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. 

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:

• NameBio Top 100 Sales (all time)
• NameBio Top 100 sales 2018
• Moz 500 Top Websites

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. 

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:

• Period ending Aug 22, 2018
• Period ending July 22, 2018
• Period ending June 22, 2018
• Period ending May 22, 2018
• Period ending April 22, 2018
• Period ending March 22, 2018

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. 

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:

• Experience.Apple link
• 9to5 Mac Article
• DomainInvesting Article on Apple Promotion
• Apple.news
• Apple.technology
• Amazon.dog
• Amazon.Christmas
• Amazon.today
• abc.xyz
• Get.app
• registry.google
• blog.google
• AI.google
• Facebook.design
• Amazon.design
• Netflix.film
• Our site NamesThat.win - thanks for visiting
• Permanent link to this blog post

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.

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 2018, 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. 

The Big Jump

One of the many nice features at NamePros is that members can post domain names in an appraisal section and other members offer insights on what pricing should be on that domain name.  Domain valuation is of course not an exact science by any means, and frequently different estimates vary significantly. When providing an estimate for new global top level domains (ngTLD), often if there is not a record of significant prior sales in the extension members will express the opinion that the name is essentially worthless ('reg fee' is the term domainers like to use for this). I think this view is perhaps too simplistic, which is the topic of this post.

A Sale Today

While the idea for this post has been in my head for some months, it was one of the sales on today's NameBio daily report that pushed me to finally write it.  The domain name smile.direct sold for $7018 on Sedo.  Let me admit something - even as someone who knows ngTLDs pretty well, I had not really ever noticed that there was a .direct extension before.  After seeing this major sale, it took third place overall on a strong day of NameBio listed sales, I decided to look into the history of .direct extension sales on NameBio. Here is the complete list, it's not very long, just 5 sales including this one.  The last sale before this one was almost two years ago, and it was for just $111. Today's sale of smile.direct has a value above the combined sales values of all previous sales in the extension. The highest previous sales were tackle.direct and 1.direct, each of which sold for $2500 a few years ago.  I am sure that ngTLD sceptics will say that this is simply an outlier in which the purchaser paid far too much.  While accepting that is possible, I think the case can be made that this name was worth the purchase price, based on a multi-faceted approach.  I deal with that question in the next section.

A Multi-Faceted Approach to Valuation

I think that it is important not to take any single measure of the worth of a domain name.

• One component, but only one, is to look at previous sales in the extension, as presented above.  
• A second question is to look at previous sales in the term.  If we use NameBio to look at sales of the exact term smile, we find 8 sales (including this one) with an average sales price $3342 and a  standard deviation of about $2000.  This suggests that this sale is on the high end (the highest sale on list) but within bound of expectations.  The term has never sold in .com, .net or .org, so the average price is reflective of sales in other extensions only.  Probably the best comparator in the list is the sale of smile.club which sold early in 2016 for $5017 (it also sold in .me for a similar amount).
• A third aspect to evaluate is how popular the term is in searches and for advertisers.  For me today when I search on smile there are 4.4 billion search results.  Yes, no misprint, billion - I check this for thousands of names, and I am not sure I recall such a large number.  The term is clearly broadly important on the internet. Now that is overall results, so important to look at monetized searches.  You can get detailed information from Estibot for a domain name, but once there is a sale NameBio provide some basics.  In this case the exact word 'smile' (i.e. just those searching 'smile', not searching for 'better smile') has about 2 million exact searches per month with an advertiser cost per click (CPC) of $0.36 for the exact searches according to NameBio summary.  The more detailed report from Estibot suggests about 550,000 monthly exact searches and a CPC of $2.20 (these values change with time, probably accounting for the difference).  Those are certainly decent numbers, if you are considering the domain name for a monetized reference site.
• Possibly the most important thing to evaluate is how many potential users are there for the domain name.  In this case the most obvious use is in dental applications (dentists, toothpaste, denture providers, whitening products, etc.). This is big business and smile is generic enough that the number of potential users is huge.  But this is by no means the only possible use of the domain.  It also would work perfectly for mental health, positive psychology, and early childhood education, among many other areas (e.g. Amazon and other companies have used a smile in branding).  I have no idea who the actual purchaser is in this domain name.
• An additional aspect that needs to enter into the valuation is the inherent quality in the domain name.  This is a matter of the intersection of aesthetics and marketing, and cannot be evaluated in an exact way.  However, a name should be memorable - if someone hears it will they remember it.  It should, in general, also engender positive emotional feelings to work best in marketing.  There is no doubt that smile is very strong in both aspects. 
• For ngTLDs, a key consideration is how well the term and extension match.  In this case smile is consistent with direct, although it does restrict some of the possible applications mentioned earlier.  A dental company that provided products or services directly to end users would be an excellent fit. 
• How much competition is there for among similar domain names?  If we look at the big three legacy extensions (com/net/org) for the domain name, the .com and the .org go to parking pages but without explicit statements about possible sale of the domain, while the .net goes to a forbidden page. When I check for extensions that it is available in at standard registrations, there are only a handful, mainly specialized (one of the better ones is smile.golf, in case a reader wants to register it). 
• While it should be well down your priority list, I do believe that it is always worthwhile to look at the automated estimates of domain worth. In this case GoValue indicates an estimated worth of $2456, a pretty good estimate in my opinion.  Through GoValue I also find some additional comparator sales of the exact word that were not in NameBio, including a $2225 sale in the .pro extension, a very nice domain name in my opinion that could well have gone for even more. When I used Estibot it suggested a worth of $7200, also a solid estimate of worth. Estibot also gives a wealth of information on advertiser CPC history and monetized search data.
• Does it have special value to certain potential end users?  When evaluating a ngTLD domain I usually try a Google search (using the + before each term) restricted to only sites that include both the terms, in this case, smile and direct.  The results here are dominated by a company called Smile Direct Club.  I have no idea whether they are the purchaser, but clearly the domain name would work excellently for them, either as a rebranding or more likely for redirection purposes. 

