Sunday, December 30, 2018

New Domain Extension Sales Oct 23 - Nov 22, 2018

I have decided to move my series of monthly new extension domain sales analysis reports to a the site DomainWorld.info, starting with the report through Nov 22, 2018.  I will continue to announce with a link to full report and summarize each monthly report here.

Summary

Here is a summary of NameBio announced ngTLD domain name sales for the period Oct 23 - Nov 22, 2018.
  • 88 NameBio recorded ngTLD sales in the 31 day period, with about $257,000 total sale volume.
  • The average sales price was $2920. The median price was $1404.
  • In terms of major sales, 11 were > $5000 and 57 > $1000.
  • Sales occurred in 24 different extensions.
  • The highest price sales were KS.top ($38,196), new.earth ($18,800), have.fun ($11,500), spiritual.life ($9750), community.global ($8000), food.top ($7567) and preserve.life ($7500).
  • There were ngTLD domain sales during the month at 12 different venues. Alibaba Cloud had the highest number of sales (24) with Sedo second (15), although Sedo had a larger sales volume dollar wise.
  • Most ngTLD sales are either single word or very short (or both). Together those categories accounted for 72% of the sales this month.
  • Registries accounted for almost 51% of dollar volume and about 27% of the sales by number this month.
  • In 2018 YTD there have been 1363 ngTLD sales listed on NameBio, with an average price of $3606. Sales volume is just over $4.9 million YTD.
You can find the full report at this link. It includes a breakdown by extension, sales venue, and type of domain. I also list the highest value sales, as well as some of the names that I think span the dot effectively as well as some names that sold for value prices.

You can find the links to all of the monthly ngTLD sales reports in one place here

Note that at year end I am planning to change the reporting period for these reports to correspond with the end of each month. Therefore the next report will cover the period Nov 23 to Dec 31, 2018 and will be published early in January.

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Writing at NameTalent

As some of my readers will note, I have begun to write for NameTalent.  That site has been around for almost a decade and covers various topics of interest to the domain name community.  I feel honoured to have the opportunity to write there.

It does not mean that my personal blog here will stop, although my posts on this site will probably become a bit less frequent. I don''t  plan to post the same content both places,  but occasionally will post in one place and  highlight that post in the other.

Anything related to my own domain portfolio or activities as a domain consultant will stay here.  Also, I plan to keep my series of detailed monthly reports on ngTLD sales here.  My post on advice to domain name investors will continue to be updated here, although some of the topics will be developed into individual posts at NameTalent. The NameTalent posts will be a bit more global in outlook, while the focus in this blog will reflect more of my personal interests as a domain name investor.

My Early NameTalent Posts


Here is a taste of what I have posted to NameTalent so far:

  1. Who would want this domain name? The key question to ask is who potential end users will be for a domain name.  I develop that idea along with the related idea of developing value propositions on how the end user might benefit from the domain name.
  2. Is domain name investing profitable?  This is a detailed analysis of the domain industry as a whole putting in best estimates for annual probability of a sale, likely net profit from the sale, and annual costs.  It is not meant to be for an individual name or portfolio, but rather the universe of domain names for sale. It does develop different models including the most pessimistic and optimistic bounds.  Please give it a read!
  3. Should you use your own landers or ones from a marketplace?  I take a look at the considerations.
  4. A guide to transfer of a domain name. It is easier and faster than you think!
  5. Why we need the domain aftermarket.  My opinion piece on the world of domain investing, partly in response to the Verisign blog posst.
  6. Monthly Sales Report - Actionable Insights.  While I don't repeat the ngTLD monthly sales analysis posted here, I wrote a post about what insights new domain extensions investors might draw from that analysis and how to act on those.  
  7. Weekly Sales Analysis.  Each morning on Twitter I do a short analysis giving the number of sales, average and median prices, number of sales above $1000, and a list of some of the names that stood out for me.  On a weekly basis I began to put these together in a weekly report.  This provides an overview of some of the week's domain name sales highlights in one place. 

What Am I Working On?


Some of the topics that I will soon be posting on NameTalent are listed below.
  • How do you stay positive as a domain investor when there is a long time since the last sale?
  • An opinion piece on effectively giving advice to other domain investors.
  • An introduction to using the NameBio database.
  • An introduction to UDRP.
  • Reviews on several products for the domain investing community.

How Can You  Help?


I am  always interested in hearing what you think should be covered.  Also, early in 2019 I want to begin a series of interviews to feature some of the interesting stories of the domain world.  Don't be shy - do you have a story to tell? Let me know!

Concluding Thoughts


I decided to write at NameTalent primarily to reach a larger audience and to grow as a domain name investor analyst and commentator. In both places I hope you will find my writing fair and balanced, and that it offers fresh perspectives on buying, selling and using domain names. 

Thursday, October 25, 2018

New Extension Sales Sept 23 - Oct 22, 2018

This was one of the quieter months of new domain extension sales since I began this series (see links to previous reports at bottom).  The average number of sales per month in the previous seven reports was 120 compared to just 68 this month. The number of sales was down substantially from last month (313), although the sales dollar volume was only slightly lower. The average sales price of $2955 was about quadruple last month's figure, however and the median was also substantially higher this month.

Summary

During the monthly period ending Oct 22, 2018 there were
  • 67 NameBio recorded ngTLD sales in the 30 day period, with $180,800 total sale volume.
  • The average sales price was $2955. The median price was $801.
  • In terms of major sales, 1 was > $50,000, 8 were > $5000 and 29 > $1000.
  • Sales in 22 different extensions, with .top, .global and .link most common.
  • The highest sale price was design.online $57,500, dispatch.app at $15,000 in second, while four different .global names (switch, scoop, cyber and leap) tied for third place.
  • There were ngTLD domain sales during the month at 11 different venues. Dynadot had the largest number of sales (25) followed by Alibaba Cloud (15).
  • The types of domain names that sold: 69% were single word,  14% were short (<=3 letters), and 9% were geographical.
  • Registries accounted for almost 64% of dollar volume, but less than 19% by number.
  • In 2018 YTD there have been 1196 ngTLD sales listed on NameBio, with an average price of $3675. Sales volume is just over $4.4 million YTD. 



Extension Breakdown


I list in the table on the right  (click on table for a higher resolution version) those extensions that had either multiple sales in an extension, or a total monthly sales volume of  $500 or more. They are arranged by decreasing total sales volume, but the number of  sales for each are also listed.

