Morning Folks!!
The domain sector has never been hotter except few in the industry believe that. I think they get discouraged easily. Some fold at the hint of adversity. This week you watched an avalanche of new extensions born and coming to market with so many behind them I can't even count. Each trying to duplicate history. Some will succeed. Some. But they won't succeed from just being there. They will have to do something new, dynamic, exciting just as a bare minimum to make an impact.
Look at all the money they are throwing at OUR industry. BILLIONS!! Who cares if they make it or not when BILLIONS are floating around. We have history to draw from. They have 'Late to the game syndrome' to draw from. Type in traffic is a natural event and does not translate to everything.
I am going to keep talking about type in traffic because without it, without human nature being interested in it, collapse is going to be the keyword for 70%. Nobody gives a shit will be the keyword for 25% and 5% will have some interest. Maybe. They will ALL reinforce and increase the value of .com.
800 numbers get type in traffic. Then came 888, 877, 855. 800 numbers still get type in traffic. 888 gets some tye ins....maybe 5%-10% of 800 if that. The reason why? It is easy to press 888 3 times in a row. 877 and 855 get virtually no type in traffic. Same human nature at play here folks.
Ass.com got about 1 million visitors in 2012. Ass.net got 15,000. Less than 2% of the .com. The .org got even less. Care to guess for .mobi? .xxx? .whatever x 1500 new .whatevers.
These are not emotions. These are raw numbers and folks have to deal with numbers. Tyoe-ins are the foundation that so few believe. Type-ins shows interest or there would be no reason to do it.
Now like I said there is money to be made here. But there is also a lot of money to lose as well. This is almost going to be like the 'Apprentice'. 1500 new folks will be handed aprons and their job is to create the next .com. Not the next 'Oil well' but the next fuel! That is what makes this so crazy. They would have to invent new fuel for a success.
The more they embrace the new extensions the more the .com will be worth. So while they are not getting type ins we are getting increased type ins because of confusion.
Speaking of confusion, I was looking over my top 20 domains in the last month or 2. Quite a few new entries came out of nowhere. $0 to over $1000/month on 3 different domains. $0 to $500 on another. That's just what I remember off the top of my head. That increase in revenue and traffic is a DIRECT RESULT OF WORK BEING DONE BY OTHER COMPANIES!!!!
They ALL have non .com extensions or have confusing domain names and 'I' am the beneficiary! I don't want 1500 extensions. I want 15,000. The more the merrier. I have silent partners that don't even know they are partners and the money I make is PURE profit with NO WORK while they are busting their ass because they don't get it. $1000 to ME represents how much to THEM????
The problem is they can't control human behavior. They make marketing mistakes that make me or the competitor lots of money. Saveme.com is the tip of the iceberg. So the 'Second coming' is going to make those with patience very wealthy. I know where the path leads them because numbers don't lie. Leaks in a ship don't lie.
If you own the .com of a new .whatever you have a domain worth MILLIONS before you even wake up. In success or failure for THEM, is a GUARANTEED success for you. Type in traffic is alive and well. The core domain investor has type in traffic. Those that have no type in traffic or don't want to bother hearing about it are in a different game. On a different field. We just intersect daily.
I have always been on record saying there are infinite ways to make money with domain names. Type ins are just one way. The easiest way. The way that gives you the most options. The way that paves the way to the future. The future that is unfolding now. Clarity on the Internet as far as who the leaders are. Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, etc. Many that were not here when many of us started this journey. This epic, life changing journey.
But the Kudos go to Mr. Johnson. He was bold enough to just give us the numbers. The most important numbers anyone reading this saw in the past year. When we hear of the future calamities, it could have all been avoided by heeding Mr. Johnson. He ain't making this stuff up.
That said I am going to find all types of ways to EXPLOIT .whatever. Even in a total success, the headwinds of so many at the same time doing anything might be insurmountable. What if 1500 hamburger stands opened on Broadway tomorrow. Could they all exist and make money? All in the same place at the same time and without even mentioning Mr. Johnson because many will not get that far.