It's Not Just Smile

If this was the only case, or one of just a few, where the first recent sale in an extension is much higher than previous sales, then maybe we could chalk it up to either a chance occurrence or perhaps a buyer paying too much. But a much higher sales price is fairly routine in the ngTLD world.  Let me list a few.

• When home.loans sold for $500,000, the previously highest sale in loans was just $7500 and there were only 4 previous NameBio listed sales at any value in the extension.
• When autism.rocks sold for $100,000 on Sedo in 2015 there had not been a sale at all previously in the extension. 
• Vacation.rentals sold in late 2017 for $500,300.  The previous highest sale in that extension was just over $1500, and even today there are only 5 other sales in the extension listed on NameBio.  
• The .online extension has sold many times, but when casino.online sold for $201,500 in March 2017 the previous highest sale in the extension was just over $16,000 (there have been some higher sales in the extension since them, but not nearly at the casino level). 
• The great domain name video.games sold for $183,000 in 2017.  The next highest sale in the extension is only $1101. 

While the above are the most dramatic cases, there are many domain names where the first sale in an extension is at a major amount. And it's not just in new extensions.  For example, I pointed out on Twitter that when Buckley Media Group sold sleeping.com summer 2018 for $502,225 that price exceeded the combined sales of all 251 previous NameBio listed sales that include the term 'sleep' anywhere (the next highest sale price was $14,888).

Discussion

What are the lessons to be learned from examples such as these?

1. While prior sales in an extension should be taken into account in an evaluation, that should never be your only consideration in estimating the worth of a domain name.
2. It is important  to take a multi-faceted approach to any domain name valuation, looking at the strength of the term, previous sales in the term, previous sales in the extension, search and advertiser statistics, the aesthetics of the name,  competition with similar names, and the pool of potential end users, among other factors.
3. For new extensions, the critical question is often whether the term matches effectively with the extension for for real world applications.
4. Prior sales do not set a limit on the possible selling price of a domain name. There are many cases of sales much higher than previous sales, or even the very first sale in an extension being a large one.
5. A domain name will have value if an end-user sees a good use for it.  It will have a lot of a value if there is a strong desire for the domain name by at least one potential purchaser.
6. Domain name valuation is not an exact science. We should not pretend that it is. 

Now let me stress that this post does not mean that any domain name might sell for a large amount.  The key issue is always the quality of the domain name.  Let's not over-simplify the complex task of evaluating the worth of a domain name by saying that just because there is not a history of large value sales in an extension so none are possible.

Links:

• NameBio Daily Report Sept 17, 2018
• Smile.direct NameBio listing
• NameBio list of all .direct extension sales
• NameBio database
• GoValue
• Estibot
• NamePros
• Our site NamesThat.win - thanks for visiting
• Permanent link to this blog post

Original post Sept 18, 2018.

