lot of trust in where it sold, whether it passed NameBio and DNJournal acceptance.

If we look at the 20 highest sales of all time (at least on NameBio data) (all .com and all at prices of $3.6 million and up each) only 12 of them have developed content (other than a redirection or coming soon, even though sold years ago) and only about half even have a security certificate implemented. Delay in meaningful final use does not mean a sale is fake.
https://agreatnameforyou.blogspot.com/2018/09/so-how-are-highest-priced-domain-names.html

I totally accept that scepticism is good, @atinc. But when we see a sale by someone we know, through Sedo, confirmed by DNJournal, and accepted as valid in NameBio, I think we should accept the preponderance of evidence.

Some may feel no harm is done by suggesting that well substantiated sales are probably not real but I disagree. I think it hurts our community by sowing lack of trust. This both blinds us to cases where mistrust is justified, and it makes our whole community less trusted by those outside. Someone can now search on the domain name and quote your comment about it. I don't think that helps anyone, in this case.

I admire your posts generally, but in this case I do not agree with what you have written. At the very least when any of us feel scepticism I think we should FIRST check DNJournal, NameBio and NPs to learn about the issue, and then if still lacking trust and only then post. jmho.

Bob

Okay so I go a little bit deeper on this. Actually there is not even a website on this domain.

The domain name is forwarded with masking. When I went and explore the site I saw that it is a forum website and when I go from one page to another I realised that the url didn't change. It shows that its forwarded with masking.

The domain name is forwarded to bitcoifoundation.org, the home page is the owner's account on the forum.

My conclusion is the keyword is great and could be sold at that price to an "end user" and when I go to the website and see how it looked like as I attached above, I had doubt the sale was legit.

So there are people with deep pockets, if they really want to own a domain, whatever purpose behind it (develop,resale,park etc.) they would pay a good sum of money for that.

The owner is a domainer, as he stated on the homepage, so probably it won't be developed by him. He might bought it for resale...

 

[Internet.Domains]

I still don't get it. If someone offers you 5k for your domain, do you ask what they intend to do with it ? Of course not. You get the money in the bank and happy days

Of course you sell it. I am not implying you don't.......The thought behind much of the skepticism is that the registry is buying domains in the aftermarket, often from reputable sellers, with phantom buyer information. Parked pages, mystery buyers, registry hype, this has been documented.

I am not accusing them of this, I am only reporting what has been brought up in the past. There has been much discussed on this topic. I posted a link in the post above, if you'd like to start there and draw your own conclusions, as many have.

 

[BRANDERX]

apparently this is only for .xyz and not goes for all the new gTLD extensions.

There are many truly premium keywords that makes sense with the combination and doesn't have "real" premium renewal.

A fellow friend posted a great thread where people shares their domain names and their renewals. You can take a look at that here.

But I think we should define what is premium renewal first. I guess that depends from people to people.

I am a fan of that thread.

I just really don't like high renewals, just like I don't like high rentals.

 

[atinc]

I am a fan of that thread.

I just really don't like high renewals, just like I don't like high rentals.

I don't really like those high renewals too.

I have posted a thread about that last year. Where people shared the highest renewals. Ridiculous renewal fees you can check it out here.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/new-g-s-with-highest-renewals.1047982/

 

[xynames]

Not particularly commenting on the xyz extension but OP’s investment is typical of many new domainers. Will spend a dollar (and not much more) on something hoping to sell it for 200X or more, but won’t spend $200 on something that might well sell for 3X.

 

[Henry Y]

Even if all of that happened (extremely unlikely) why would anyone buy a .xyz at a premium price? The examples you gave are people choosing to spend $5 on a name. Same could be said of .biz or .mobi.

Your argument is subjective and not persuasive as it is just based on your personal thought and feeling without any objective support.