I don't see .whatever as a threat like so many do. Quite the opposite. I have described the opportunity that comes in success or failure. We win. Regret lasts a lifetime. Think twice before you do anything because the future will show that the best days are still in front of us. Don't second guess yourselves after coming this far.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
-----
mano
Every one needs to go somewhere, some goes where they know well, some try new route, but everyone need a clear direction to find the place they wished to go, .roads will lead many to”interesting” directions while .com directs you direct to your destination.
.new roads will be a fun journey, but if you looking for safe journey, then better stick to .com
We need an ALPHA for everything, so what’s the PRIME when comes to navigation.
.COM the warlord, all other will be the .footsoldiers
What a fantastic time!….. wish have some extra cash to splurge
Good Luck to all.
BillW
Kind of interesting…..Catholic Church draws #1 seed for rolling out one of their new gtld .天主教 (Catholic in Chinese), Apple Computers .apple comes in #948.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/19/catholic_church_first_for_icann_top_level_domain_registration/
QUOTE FROM ARTICLE”The Catholic Church will be the first institution to register a new top level domain name, internet addressing overlord ICANN announced yesterday. The Vatican’s application will be top of the pile when ICANN starts to process applications for new top level domain names in early 2013. The Catholic Church wants to register .天主教 – Catholic in Chinese.
The bulk of the first 100 new top level domains to be considered are in non-English characters – Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic. There has been a strong pent-up demand for URLs in different languages, as current generic top level domains all use the Roman alphabet, meaning irritating keyboard-switching for people typing in languages which use a different alphabet. END QUOTE
Scott Alliy
Rick,
Well said, Instead of rebelling and opining against the unknown why not embrace, research and discover ways to monetize the action and in the process grow yourself, your reach, and quite possibly add a dimension to your domain investment business?
Case in point how many domain investors have years of experience that might be of great value to 1500 new domain extension owners trying to hit the ground running and maximize ROI of millions of dollars of investment in some cases?
Most people easily see obstacles Leaders see solutions and opportunities in the same situation IMO
Years ago there was a Roundtable conference. I suggest that the domain industry needs more roundtable conferences where specific invitations could be made to private events aimed at achieving strategic outcomes to benefit and drive domain industry activities and regulations.
Case in point I have never engaged in parking but instead focus on end user sales to business and domain aftermarket solutions for buyers and sellers. Talking with ppc monetization specific domainers for me is like an oil gas guy talking to an electrician at an energy conference. Same industry completely different purposes.
Scott Alliy
Rick,
What I meant to say is that maybe dominers should consider creating joint venture partnerships of like minded people to address some of the opportunities that will surely be created as 1500 new entities traverse the internet frontier strewn with all sorts of business landmines. One opportunity I see is for the new registrars to create and promote bundles and packages to be able to turn single sales into multiple sales.
As you pointed out some conmpanies will fail some will succeed that is not for us to decide but in any case money is there to be made for domain industry pros with the vision to notice and willingness to ortunities like the one I pointed out.
Also agree that the flurry of activity that all of us can help promote BTW will strengthen the .com of any new name extensions sold and used.
Steve
The”Church” is missing the boat/arc. All they will do is feed traffic to 天主教.com . Many have been waiting for 10+ years for idn.com to become pure idn.idn. The owner of 天主教.com will get MASSIVE traffic if/when Rome activates whatever.天主教
What was reality for O.co will continue to be reality for the whatever.idn market. The owners of the idn.com’s will get all of the traffic. imho.
Champagne bottles will be popping for many idn.com owners in the new year. While latin.com’s are obviously the best and most valuable names the internationallanguage.com’s will be one of the bright lights in the new gtld system. More than half of internet users don’t speak English so letting them type and surf in their native languages is way overdue.
Also I only see the .com button on all of the phones I have so it’s really a no brainer on which extension to focus on.
Lawrence
Rick, Your post about ass.com versus ass.net is so true.
A couple of years ago I had leased the domain porn.net
I was shocked to find it received less than 10,000 type-ins a month.