The following extensions had a single sale: agency, city, gmbh, life, pics, run, site, and vip.  In total, there were sales during this period in 22 different extensions,

The Highest Value Sales


Below is a list of the major sales for the reporting period. Only 2 (or possibly 3) of the top sales were not registry.
  • design.online $57.500  Sedo
  • dispatch.app $15,000  UserScape
  • switch.global  $8,000  DotGlobal
  • scoop.global  $8,000  DotGlobal
  • cyber.global  $8,000  DotGlobal
  • leap.global  $8,000  DotGlobal
  • edge.network $7515 Sedo
  • DMV.online $5101  Dynadot

Venues


The month saw a steady increase in new extension sales at Dynadot and a drop at Flippa.  As pointed out last month, new domain extensions essentially never sell at GoDaddy (at least not above $100). Here are the venues with multiple new extension sales during the month.
  • Dynadot 25
  • Alibaba Cloud 15
  • Dot Global (registry) 9
  • Sedo 8
  • BizCN 2
  • Jiangsu Bangning (registry) 2

Names That Span Dot Effectively


Some of the domain names from this reporting period that I personally feel make excellent use of the extension as congruent with the domain name are the following:
  • design.online
  • citizen.group
  • simple.solutions
  • auto.finance
  • rock.city
  • click.link
  • chain.global
  • read.life
  • sun.group
  • switch.global
  • edge.network

Great Value


Interestingly a few of the great names went for value prices.  For example click.link was just $123 and rock.city only $130.  In my mind the greatest value this month though was simple.solutions that sold for only $122. The word winter sold in the .xyz extension for merely $101,  a  true bargain price. These show that, at least sometimes, you can get memorable names in the new extensions at excellent value.


Types of Domains


We also performed an analysis of the type of domain name.  The majority (69%) were single word domain names (+ extension of course), although short (defined as 3  characters or less) were also popular (14%).  About 9% were geographical terms.  Numbers remain unpopular in the ngTLDs with only 2 in this  dataset.  Multiple word domains were rare this month, with just a couple off 2 word names and  one 3 word. Three of the names were adult in nature.

Year to Date 


So far in 2018 there have been 1196 ngTLD sales with an average sales price of $3675. The total value of 2018 reported ngTLD sales up to the day of writing is just over $4.4 million. For reference last year saw $5.2 million in total new extension sales.


Discussion


This report has mixed news for new domain name investors. While the number of sales and number of extensions, are both down from last month, they are in line with the year overall.  On average, this month just over 2 ngTLD sales are reported per day in the NameBio database.  The sales volume  has remained almost constant and the average price is up this month (at least compared to the previous two reporting periods).

One reason I produce these reports is to provide guidance to ngTLD investors to help them optimize their chances for success. The fact that ngTLD sales seem to be trending up on Dynadot may be actionable information.  Outside the registry sales, Sedo continues to be the venue that obtains the highest prices for quality new extension names.  Also, this month confirms a general trend  that single word domains with a good match on the two sides of the dot are most likely to sell, although short acronym names and geo names also find traction in the new extension space.  Surprisingly few number domains sell in new extensions, only 2 during this reporting period.

While I show sales by extension, I would caution those investing in new domain extensions that, unlike the com/net/org/info space, it is not primarily the extension that matters, but rather the match between the name and the extension.  As such, high value sales are possible, even if not probable, in almost any extension even those without a sales history.

It is still prudent to be cautious when investing in these extensions, and still true that overall the return on investment seems better in .com. The difference is possibly narrowing, however, and if the comparison is with other legacy extensions, or country code extensions, the case for new extensions could be made (although is still arguable). For those new to this field, my post on 12 reasons why end users (and domain investors) might want to consider new domain extensions may be worthwhile. The health of new extensions, ultimately, depends on the adoption of these extensions in significant websites.

Notes

The NameBio database (or at least the portion publicly reported) does not include sales with value less than $100, nor sales from a number of venues such as Afternic, Undeveloped or Efty (unless buyers or sellers report them individually), nor from most of the ngTLD registries, so it is difficult to estimate how complete a record this is of all ngTLD domain name sales. Sometimes sales are posted on NameBio after their recorded sales date and therefore never appear on the daily report although they do appear in the NameBio database.


Previous Reports


Here are links to the three previous reports in case you want to do monthly comparisons:

Next Report and Other News


We will issue our next report in late November, and it will cover ngTLD sales for the period from Oct 23 through Nov 22. This monthly update on publicly reported ngTLD sales is offered as a service to the domain community.  While I strive to be accurate, no implied guarantee or warranty is associated with this report, and readers should independently verify information before using it in any domain investment decisions.  As always, we welcome comments and corrections. We report regularly on domain name news, with a special emphasis on the new extensions, on our Twitter feed.  Why not join the almost 1600 domain investors, venture capitalists, tech experts, startup owners and other great people that already follow us @AGreatName?  If we can be of assistance in helping you find a domain name at a value price, or using a domain name phrase in a marketing campaign, don't hesitate to contact us through our website (or via direct message at Twitter).



Original post Oct 25 2018.

Disclosure:  I currently hold a number of  ngTLD domain names. I am  not associated with NameBio, but would like to acknowledge their incredible database and their generosity to make it available to the domain community. This, and all other postings at this site, are offered for educational purposes and should not be interpreted as domain investment advice. You are responsible for your own domain investment decisions. 

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Top is 4 Yr Old



It has passed without much fanfare but yesterday the .top extension had the four year anniversary of general availability that began on Nov 17, 2014.  Through promotional pricing the .top extension leads all ngTLDs in number of registrations, about 3.7 million registrations currently according to nTLDStats

Registration Data


The registration numbers went up to a peak of nearly 4.8 million, then  dropped to about 1.9 million early in 2018, before bouncing back to the current rate of 3.7 million. Plot below is courtesy of nTLDStats.



Sales Data


The .top extension has also done very well sales wise.  For example in 2018 YTD the NameBio database for .top shows 467 sales accounting for bout $2 million volume.  The average sales price is an impressive $4340.  There have been 7 sales in 2018 above $50,000 and 28 for more than $10,000. The extension registration is dominated by China (93% currently), and Chinese registries account for the vast majority of registrations, both premium and standard. The abuse characteristics of the extension remain problematic. I am planning a  more extensive review of the .top extension at some future date.