1. Can you please provide evidence that all I said is extremely unlikely to happen? As I know, many large companies are investing in 3D technologies, or technologies such as VR that adopt 3D technologies. For instance, Facebook is investing in VR and Hewlett-Packard (HP) is investing in 3D printing for manufacturing. I can easily google many research reports that show the increasing trend of developments, adoptions and applications of 3D technologies in the coming years.
2. You are not comparing apple to apple. .xyz can not be compared to .biz and .mobi because only .xyz has the meaning of 3D. That's why the exmaples I gave (i.e. 3D companies) use .xyz. Besides, among the examples, atlas3d/xyz and umake/xyz owners also own .com, but they use .xyz as their main extension (.com is redirected to .xyz). Also, the meaning of 3D for .xyz is not only defined by me, umake/xyz's CEO also agrees .xyz has a meaning of 3D space axes (Source: https://gen.xyz/blog/umake).
3. The examples are just for showing the use of .xyz in 3D field instead of showing no one uses premium .xyz names. Some premium one keyowrd names like Rise/xyz, Designer/xyz, Jungle/xyz and Feed/xyz are currently be use.
4. From the cost perspective, .xyz is less costly than .com. For a same keyword, .com is actually much more costly than .xyz even though .com's renewal price may be lower. You may need to spend initially at least 6 figures to buy keyword/com but less to buy keyword/xyz. The purchase price difference is equivalent to many many years of renewal. For 100k price difference, it may equal to hundreds of years of renewal. Also, the annual renewal price of many premium .xyz is just low xxx or even standard price that is affordable by companies. It is much cheaper than an iPhone, a labour's salary or even annual stationery expenses. What's more, .com does not fit 3D businesses well.

I know you hate ngTLDs, but please provide evidence to support your argument. People can only be pursuaded by objective evidence.

 

[offthehandle]

What's more, .com does not fit 3D businesses well.

Yep, .Com is only one dimensional.
XYZ "Fits" and has 3 dimensions.

BTW Google results for "3D" are 4.8 Billion indexed pages. 680 Million index pages for "3D Printing". Top 10 pages results are ranking .COM's, (1) info, 3 .co.uk, an org and a couple Edu's. Not one New Gtld, not even one. I was just curious as I had a news site for 3D printing several years then let it expire... could never rank with a .COM. Now I know why. XYZ looks like a wide open field, so go buy up them all.

Go hurry up an register 3DPrintShop.XYZ right now. It's not taken. Also .Club, etc. $1.99 each.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I still have my skepticism about the validity of this sale. So many things doesn't make sense with this sale.

With respect I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I totally respect your right to an opinion.

If we apply the standard that there has to be a quality functioning website within 6 months of sale or we regard the sale as probably ffake, then at least 80% of sales are questionable (including those of 5 figures and beyond). To me it is like saying in actual real estate that a house has not started to build on a lot so the announced sale of the lot must be fake.

This particular sale rings true to me on multiple measures:

• The sale was publicly announced by a party (seller) to the sale in a prompt manner.
• We know both the price paid on acquisition and the price resold for, and the holding time.
• The seller was a well known company/seller in the domain world.
• The sale was conducted on Sedo.
• The sale passed the documentation test to be listed in DNJournal.
• The sale is listed in NameBio.
• To my knowledge no one else has ever questioned the sale (could be proven wrong).
• This is a high value word that has sold (exact) in 7 extensions, with this price 2nd of the 7. The average price of this word in those 7 sales is $9631, with all but one above $4000.
• It is true that this is the highest value sale in .xyz (at least in NameBio) in 2018, although just 23rd overall in .xyz sales in last 5 years.

In civil courts and in science we don't isolate any single piece but look at a preponderance of evidence (stronger measure in criminal cases off course). If I look overall at this sale there is overwhelming evidence of validity in my view.

As I have said, if we apply the end use test, many sales fail. Just for fun I looked at the NameBio top sales of 2018 and found one that is roughly the same time period as this sale so equal time for it to have been developed. It (a .com) sold for more than 30 times the amount of this sale (a mid 6 figure sale). Yet, almost 6 months later, it sits with the default GoDaddy landing page, no developed site at all. Does that mean it was a fake sale? I don't think so (at least not based only on that evidence). One could argue that the price was much more out of wack for it (only 4 times ever sold in any combination, the highest less than 1/200th of this sale). I am deliberately not stating the name, because I am not claiming the sale is not valid. I am just saying that looking only at end use 6 months later is not the right test.

Anyway, we agree to disagree I hope.

Bob

 

[xynames]

I've sold domains for mid to high five figures that sat around with my nameservers, still parked for me collecting PPC links, for up to a year after payment.

Another one I sold about six months ago, for mid to high four figures, it just goes to a blank page, still now.

However, keep in mind:
Are Mike Mann's and Rick Schwartz's reported domain sales accurate or even true?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/ar...d-domain-sales-accurate-or-even-true.1113246/

 

[Hootsifer]

How can xyz flourish in 2019 when it was flushed in like 2014?

 

[xynames]

90% of my portfolio is hand reg btw, but 3-5-8 years ago, when good non trademark names were available.

Exactly.