While the .com was getting millions!
Proves your point.
Rick Schwartz
Lawrence, anyone that knows……KNOWS and unfortunately so many are ignorant to the numbers.
Start posting your numbers folks. They are all similar with very few exceptions unless it is a business and then it defaults to the .com for THE most valuable traffic
.com ,vs .net, vs .org vs. .co vs .mobi, vs .whatever
EMMA
One thing Rick does not know is that search engines account for more than 96% of traffic. That the real reality, so you only need a domain name whose extension is credible and recognizable. .NET, .ORG, .CO, .INFO and most country code domain extensions are credible and recognizable. If this is not true then why .com websites need SEO????? hahahaha
Type-in traffic is just like a drop of water in ocean.
Anunt
If domains are sooooo freaking HOT, why aren’t domainers buying domains anymore?
I had to spam over 100,000 domainers to sell a premium money making domain.
Couple years ago, I would spam less than 50 domainers, and they would fight for the domain.
Are people just BROKE right now or is domaining just DEAD???
Numbers don’t lie, people do.
UFO
Traffic is like a deep fast flowing river. .Com gets you alot of traffic and being at the top of SE on Google gets you a lot of traffic.
.com you can control better (in an absolute sense) than SE rank.
Get .com and rank right then the returns versus .whatever on page 4 is about 50000:1 ratio in traffic.
Uzoma
I have concluded that .whatever will not work for commerce, or business, but that some will have limited success as vanity or trophy applications. I base my decision partly on Schwartz’s protestations, and my own research. I have been fooled only once. And that was by .CO. I was never tempted by .NET, not by .ORG, or any of the others. But I bit with the .CO clever marketing. And I must say, they pulled out all the stops to achieve this. They got on superbowl! The got twitter to use the dawn extension. They announced Google using it. They placed .CO ahead of .COM in terms of priority at Godaddy domain registration page. They got Overstock to rebrand to .CO!! That’s when I said, I’m going in. Guess what? It did not make a dent on .COM. That’s just a fact. As Rick pointed out, Overstock did a double somersault back to the king of TLDs.
But the main reason why .whatever will not work is that we have .whatever right now. The same reason why we have one major stock exchange, the New York stock exchange is why we have one major TLD: the standard! If not, every city will have their own stock exchange. We need one place where information is exchanged by all, and that is .COM. There will not be a substitute. Ever. Just how stupid do you think we are ICANN? You already rolled out .whatever dozens of times. Non of ICANN’s greed have so far dethroned the .COM, and my guess is that they will keep trying until there’s no right of the dot. Take a gander below at all the .whatever rolled out by ICANN below. I will use ass.com as the domain name you can register in many extensions, but only one is the original: ass.com!
ass
.com TAKEN
.net TAKEN
.co TAKEN
.org TAKEN
.biz TAKEN
.info TAKEN
.us TAKEN
.us.com TAKEN
.mobi TAKEN
.pro TAKEN
.ca TAKEN
.co.uk TAKEN
.xxx TAKEN
.asia TAKEN
.tv
TAKEN
.ac TAKEN
.ag TAKEN
.am
.ar.com TAKEN
.at TAKEN
.be
.br.com TAKEN
.cc TAKEN
.ch
.cn.com TAKEN
.co.in TAKEN
.co.nz TAKEN
.com.co TAKEN
.com.es TAKEN
.com.mx
TAKEN
.com.tw
.cx TAKEN
.cz TAKEN
.de TAKEN
.de.com TAKEN
.es TAKEN
.eu TAKEN
.eu.com
.firm.in TAKEN
.fm
.gb.com
.gb.net TAKEN
.gd
.gen.in
.gs
.hn
.hu.com TAKEN
.im TAKEN
.in TAKEN
.ind.in TAKEN
.io TAKEN
.jp
.jpn.com
.kr.com TAKEN
.la
.lc TAKEN
.li TAKEN
.me TAKEN
.me.uk TAKEN
.mn
TAKEN
.ms TAKEN
.mx TAKEN
.name TAKEN
.net.co TAKEN
.net.in
.net.nz TAKEN
.nl
.no.com
.nom.co
.nom.es TAKEN
.nu
.org.es TAKEN
.org.in
.org.nz TAKEN
.org.uk TAKEN
.pl
.qc.com
.ru.com
.sa.com
.sc
.se.com
.se.net TAKEN
.sg TAKEN
.sh
.tc TAKEN
.tel TAKEN
.tk TAKEN
.tw TAKEN
.uk.com
.uk.net
.uy.com
.vc TAKEN
.vg TAKEN
.ws TAKEN
.za.com
Rick Schwartz
EMMA
Do you even have a clue how many hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars that 4% is worth?? Annually!??