Promotion at Alpnames

Probably several registrars will be offering discounts to mark the anniversary.  Alpnames have started a promotion where new registrations of .top are reduced to $0.99.  It's active now - not sure how long it will last. According to TLD-List it is currently the best offer on registration among the major registrars.

Original post Oct 18, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make. I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. I have no association with the .top registry, except that I have a number of their domain names in my portfolio.  I have no affiliate or other relationship with Alpnames, except using them as a registrar for some of my domain names.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©B Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Little Savings Add Up


There are many aspects to success as a domain name investor, one is saving money on your costs. Tools like TLD-list and DomComp can help you find the best rates for registration, transfer and renewal of domain names. As well as using comparator tools, it also makes sense to watch out for limited time specials. We point out a limited time opportunity on right now, but you have to act fast! While saving a couple of dollars might not seem like much, if you have a hundred domains or more, those savings can add up!

Namecheap Birthday Celebration


Namecheap is the world's second largest retail registrar, with over 10 million domains under management. Particularly in the new domain extensions, they are a huge presence offering excellent rates for both registration and renewals.  They are celebrating their 18th anniversary, and are offering customers deals on both renewals and .com registrations.  The renewal deal is 18% off almost all of the extensions, and it can be applied whether your  domains are currently up for renewal or not.  The deal stops at midnight (Eastern time zone) tonight (Oct 17) though, so act fast.

To add renewal of a domain name at Namecheap do the following;
  1. Log into your  Namecheap account and go to the Dashboard.
  2. Select Domains from the list at the left, then find the domain you want to renew early. 
  3. For that domain click on the Manage icon, and  then select Add Years.
  4. This will bring up a page with one year the default setting. Make sure that under the price it shows B-Day for special price.
  5. If you want to renew for more than one year, just select it from the pull down menu. The discount applies to multiple year periods, and you will see the cost for each option.
  6. If you change your mind simply take the renewal out of your shopping cart using the x.
  7. Confirm by choosing your source of funds.  
  8. The new registration expiry date will instantly show up in your domain list.

I've been a long term customer of Namecheap, with the majority of my domains registered there.  They offer a cost effective solution and have speedy and courteous customer response if you ever need it. Note  that this promotion while applying to almost all extensions, only makes a difference for those extensions not at some current  promotion renewal price.  For example, for my .science domain names there is no advantage to this promotion. 

Namecheap also have a deal on new registrations of .com domain names which you may find attractive, although also look at options at other registrars.

Discussion


So why not head over to Namecheap in the next few hours and pick up savings on renewals. As pointed out in a previous post, renewing in advance simplifies your life and locks in costs at good rates. Deciding what to renew encourages you to take a critical look at your entire portfolio.  Also, having the domain name registered for multiple years make it more worthwhile to develop a mini-site or other long term promotion plans.

It always makes good sense to compare your renewal rate with what options you have if you transfer to another registrar. This is easy using sites like TLD-list and DomComp that compare current pricing at multiple registrars. Do keep in mind, however, that when you transfer your domain name to a new registrar their will normally be a 60 day ICANN lock on further transfer of ownership.

Congratulations to Namecheap, and looking forward to the next decade.  They hint on their blog that some big things are in the not too distant future. By the way, they also have a contest to win $1000 (one winner).  No purchase is necessary, but you will need to outline your case on how the funding could help your business or individual plans.

If you decide to renew some domain names under this promotion, why not share in the comments section the names or extensions and your thinking in selecting those.



Original post Oct 17, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make. I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. 

I am not connected to Namecheap and have not been encouraged or paid to make this post.  The screen capture used here is from Namecheap who own the rights to it, and is used here for review illustration purposes only.  I am a customer of Namecheap, and also have an affiliate relationship with them, which is used in one or more links in this post.  That does not alter the price that you pay for any services from Namecheap.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

Friday, October 5, 2018

Are Average Domain Prices Decreasing?

Recently I looked at what years the top 100 all time domain sales took place.  The data shows some correlation to the strength of the stock markets, with a slight lag. Other than  that, there is not clear statistical evidence for a net increase or decrease over the two decades studied.  A more important question, though, is what has been  happening to the average  domain sale price. I look at that in this issue.

The Data


Let's start by taking a  look at a NameBio generated graph of the average weekly price over the past decade (click on the image to see a higher resolution view). It is clear that there was more variability in the early years. There is also an indication that the average weekly sales price has been decreasing.  Many weeks this year that average has been $900 and less, whereas in the early parts of the period covered in the graph the average is normally in the $2000 to $3500 range. The plot is for all domain extensions, with the weekly average used.

While the graph suggests that the average price has been decreasing, it is difficult to discern precise data from the NameBio generated plot.  I therefore looked at the average sales price in different intervals, with that data given in the table shown on the right. I looked at data for both all extensions and for .com only,  although the data is only slightly different since .com is dominates the market.


Discussion


Certainly the data seems to suggest that prices are going down for domain names. For example if we look at .com domains only the average over all time represented by the NameBio database (about 20 years) is $2714.  If we look at only the last five years it is $1731 and has dropped to $1258 this year.

One explanation is that more low quality domains are now selling.  There is some evidence in the data for that hypothesis. For example 2016 had 67,600 sales of .com domains while 2017 saw 66,400 sales, but the average number over the last five years is lower, 58,500.

It would be interesting  to know if the median price was going down as well, but this can not readily be calculated for large datasets with the NameBio public interface.

It is relevant to look at resale of the same domain name to see if that was going up or down.  This is more challenging to do, but for a small dataset (I studied 13, 165 domain name sales over  a  61 day period) indeed prices seem to go down more often than  they go up. I found 288 domain sales with a previous sales history, 104 showed an increase and 184 a decrease in price. As I explain, however,  the apparent conclusion may not be valid, and in any case the statistical sample is small.

Over the years there have been some changes in which venues report to NameBio, and it is possible that there are systematic biases introduced by this. 

If it is true that domain prices are indeed falling that has serious implications for the viability of domain name investing.  If we view domains as a commodity it would mean that simply holding a portfolio of names will, on average, be a losing proposition. I will develop this hypothesis in a future blog post, although the apparent downward trend should be of concern to domain name investors.

Original post Oct 5, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make. I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. 

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

Thursday, October 4, 2018

End User for Recent Major .Online Sales

As I pointed out recently, there has been momentum in .online extension domain name sales this year.  In today's post I look at who made two of the recent major purchases in the extension and why the acquisitions are a good fit for the company.