Age adds value. The reason is simple: Value is derived from scarcity. Age = time = money. Time is a scarce resource, so it's valuable, even the most valuable resource for many people. Time is money, money is time. Anything aged is more valuable by default unless it's a dead or extinct product (example: horse carriage, spear, telegraph). Every product has a life, is born, lives and dies like humans. Internet is still young, so age will add value to internet based products until internet dies and becomes extinct like telegraph.

Even older humans are more expensive than younger ones. Seeing a 50 years old doctor is more expensive than seeing a 35 years old doctor or an advocate, technician, accountant, etc. Because you can't revert back the time, accelerate it or stop it or slow it down. Little children want to become adult faster, want to get rid of childhood but time passes in its own speed. Elderly people miss the old days when they were child or young but they pass away like all the other previous humans. We don't control the time. We can't produce more time, can't consume it faster or slower (eg: you can't shave your beard when you are 5 years old ) Time is not only scarce resource but also fully out of our control. Gold supply is scarce but you can decide how much gold you will demand. Land supply is scarce but you can live in a smaller house when you have to. So time is the most valuable thing as its quantity is fully out of our control in both, supply and demand sides.


Age alone has a value. Assume beer.com is available and someone hand registered it today. It would be cheaper if it was registered today.



Being parked or failed sales attempts in the past are not good indicators in an appraisal. Age always adds value. Because you can't turn back to the past, say, turning back to 1990's and being able to hand register 3 letter domains like sex.com. You can safely assume randomly chosen older domains are known by more people, need less promotion than randomly chosen newer domains. This is the main reason of why aged websites rank better in search results: They need search engines less as they receive more direct traffic (type-in or via browser bookmarks). Conversely search engines need aged, premium domains more than the need of aged domains for search engines. Because the search engines I know -specifically google- don't operate on good domains, so they have to provide reliable, quality search results to survive. As they aren't confident to survive merely based on search service, they added different services in addition to their initial search service. In my opinion, the reason is mostly related to bad choice (or not a perfect choice) on domain. In my opinion search.com would be a better choice than google.com if it was available to hand register.

Another striking proof: If you renew your website domain for longer 1 year in advance it ranks better in search results. I personally verified this on my own websites. Register a domain today, develop it today and renew its domain for 5 years, till 2022. By renewing its domain for 5 years, you are announcing everyone (including search engines) your site will certainly become 5 years old in 2022. Therefore your site deserves enjoying some portion of the authority of a 5 years old domain as it gives a guarantee to become a 5 years old domain.

Age isn't just a number. Even in the emerging markets of today (bitcoin, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics) older domains will be always more valuable than the new ones. I saw some threads on this forum which started to buy 1+ year old crypto-bitcoin domains. Age adds value to everything you see. For instance you could buy 1 bitcoin for $1 in the past. But today you have to pay almost $6,000 for the same 1 bitcoin. Age isn't just a number. Of course everything dies after getting old enough. But internet is still young and is still growing.

Early adapters, first entrants skim the market (any market, not only internet-domain market). This rule never changes. Can you hand register 3L com's today? I remember the times when people were discussing if hand registering 4L com is a waste of money as most of 4 letters you can think of are meaningless random combinations. Now, the train missed, you can't hand register any 4L com. Is it important if your 4L com was parked or didn't sold after many attempts? No. Age is still adding value to 3L and 4L domains. 4L domains have value as they are scarce. Some smart, forward looking people saw this fact before the most people and hand registered 4L com's while it was possible. So we turned back to the beginning of this post. Value is derived from scarcity. Air is the most valuable thing to live but air has no economic value as it's not scarce. 4L or 3L is valuable as they are scarce. Being forward looking is valuable as it's scarce. Anything valuable is scarce. Age adds value until the product dies, becomes extinct, or until human can control quantity of the time.

This guy isn't listening though, he's just talking, still waiting for someone to tell him that he's not naked, when in fact he isn't wearing any clothes at all.

 

[Laguna]

That's an interesting question that has a surprisingly simple answer.
You know what they say, "Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others". There is no need to make all the same rookie mistakes that others have gone through.
So, rather than waste a lot of money on experiments until you get it right, what you should be doing is research, analyze reported sales, and learn what kinds of names do sell. Until then, do not buy any more domains. Just watch, read, do research. Do not buy anything until your are confident enough.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The knowledge is available (for free) but you have to process it.

Don't put the cart before the horse.
When you have done your homework, you will realize that many of the questions you've asked you could have answered yourself. And you would have built a different kind of portfolio.