Disclosure:  I currently hold a number of  ngTLD domain names, but none mentioned directly in this report. 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. I have no association with GoDaddy or the GoValue automated estimate of worth tool or Estibot, except as a user of these automated worth tools.

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. 

The images used are either those associated with a product or service, my own images, or Pixabay images believed to be available for use without attribution. If you see any image that you believe is problematic, please let us know and we will immediately correct the situation.

GoValue Accuracy for CO Domain Names

In an earlier post I analyzed how effectively GoDaddy automated GoValue system estimated the worth of NNNNN.com domain names. This time I looked at the same question, but for a set of CO extension domain names that sold in the summer 2018 Sedo premium CO domain auction. 

The Data

Sedo had a summer 2018 auction for premium .CO domain names. This provided a dataset that all sold at the same  time and venue, and the auction format contributes to each domain sale being reflective of true worth.

When the auction results were announced at the beginning of August 2018 I immediately checked the GoValue estimates for each CO domain that sold in the auction.  This is important to reduce chance of GoValue estimates were adjusted in response  to the sales.

What I found is in the table (click on table for a higher resolution view).  For each domain name sold I give the domain name, the actual auction sales price, and the GoDaddy GoValue estimate of worth.  I also compute for each the ratio of the two values – for example if the domain had a GoValue estimate of $16,000 while it sold for $8000 the ratio would be 2.

Analysis

At the bottom of the table are the average and standard deviation of each column. For this dataset the sales price averaged $3475 while the average of GoValue estimates of worth is $8221  Therefore, GoValue, for these domains, suggested higher valuations than the actual sales prices by about a factor of 2.4.

The individual values are plotted in the graph. I did regressions comparing sales prices with automated worth estimates.  I tried various functional forms (linear, polynomial, logarithmic, exponential) for the regression, with exponential providing the best fit to the data. The correlation is moderately good, with R2=0.50. An R2 value of 1.00 means perfectly correlated data, while 0.00 would mean no correlation at all.

If desired, this graph could be used to predict likely actual sales prices from automated estimates of worth.  For example, if the GoValue estimate of worth of a CO domain name is $10,000, the likely sales price is approximately $4,500.

If we look at individual values, GoValue did correctly predict the lowest price domain name (formulas).  On the upper end, GoValue did not do as well, predicting that the names debt, card and holiday would fetch the highest sales prices. In terms of actual sales prices Vegas, hire and weather  had the highest values. In a bit less than half the cases the predicted and actual sales prices are within a factor of two of each other.

Conclusions

It might be expected that CO domain names are, after COM and NET, among the easiest to predict as there is a fair volume of sales data history. However, it could be argued that single word domain names are more challenging to predict than numbered domain names.

While the average worth estimates from GoValue are inflated when compared to actual sales prices for these CO domain names,  there is moderate success in predicting which domain names are more valuable. If we compare this analysis to the earlier one on NNNNN.com domain names, that study found that average prices for the set were almost spot on, but the regression for which names are more valuable is weak. 

Auctions sometimes produce surprises, as two bidders can drive up the price in some cases beyond likely market levels.  I suspect many domain investors would have predicted that debt and card would have sold for more than weather, in line with the GoValue prediction, even though the sales price turned out to be higher for weather in the actual auction.  A geographic name like Vegas is also challenging to predict.

Overall GoValue provides order of magnitude worth estimates, and some indication of relative worth. It should not be your only source of information on a domain name worth, but is somewhat helpful as one of the measures, at least for CO extension domain names.

Users of the information in this post should keep in mind that it is for a limited dataset and for promoted auction sales at a single venue, Sedo.

Links:

• Sedo CO Auction Results (via Domain Investing)
• NameBio database
• GoValue
• Analysis of NNNNN.com domain estimates
• Our site NamesThat.win - thanks for visiting
• Permanent link to this blog post

Original post Sept 11, 2018.

Disclosure:  I currently hold a number of CO domain names, but none that were in this auction. 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. I have no association with GoDaddy or the GoValue automated estimate of worth tool, except as a user.

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 that use data from 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.  

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. 

The images used are either those associated with a product or service, my own images, or Pixabay images believed to be available for use without attribution. If you see any image that you believe is problematic, please let us know and we will immediately correct the situation.