The Sales


On Sept 20, 2018 the domain name king.online sold for $17,250 on Sedo. A few days later the domain name design.online sold for $57,500, also on Sedo. The design sale makes the top 10 list of new global top level domain (ngTLD) sales in 2018 YTD at time of writing. I am not completely sure, but using https://web.archive.org it appears that the names were sold through Sedo by the  Radix registry as premium names.

The End User


I see that both domains are now redirecting to the website of King Living, an Australian headquartered furniture business that started in 1977. The company currently operates from a com.au domain name. The company started with the name King Furniture.  They have over the years been early adopters of a number of innovations including steel frames, use of foam in cushions, removable covers, and modular designs.  They have won a number of awards for their designs. They currently operate showrooms in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. Their expansion plans include a Vancouver, BC, Canada showroom that will open in the coming year.  You can read more about the company here or directly on the history section of the company's website.

Discussion


Now that the company operates well beyond Australia, and has further expansion plans, I think rebranding to a truly global top level domain makes sense.  Undoubtedly they would have liked king.com, but that is the website for King, a major UK based video game maker - you quite probably have used their products, as they make the Candy Crush line!

The fact that King Living selected the .online extension tells me that they see expansion through online shopping. The .online extension has a number of things going for it.  It is one of the top 10 new extensions, both in terms of registrations and  actual use in Alexa 1M websites. About 1 in every 500 registrations make the Alexa 1M, almost as high as .com. The extension has excellent lack of abuse statistics - on day of writing with a score of 0.56 it is tied with .com.  It will be interesting to see if King Living plan to use these names always for redirection or if eventually their main web presence will migrate to them.

There are a number of other extensions that would have made sense for the company, such as king.life or king.design.  The first is available for sale currently by a Chinese domain name investor.  I suspect they selected .online either because acquisition was easier, or because it is more well known by the general public. I do not know if the company has other ngTLD acquisition plans.

I congratulate the company on these digital asset acquisitions.  For Radix, it is good news to have another major company with a long and distinguished history choosing to brand using one of their extensions.

Original post Oct 4, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make. I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio or NameStat databases. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. I have no association with the company mentioned in this post.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

ONLINE Extension Sales

The top sale for Oct 2, 2018 in the NameBio daily report was a new global top level domain (ngTLD).  The acronym DMV sold with the .online extension on Dynadot for $5101. While this is a single sale, when looked at in a broader context it seems part of a pattern of considerable momentum in the .online extension.

Sales of Online


As of writing the NameBio database shows 87 sales of online with an average price of $4804 (the link will show current values).  There have been 6 sales for more than $10,000 and 34 sales for more than $1000. The largest sale ever was casino.online that sold for $201,250 in 2017.  Second place is the recent (Sept 24, 2018) sale of design.online for $57,500.  The recent momentum is clear at the top of the price list, with 7 of the 10 highest value sales all in 2018 (2015, 2016 and 2017 have one each).

Discussion


I plan to do a full review of the .online extension in the not too distant future, but as background would point out that it is in the top 10 of ngTLDs in terms of registrations.  The extension, part of the Radix portfolio of ngTLDs, came into general availability on Aug 26, 2015.

I think .online has a bright future as it works naturally with many keywords to make a descriptive and memorable domain phrase. Names like casino.online, lodges.online, assurance.online and  counselling.online tell you exactly what to expect at the site.  While many of the sales have been in single words, a number of two word domain names have also sold in the extension, such as AirConditioning.online, FindMe.online, PayIt.online and MyWorld.online.

The extension has a lot of momentum. As noted earlier, 7 of the top 10 sales in the extension were in 2018.  As of time of writing 50 of the 87 sales overall in the extension were in 2018 (the link will show updated data).

For some time it has been true that .online is strong in actual website use, at least when compared with other ngTLDs.  As of writing date it had 1499 websites in the Alexa 1M, or one per every 575 domain names registered.  While this is about a factor of two less than .com, it is better than the vast majority of extensions.

I also view it as healthy that the extension has sales on many different venues including Dynadot, Flippa, GoDaddy, Sedo and Uniregistry.  While there have been initial premium registry sales, it would appear that the vast majority of sales (at least in NameBio database), both in numbers and value, have been in the aftermarket, another encouraging sign.

I might also point out that Dynadot, the venue for this sale, has become more active in ngTLD sales of late.

Original post Oct 3, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make. I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio or NameStat databases. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. 

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I hold personally only a single .online domain name. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 


Monday, October 1, 2018

High Value Sales By Year

For today's post I used the NameBio list of the 100 all-time highest value sales to look at how high value sales have varied with year.  The sales on the list vary from $1 million to $14 million each.  There are other reported top sales lists (such as this one published by Sedo), that include higher value sales, but I thought it most consistent to use the NameBio verified sales list. The DN Journal top 20 sales of all time are at this link.

Results


The results are shown below (click on image for a higher resolution view).  Each year except 2001 and 2002 had at least one entry on the top 100 list, while the most in any year was 11 (2000 and 2014). 
Major sales (NameBio Top 100 All-Time) by Year


Discussion


The most obvious trend is a correlation between major sales and stock market health. The periods during and just after, economic pullbacks had relatively few high value sales.  For example only one each in 2011 and 2012, and none at all in 2001 and 2002. The credit crisis induced stock market correction of 2008-2009 seemed to take a year or two to impact the high value domain name sales.  The peak of the dot com era is not surprisingly well represented by high value sales (6 in 1999 and 11 in 2000).

It turns out that 2014, the year when many of the new extensions became available, was tied for the most high value sales (11).

The current year, so far at least, seems on the low side, although the preceding years (2013 through 2017) were all consistent with the average over the 20 year period.

Many are predicting after one of the longest bull markets in history, particularly for the US based stock markets, that a correction is almost inevitable.  The data suggests that major domain sales will correlate with any pullback, although with a delay of a year or two typically.

Original post Oct 1, 2018.


Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make.

I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio database. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. 

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  

In a very few cases there may be affiliate links on this blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases your cost will be below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 



Saturday, September 29, 2018

How do APP and COM sales compare?

There is debate in the domain investing community on the resale prospects for the .app domain extension. Those optimistic about the extension point out that it is backed by Google, the security requirement is an innovation in our industry, early registration numbers were strong without deep discounts, the app development market is large and growing, and already there are significantly large aftermarket sales. Sceptics point out that the number of sales is totally dwarfed by legacy extensions such as .com, and that previous extensions sponsored by Google have had limited success.  Here I take a look at early sales numbers, scaling them according to the time period and number of domains registered in the extension. My comparison os with the gold standard .com extension.