Bako.com
Face it, it just feels better to have your website on .com! :) You know your on top! haha
You need to add word-wrap:break-word; to your CSS code, to stop Billw’s link from over flowing out of the box.
Adam
you think maintaining or even getting that SEO traffic is free @emma ? or cheaper than a domain that YOU control ?
UFO
There’s a high correlation between type in traffic and URL potential in the websphere. A domain is worth infinitely more developed than as a simple holding page.
The money on the net is now obviously ecommerce. If you can’t work out why you should own .com’s then you don’t understand the end user market.
Good brandable .com’s say around 7 letters and under that get type in traffic are all going to get near 100k as we come out of the ‘recession’. Thats where the money is.
EMMA
Rick said:”””Do you even have a clue how many hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars that 4% is worth?? Annually???””. I will answer you with a question: If 4% of traffic was hundred of millions of Dollars and it has been more than 2 decades since you started domaining and you own the best .COM domains in the world, and why are not you a multi billionaire today??????/ hahahahahaha. Numbers don’t lie but people lie, people have hidden agendas
just passing through Again
@Anunt you said you bought some names and sold them at a big loss.
I wonder if you could get better names than you had for lesser money. I will bet you can. Especially now that your a bit more experienced than you were. If your going to sell to domainers expect to sell it cheap. Not saying domainers are cheap, but I think most value a domain by how much revenue they can make quickly (parked page, mini site) or selling it to an end user.
I don’t think you should give up, Just REstrategize,
sportsca.rs
It’s all very well to keep banging on about .com,
and it’s true that”type in” traffic is valuable
and many .com names get that kind of traffic…
automatically.
But ‘type in’ isn’t the only ‘value’ in a domain
name ‘though, and with the new gTLDs coming out
next year, peoples habits will start to change
in that area (and the .com resale market will also
be hit pretty hard).
Don’t forget, .com means NOTHING to a consumer; it
is merely the extension they are most used to seeing.
The issue of ‘trust’ is a very different proposition
to ‘familiarity’, and like it or not, the new gTLDs
will be seen to be much more ‘potent’ (than .com) in
the eyes of the consumer.
But what about the extensions that failed in the past?
Of course!.. But there’s a very different dynamic at
play now… as there will be hundreds of excellent
TLDs to choose from, and there is some very serious
money backing them up.
Rick Schwartz
EMMA,
My portfolio is far from the best. But I don’t have to make billions to live extremely comfortably.
Sorry you are so bitter about your failure with domains and type ins. It’s pretty obvious.
Rick Schwartz
sportsca.rs said…
“But ‘type in’ isn’t the only ‘value’ in a domain
name.”
Never said it was but folks ignore it like it is meaningless and it is not. It is still the standard to measure a domain name. Of course rookies have to rely on the bullshit of thjngs like Estibot.
“Don’t forget, .com means NOTHING to a consumer;” You are 100% wrong at that one. It means the Internet. It means much more than you think.
“The issue of ‘trust’ is a very different proposition
to ‘familiarity’, and like it or not, the new gTLDs
will be seen to be much more ‘potent’ (than .com) in
the eyes of the consumer.”
Glad you made a decision for all consumers. Plus you are wrong.
“But what about the extensions that failed in the past?”
Yes what about all those that have failed?