Many domainers are in love with their domains and are not objective. I think you are one of them.

Many newcomers think that they should buy many domains, treating them like lottery tickets, and that they just need to sell one domain to break even and make a profit. Yet the majority of domainers are losing money. If you have 200 domains then you need to sell for at least about $2000 just to recoup your investment, and it still does not pay for the renewals. Everybody can make one sale out of luck or by accident, but the real challenge is to repeat the feat over and over, and make a consistent profit.
Easier said than done, really.

Thanks Kate, great words and great advice.

 

[Yusupbabay]

abc.xyz is google...

our members have hundreds listed in our marketplace...looks like there is some interest
https://marketplace.toughdomains.com/?query=&tld=xyz

www.uae.xyz has been developed

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

looks like a mask for http://ubiz.ae/

Has ubiz.ae email at bottom of page
Great development!

 

[aditya agrawal]

I've talked to a lot of end users about xyz.
Current perception is that it gives very lethargic brand image. Nothing can be known about a company with a .xyz extention by the name itself.

This is just current perception. Probably it may flourish

If xyz can change that

 

[lock]

99c with $50 renewal I think the best keywords with be renewed and the rest will drop like flies. Plenty of gtlds that can spell two words together. Xyz renewals will certainly bring some life to some dot net and dot org in coming years I feel a dot tv repeat. Low prices got the initial sales but high renewals saw a demise at least dot tv made more sense as an extension. Entertainment.tv will have more searches than entertainment.xyz Entertainment.live is way better. Nothing sounds good dot xyz. I still feel strong keywords will keep it alive but not much benefit other than short. The next 3L extension at 99c will do the same. After i searched Top 20 keywords along with abc and xyz I felt I had missed out on any good return.

 

[poweredbyme]

This guy isn't listening though, he's just talking, still waiting for someone to tell him that he's not naked, when in fact he isn't wearing any clothes at all.

I didn't get why you quoted my post from another thread. Did you quoted me as my post is relevant? I am asking just for curiosity..
I couldn't read this thread from the beginning to the end. Because I don't have much free time nowadays and am no longer frequent of this forum as much as before. I will read your answer to my question next time I login to NP forum. Thanks in advance.

 

[ricksinfoshop]

According to DNJournal - Non .Com gTLD Year-to-Date Top 100:

NUMBER OF .XYZ SALES

2015: 1 (in top 100)
2016: 21 (in top 100)
2017: 0 (in top 100)
2018: 1 (in top 100)

So it’s obvious that.xyz flourished for just one year. I don’t know if it will make a comeback in 2018, but I doubt that.

Didn't realize .XYZ did so well in 2016! I guess if you can find a good one for a buck..worth a gamble for a year!

 

[Keral_Patel]

No it won't flourish

 

[Kate]

Weed can flourish too

 

[offthehandle]

Here separate thread:

XYZ just joined, and first post is a slap to a competitor.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...k-and-rob-monster.1128748/page-9#post-7160486

(9) dislikes. No thanks or likes. Lol.

Kinda unusual really for a first time poster. No introduction, no “hows it going”, just a pathetic swipe. Talk about unprofessional. Wonky. Clumsy. Stupid. They trashed the extension long ago by their pricing, so at one time was really listed as a bad extension by Spamhaus. I can only assume that they are no longer in top 10 because of all the phishing and spam domains are dropped.

The redirect masquerades as helping victims, when it is intended to
A. Bash the Topic person in the thread
B. To shamelessly self promote their failed extension.

XYZ has Ton’s of dropped names that nobody wants.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/xyz-below-5-million-dropped-168k-today.1029082/

XYZ Clawback complaints:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/alert-xyz-registry-stealing-back-newly-registered-numerics.1022280/

XYZ tried giving away them at .88 cents.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/88-cent-domains-how-many-are-you-buying.1021822/

XYZ Called out about comparing themselves to Bitcoin by online Domain before:

https://onlinedomain.com/2017/05/31...mains-doesnt-anyone-care-credibility-anymore/

@Tom K
“I'm not saying they're not stupid. But that is a separate issue and on a completely different level. Let's not conflate the two. Open a separate thread for that.”

https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...-and-rob-monster.1128748/page-11#post-7161028

 

[offthehandle]

Use XYZ for your IOT device:
http://domaingang.com/domain-news/d...billions-of-new-xyz-domains-to-be-registered/

 

[DNGear]

your sales?

Yes