Raw Sales Numbers and Volume


I used the NameBio database (data effective Sept. 27, 2018)  to look up sales numbers and volume in both .app and .com for 2018 YTD.  There is no doubt that .com dominates, with 51,861 sales (in NameBio database) totalling about $65,760,000 in sales volume.  The comparable values for the .app extension are just 10 sales totalling $43,720. These numbers are shown in the yellow lines at the top of the table.

Average Prices


It is interesting that the average price is higher in .app so far, with $4372 for .app compared to $1268 for .com.  While the average value for .app is influenced by two high value sales, even if you take median values, .app would be significantly higher than .com ($1103 vs about $300).


Scale for Full Year


However, the .app extension has not been in general availability all year, so no resales were even possible for the early months. I scaled each to a full year (assuming the current sales rate).  One could argue about whether the first day of general availability (May 8, 2018) or the period with aftermarket sales  (started June 1, 2018).  I used the latter for the scaling. If you scale the number and sales volume to project for a full year the data shown in the green section in the middle of the table is obtained.  Since .app has only been selling for about 4 months, over a year we expect about 30 sales  and a yearly sales volume of order of $130,000.


Scale with Registrations


As I have pointed out previously, when we compare sales volume and numbers between extensions data should be scaled according to the number of domains that are for sale in that extension. For example, if you had  only 1000 domains for sale in an extension, and 5 of them sold in a year, that is far more significant than if 5 sold out of 1,000,000 domains for sale. Therefore I scaled the number and volume of sales according to registration data.  For .com the registration numbers are fairly static, and I used 134 million registrations.  For .app the numbers continue to increase, so the question arises how to obtain an effective number for the period.  I used 319,860, reflective of recent dates in the extension.

The scaled data are shown in the blue portion of the bottom of the table.  Once we scale in this way, while .com still is favoured, the two are within the same order of magnitude.  The number of sales favours .com by about a factor of 5, while the sales dollar volume favours .com by less than a factor of 2.  The latter is well within uncertainty of the small number statistics so far for .app.


Discussion


The final step for a domain investor requires consideration of at least three other factors. The data should really be scaled not according  to the number of registrations in an extension, but rather the number of domains actively for sale in that extension.  The percentage of domains that are parked is unusually high in .app (about 81%) and the number of domains in active use in an Alexa 1M website is low, 1 per about 2000 registrations. These would both argue that the fraction of domains that are for sale is higher in .app.

A second factor that must be taken into account is acquisition and holding cost for each extension. The situation is made complex in .app as some domains were sold for higher prices in the early availability period for the extension. In .com, the acquisition cost is also variable, unless it was an  original hand registration, which is probably not true in most 2018 sales.  In terms of holding cost, at time of writing the best renewal rate for .com was $8.75  and for .app was $13.88.  Probably within the accuracy of the analysis, costs are not distinctly different in these two extensions, although may favour .com.

The third factor to take into account are trends. The first months of sales in an extension may be non-representative. Sometimes early optimism for an extension fades, and most major sales happen in the first year.  In many other extensions,  there are no significant sales, at least outside registry premium sales, for years, and then interest grows, sometimes with spectacular sales, as more become familiar with the extension.  I think it is too early to say what the situation will be for .app.

I think there  are reasons for optimism in the .app extension.  In the first few months  are are already a significant number of sales in the extension, including several above $10,000.  Domains are selling at respected venues like Sedo.  Registration numbers are significant without low promotional pricing.   Some major domain  investors that have shunned most new extensions have invested.  All that being said, I am concerned with the slow adoption of the extension for significant working websites.  Those using this analysis should  keep in mind that 10 sales is a tiny statistical sample.

I think the prospects for the domain extension will be clearer in a year  or so when we have a more significant sales record, and after we see how many end users are actively using the extension.

Original post Sept 29, 2018.


Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make.

I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio or NameStat databases. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. 

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I do not hold  any .app extension domains currently, so have no potential conflict of interest.  I do hold a handful of .com extensions, but most of my portfolio is not in that extension either.

In a very few cases there may be affiliate links on this blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases your cost will be below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

What are the big price domains doing today?

I decided to take a a look at the domain names in the top 20 positions of the NameBio all-time sales list. Collectively these 20 sales (across 19 different domain names, since one sold twice) represent investments in digital assets of more than $140 million.  I looked at whether the name currently leads to a  developed website, and if that site employs a SSL certificate. The data is pictured in the table below (click on the image for a higher resolution view).


Summary


  1. All 20 sales were in the .com extension. 
  2. The prices range from $3.6 million to $14 million per domain name. The total of the 20 sales is just over $14 million.
  3. All but four transactions were private sales. Moniker had two of the sales and Sedo one.
  4. Most of the sales were years ago, the most recent in 2016. 14 were in 2010 or earlier.
  5. As of today, one is listed for sale, three are used for redirection, one shows a 'coming soon' lander, one is a legacy page for a company that went out of business,  two others are not in use, and 12 of the names have developed content.
  6. It would appear that none are directly used for websites that make the main most popular lists. For example none are on the Moz Top 500 sites (Facebook is on the list, but not as FB).
  7. Four of the top five sales lead to adult websites. These are designated by a !! warning in the table and should only be accessed by those 18 and over.
  8. All but two of the active websites go to English language sites.
  9. The types of names on list: 1 single letter, 6 double letter, one four word name (AsSeenOnTV) and the rest are single word. 
  10. To protect users from possible harm, Google Chrome flags websites that do not use SSL certificates.  Only 11 of the sites have SSL certificates operational at the time I checked. 

Discussion


Possibly the most surprising result was that so many of the names lead to sites that are not SSL secure.  At a cost of the order of $20 per year for an SSL certificate you can perhaps see a blogger who is making pennies per day delaying implementation, but it seems hard to see why a digital asset worth millions should not have this feature.

When I look at the most popular websites and compare them to a list of the highest value sales, even going further than the top 20 covered in detail here, it seems that there is a definite mismatch between which domain names are used for sites that get the most web traffic and which sold for the highest prices.  Com is dominant in both lists, but much more so in sales prices than in lists of popular websites.

Others have commented that the huge sale prices were predominantly in the decade from 2000 to 2010.  While I did not do a rigorous analysis for more recent periods, such as the top sales 2018 YTD, the sales are still .com dominated although two new extensions makes the top 20 positions on that list.  The type of domain seems even more single word dominated in recent top sales, and the predominance of private sales is far less evident.


Links:


Original post Sept 26, 2018.


Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me. 

In a very few cases there may be affiliate links on this blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases your cost will be below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 




Monday, September 24, 2018

New Extension Sales Analysis Aug 23 - Sept 22, 2018

This was an unusual month for new extension domain sales with dramatically more sales at the low value end but relatively few high value sales (just 3 above $10,000 and 30 above $1,000). As a result the average sales price was significantly lower ($634).  While the number of sales is almost double the previous month, the dollar volume of sales is down by about a factor of two (although last month was the highest volume of sales since I began these monthly reports.) A very active month at Flippa accounted for much of this change (but see Note 1). The .top extension, mainly registry sales of premium names, dominated sales dollar volume again this month. Many extensions had a significant number of sales, however, with 46 extensions having at least a single sale, and 10 extensions having ten or more sales during the month. Both of these are new records since I began these reports.

Summary


During the monthly period ending Sept 22, 2018 there were
  • 313 NameBio recorded ngTLD domain name sales in the 30 day period, with $198,500 total sale volume (Although see Note 1).
  • The average sales price was $634. The median price was roughly $198.
  • In terms of major sales, 3 were for $10,000 or more 30 were for $1000 or more.
  • There were sales during the month in 46 different extensions, the most since I started these reports. Ten different extensions had 10 or more sales in the month.
  • The highest sale during the month was AD.top which sold for $32,232. AR.studio at $15,495 and transparency.online at $10,000 took second and third places.
  • There were ngTLD domain sales during the month at 10 different venues.  Flippa had the highest number of sales, but Jiangsu Bangning had the highest sales volume. Sedo took third place in sales volume.
  • For the 100 highest value sales in the month: 12% were 3 letter (or less), 32% were single word, 36% were two word, 3% were three word,  and 17% were other.
  • Registries accounted for just over 40% of the dollar volume of these sales, but less than 10% of the number of sales this month  (Note 3).
  • So far in 2018 there have been 1120 ngTLD sales in total listed on NameBio, with an average sales price of $3743, accounting for a total of $4.2 million sales volume. 



Extension Breakdown


I list in the table on the right  (click on table for a higher resolution version) those extensions that had either multiple sales in an extension, or a total monthly sales volume of  $350 or more. They are arranged by decreasing total sales volume, but the number of  sales for each are also listed. The popular extensions  .top, .online, .club, and .site all had a good number of sales in the month.

A  few extensions that are only rarely traded had major sales, including the great domain names smile.direct and Mr.glass.  The .fun extension  had a good month with 20 sales. The first aftermarket sales of the newly released .icu extension came this month.

If you are wondering which other extensions had a single sale, they are accountant, city, download, group, loan, network, pictures, rocks, science and tax.  In total, there were sales during this period in 46 different extensions, a record since I started doing doing monthly analyses of new extension domain name sales. That being said, it still means that about 400 new extensions that are in general availability did not record a single sale during the month (at least on  sites that report to NameBio).

If instead of sales volume you look at the number of sales, we have the results pictured on the left, with 10 different extensions having 10 or more sales during the month. For several of these extensions the sales this month represent a significant portion of their total NameBio sales record. However, see also Note 1 about possible issues in some of the data.





The Highest Value Sales


Below is a list of the major sales for the reporting period. Since there were only 3 sales over $10,000 this month, I decided to list all sales that were $3000 or more.  Unlike  other months, there were no reported sales from the Global registry.  Also, some other registries like Radix only report a couple of times a year. These reports often miss a portion of the .top registry sales that are reported to NameBio for dates within the reporting period but after we publish the analysis. For these reasons, and possibly others, there are fewer large registry sales in this  report than the last few monthly reports.
  • AD.top $32,252  Jiangsu Bangning
  • AR,studio $15,495  Sedo
  • transparency.online  $10,000  Afternic
  • wonder.top $7853  Jiangsu Bangning
  • mobile.top  $7633  Jiangsu Bangning
  • smile.direct  $7018  Sedo
  • sanya.top $6585  Jiangsu Bangning
  • handan.top $5865  Jiangsu Bangning
  • a.company $4000  Sedo
  • trt.top  $3907  Alibaba Cloud
  • bdd.top $3657 Alibaba Cloud
  • Mr.glass $3000  Sedo
I am not absolutely sure whether two of the sales are registry or not (the two at Alibaba Cloud), but I believe that 5 of the sales are directly registry, and the rest are probably not direct sales of premium domain names by a registry.   I only count a sale as a premium registry sale if it is being sold for the first time. For example, if I purchase a premium name from a registry, hold it for some period, and then sell it on Sedo to another user, I would not count it as a registry sale. See Note 3 regarding registry sales classification.


Venues


The graph at the right shows the top 5 venues for the sales when rated according to total dollar volume. The .top registry, Jiangsu Bangning, had the largest volume of sales again this month, although two venues that mainly handle sales from domain investors, took second and third place. It should be noted that although Afternic had a major reported sale, normally sales at that venue doe not report to NameBio and therefore the sales volume indicated does not represent the total sales there.  Also, marketplaces like Undeveloped, and registrar marketplaces at Namecheap and Namesilo are not reported to NameBio.  Venues with a single ngTLD sale during the reporting period include GoDaddy, Key Systems, West, 101 Domains, and NamesThat.win. Sedo is established as a venue for high value ngTLD sales, while Flippa has more sales but predominantly at prices of $500 and less, with some exceptions. While I feel it likely that the registrar marketplaces (probably especially Namecheap who handle so many ngTLD  initial  registrations), Efty sites, Undeveloped and other/private venues are probably handling a good volume of ngTLD sales, but those  are not routinely reported in the NameBio database. 

Names That Span Dot Effectively


Some of the domain names from this reporting period that I personally feel make excellent use of the extension as congruent with the domain name are the following:

  • ticket.city
  • games.business
  • smile.direct
  • AR.studio
  • a.company
  • Mr.glass
  • biomedicine.online
  • Chelsea.fun
  • wonder.top
  • Plato.top


Great Value


Interestingly a few of the great names went for value prices.  For example Chelsea.fun was just $199 and ticket.city is in my mind one of the best ngTLD deals ever at just $100. The domain name CA.tax (CA could mean Canada, California or chartered accountant) went for only $120, while e-sports.icu sold for only $128.  These show that, at least sometimes, you can get memorable names in the new extensions at excellent value.


Types of Domains


This month we did an analysis of the type of domain name for the 100 highest value domain names.  The results are shown on the left (click on the chart for a higher resolution view). Very short acronym names remain popular, with 12% of the sales from 1 to 3 letter in length. Most of the more valuable domain names were either short or single word, with 32% of the top 100 sales  single word.  However, there appears to be a trend toward more multiple word new extension domain names, with 36% of the sales two word and 3% were three word. Three word names included LiveWorldCup.online and CaresAndShares.online.  In some cases the domain names were difficult to classify and 17% were placed in an undetermined or other category.

Year to Date 


So far in 2018 there have been 1120 ngTLD sales with an average sales price of $3743. The total value of 2018 reported ngTLD sales up to the day of writing is $4.2 million. For reference last year saw $5.2 million in total new extension sales.


Discussion


This report has mixed news for new domain name investors. While the number of sales, and number of extensions, are both up from previous months, the number of high value sales and the total sales volume are both down.

As indicated in Note 1, there is scepticism among some regarding a portion of the recent sales at one venue.  If we accept that they are all legitimate sales, however, it is encouraging to see that finally a healthy exchange on domain names in the $100 to $400 range is taking place.  The majority of domain name sales (at least on NameBio) in legacy extensions such as .com are in the $250 to $500 range, and in my opinion there is a market for value priced domain names in new extensions. There are indicators in this report that there are beginnings of a market for two word domain names in the new extension domain market.

It is surprising that only a single sale took place on GoDaddy.  This is a major site for sale of legacy extension domain names between domain investors, and it seems surprising that so few sales, at least over $100, are happening there in the new extensions.

Various China based venues continue to sell a healthy number and volume of .top extension domain names, often at significant prices.

While the total number of reported new extension domain sales is fairly limited at Sedo, they sell for very good prices in multiple extensions.  They have done this since the beginning, although the prices seem to be creeping upward.  For ngTLD sales at Sedo the average price 2018 YTD is $4124, vs $3939 last year and $2473 in 2016.  It is likely that next month will take the total volume of ngTLD sales for the year (currently at $544k) to the highest single year ever at that venue (in 2017 $551k were sold at Sedo, the current record for a year).

While tracking past sales in an extension can be valuable domain intelligence, it is important to realize that not infrequently one encounters major sales in an extension  that has not previously had a major sale.  I wrote an earlier post on this topic.

While I show sales by extension, I would caution those investing in new domain extensions that, unlike the com/net/org/info space, it is not primarily the extension that matters, but rather the match between the name and the extension.  As such, high value sales are possible, even if not probable, in almost any extension even those without a sales history.

It is still prudent to be cautious when investing in these extensions, and still true that overall the return on investment seems better in .com. The difference is possibly narrowing, however, and if the comparison is with other legacy extensions, or country code extensions, the case for new extensions could be made (although is still arguable). For those new to this field, my post on 12 reasons why end users (and domain investors) might want to consider new domain extensions may be worthwhile. The health of new extensions, ultimately, depends on the adoption of these extensions in significant websites.

Notes

The NameBio database (or at least the portion publicly reported) does not include sales with value less than $100, nor sales from a number of venues such as Afternic, Undeveloped or Efty (unless buyers or sellers report them individually), nor from most of the ngTLD registries, so it is difficult to estimate how complete a record this is of all ngTLD domain name sales. Sometimes sales are posted on NameBio after their recorded sales date and therefore never appear on the daily report although they do appear in the NameBio database.


Previous Reports


Here are links to the three previous reports in case you want to do monthly comparisons:

Next Report and Other News


We will issue our next report in late October, and it will cover ngTLD sales for the period from Sept 23 through Oct 22. This monthly update on publicly reported ngTLD sales is offered as a service to the domain community.  While I strive to be accurate, no implied guarantee or warranty is associated with this report, and readers should independently verify information before using it in any domain investment decisions. This, and all other postings at this site, are offered for educational purposes and should not be interpreted as domain investment advice. You are responsible for your own domain investment decisions.  As always we welcome comments and corrections. We report regularly on domain name news, with a special emphasis on the new extensions, on our Twitter feed.  Why not join the more than 1500 domain investors, venture capitalists, tech experts, startup owners and other great people that already follow us @AGreatName?  If we can be of assistance in helping you find a domain name at a value price, or using a domain name phrase in a marketing campaign, don't hesitate to contact us through our website (or via direct message at Twitter).


Notes and Caveats:


  1. As the reader of previous monthly sales analyses will note, there was a significant increase in the number of low value sales at one venue (Flippa) in this report. These had started in the final few days in the previous report, and continued through the first three-quarters of this report. The unexpected number of sales attracted attention and discussion within the domain community, and some are sceptical of at least some of these sales as, to western observers, a number of the names seem of  questionable quality. Most, but not all, share a price in the range $160 to $200, and were from sellers in the same geographical region.  Many of the cases involved similar or identical words being sold in different extensions.  I have spent many hours looking into these, examining sellers, registration dates, names, extensions, prices and more.  While I don't claim to understand a number of the sales.  While the narrow price range seems surprising, I discovered that a significant part of all Flippa sales are in that range and have been for some time.  It should also be stated that the same terms, or very similar ones, sold in a number of other extensions on Flippa, including .pro, .us, .asia and likely .info and.com. Also, in several cases a much higher price similar name also sold.  A number of the domain names (by no means all) are in use already in sites.  I have kept all NameBio listed sales in this report. I felt that there was not compelling evidence that they should not be included. Should I have excluded many of these Flippa sales the total sales dollar volume would not be significantly changed, but the number of extensions and sales would go down significantly (and the average price would go up). 
  2. For the first time since I have been  analyzing ngTLD sales there were zero dot Global sales in this reporting period.  I am not sure if that is because they have stopped reporting to NameBio or for some other reason.  That has reduced the number of high value sales, and the number of registry sales.
  3. For purposes of estimating registry sales I assume that all sales from Alibaba, Jiangsu Bangning, Global, Uniregistry and registry venues are assumed registry.  I assume that all sales at Affternic, Alibaba Cloud, Flippa, GoDaddy, Namesilo, Sedo, Undeveloped and West are normally not registry.  I realize that occasionally some of the venues in this list do sell registry premium domain names,  and occasionally I count individual names as registry.  In this month the sales at 101 and Key Systems appear non-registry and were classified in that way.  No easy classification system is perfect, and I suspect a few have been misidentified. 
  4. The NameBio statistical summary for the month seems slightly higher (~2%) in sales volume than I obtain by adding all of the individual extension data.  I have checked my work several times and can't resolve the difference.  It is possible this analysis is missing about 2% of the sales somehow, and therefore under represents the true sales.
  5. As I have noted previously, the TOP sales in particular are periodically reported. It is quite possible, even probable, that some TOP sales will be added to the database for dates covered in this report, but that were not available to be included in this analysis.  Therefore TOP sales are likely under-represented. 
  6. Most registries do not report to NameBio.  Also NameBio do not generally include data from major sales venues such as Afternic and Undeveloped (occasionally individual sales are reported, as the case for the $10,000 transparency.online sale reported here.  Nor are sales made from Efty sites and private sales normally reported. 


Original post Sept 23 2018.

Disclosure:  I currently hold a number of  ngTLD domain names. I am  not associated with NameBio, but would like to acknowledge their incredible database and their generosity to make it available to the domain community. 

Saturday, September 22, 2018

New Extensions at Tech Giants

This week Apple used their corporate .apple new domain extension in promotion of their new iPhone models. This got a lot of attention in both the technology and domain communities. I think the real excitement should focus on the fact that they used a domain name phrase, and not simply on the use of a branded new extension.  I will expand on that idea in a future post.

It is sometimes overlooked that the biggest technology companies, not surprisingly, have been using new domain extensions in a variety of ways for some time. In this post I look at new domain extension use by Apple, Amazon,  Google, Facebook and Netflix. I think there are some lessons for both marketing professionals and domain investors in these examples.

Apple


Apple of course has its own  branded .apple new extension.  While Experience.Apple is only the second meaningful use of the branded extension yet, clearly it has great potential for all manner of catchy domain name phrases. There are endless two or three word phrases such as create.with.apple to simply.apple that are possible.

But Apple has also for some time used many other new domain extensions.  A number of these were for simple redirection,  for example Apple.site, Apple.website and Apple.xyz all redirect to the main site.  A few other new extensions are used by Apple  in a more targeted way such as Apple.news (that not surprisingly goes to their corporate news site) and Apple.technology that takes you to their developer resources.


Amazon


Amazon use a huge number of different new extensions, and I just touch on a few of them in this section.  It is actually a lot of fun trying different  ngTLDs with the word Amazon! A number of new extensions including .fit, .forsale, .guide, .life, .online,  .rocks, .site, .space, .world, .xyz and many more just direct you to the main Amazon website.  Amazon also use redirects to their main website for extensions such as .date, .fund, .loan, .loans and .science where the fit is arguably more contrived. They are missing some obvious ones, since .fun, .life and .icu don't resolve so supposedly are not at time of writing controlled by Amazon.

However, Amazon also makes more specific, and interesting, use of some of the other new extensions. Amazon.dog takes you to a page with everything from dog treats to dog beds to books about dogs. Amazon.Christmas, as you guessed, highlights Christmas crafts and decorations. They naturally use the .boats extension for all your boating needs. Amazon do make use of the .lgbt extension, but not in an apparent way to highlight resources for the LGBT community. Amazon.today takes you to today's deals. You might wonder what Amazon.horse takes you to - try it! Wonder where they would take you at the .wtf extension? Try it to find out!

Unlike Apple, Google and Netflix, Amazon does not yet have their own branded .amazon ngTLD, although they have been battling for years to secure it.  They are currently trying to placate objections from those  associated with the Amazon region of the world. You can read about some of the twists and turns in that here.


Google


It is well known that Alphabet,  the parent company of Google, use the new extension domain name abc.xyz for their corporate website.

Google also own the rights to a number of different extensions, and of course had the very successful .app extension release earlier this year.  The other active extensions in general availability that they operate are much less well known, extensions such as .soy.  They have also for some time operated an internationalized character domain extension that in the Japanese language means 'everyone'.  Several of the extensions they have that will soon come into general availability such as .dev and .page are likely to have a significant impact on the domain world. You can keep track of the extensions they operate at https://www.registry.google/.

Unlike Amazon, or even Apple, Google seem not to have put in use many ngTLDs for redirection purposes.

Google do have their own brand as an extension .google. As noted  earlier, they use that for information on the extensions they offer.  They also make use of it for a corporate blog, as a launch site for finding and registering domain names,  and for their artificial intelligence site.



Facebook


I like what Facebook does using the .design ngTLD.  At Facebook.design you find a set of articles and videos by members of the Facebook design team. They have also have a set of resources for technology designers who are writing code to interact with Facebook.  They even have a link for those who want to apply for a position in design at Facebook. Amazon also uses a .design extension, in a similar mode, but it is a pretty sparse site compared to the Facebook one.


Netflix


As far as I could tell, Netflix make limited use of new domain extensions.  However they do use the .film extension, although it simply redirects to their main Netflix site for your country.  They could have very effectively used different extensions to point to collated resources in different topics, as Amazon does.  Of course Netflix have their own branded ngTLD, although so far the use is limited.


Discussion


I don't see any of these companies ever abandoning their .com (and multiple country redirects) and  going to only a new domain extension.  I do expect they, and other companies, will increasingly use the new domain extensions in catchy domain name phrase marketing.  I hope that more will adopt creative use of multiple extensions along the Amazon line, or do something effective in highlighting a branch of their operation as Facebook do with the .design extension.

Sometimes casual domain observers look only at the main site, and assume that the business is not using new domain extensions.  As this has demonstrated, most large companies own and  use hundreds or thousands of domains.  The use of new extensions in certain niches of their operation is very common among the biggest technology companies.  Com may well be king, but the royal court has a lot of minor players making things varied and interesting!

Please add to comments interesting new extension use by the technology giants that I left out!


Links:


Original post Sept 22, 2018.
Slight revision Oct 3, 2018 to give information re Netflix brand ngTLD, and the dispute with respect to .amazon.

Disclosure:  I currently hold a number of  ngTLD domain names. I am  not associated  (except as a customer) with any of the technology companies named in this report.  The icons of those companies are registered trademarks by them.

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