“But there’s a very different dynamic at
play now… as there will be hundreds of excellent
TLDs to choose from”
Hundreds???? Excellent??? Please!
Mark B
I agree with Mr Schwartz 100%…com is king and always will be..
sportsca.rs
Imagine being asked 20 years ago, before the Internet became
popular, to pick the most valuable business identity/domain
name out of:
bostonhotels.com
boston.hotels
Which would you pick, as the most valuable/potent?
Remember, you are not a ‘domainer’ at that point and know
nothing about what would happen in later years with ‘.com’…
I’m no psychic but can guess which one you would go for!
;-)
How is that relevant to today?
Well, if the better identity back then was boston.hotels,
what makes you think that bostonhotels.com will still hold
on to its (current) market value after the ‘.hotels’ ext’n
is released?
So, it is inevitable that many .com names will lose their
value in the coming gTLD release. As for the idea that .com
is this global mega giant that can never be contested, this
is just a myth that ‘domainers’ say to other domainers, in
the hope that if they say it enough times it will somehow
become true.
The reality is, ‘.com’ is meaningless.. It is now, and it
always been. The rationale that it might be an abbreviation
for ‘company’ is valid enough but it is just a guess… The assertion that ‘.com’ is some kind of metaphor for the web
itself, however, is so ridiculous it is difficult to even
comprehend…
(Unless, of course, you happen to be a .com domainer looking
to promote names/hype them).
gTLDs and .com names WILL co-exist, sure enough. .com will
be hit in terms of valuations/appraisals, and this is not
anti-.com sentiment on my part, it’s just realism.
Yes, ‘type in’ traffic is a very high value and always will
be, as it represents a potential customer and of course this
is a wholly distinct and separate ‘value’ to brand value.
For the record, I ‘love’ .com.. BUT it is not my spouse, it
is not my mother-in-law, and I don’t brush my teeth at night
whilst praying to the great .com god in the sky…
I am a realist.
Rick Schwartz
“what makes you think that bostonhotels.com will still hold on to its (current) market value after the ‘.hotels’ ext’n is released?”
Too easy……
THE TRAFFIC GOES UP!!!!! bostonhotels.com traffic will skyrocket. THAT is what happens. It’s not a debatable point. We have too much evidence to point to. Like xxx.com just for one.
Traffic is what justifies value in many cases.
Henry
I have been in the domain business since 1998. In that time my thoughts on .com is that all the rest of the TLD’s will never receive the type in traffic of a .com. I own many examples of domains that I own the .com, .net and .org of the same saying and the .com gets 1,000 to 3,000 type in a month and the same saying .net and .org get 50 to 100 a month in type ins. That’s 1% to 2% of what the .com receives in type in traffic.
Joao
@Emma, i am the living proof of a guy that knows shit about SEO and yet, made his wife business website appear on the 1st position (of the 1st search page result) on google…the secret? i’ve spent nearly 2000$ on the business category .com domain, and 6 months later, my wife website is better ranked than websites that exist much longer. Better ranked than older businesses…and talked mouth-to-mouth by people that we don’t know from anywhere.
You don’t have to answer to this question with another one, because quite honestly this isn’t a dick size contest, plus, i’m not selling you anything and that selling technique is just out of scene in here, but…tell me how is my rank possible if i really don’t know anything about SEO?
Another question i have to you is: if 96% of traffic goes to search engines, how much traffic goes away from search engines when people find out what they look for, and possibly add the site to the browser bar?
Mark B
I disagree with the Boston.hotels example..Why would .hotels hold any value, when the .travel extension has already been proven to be a faliure..if dot.travel can’t make it, why would these sub groups be able to?
Rick Schwartz
Interesting how it always comes down to these 2 sides. One armed with facts and real world experience and numbers and the other based on emotional hope as opposed to solid evidence. They have to try and demean evidence with emotion to make a point based on nothing tangible.
And to see the energy they poor into their own delusion is really incredible. Now they are free to believe what they want and free to do business as they want. But when they have to poo poo facts that come from many not just me, then they are being too self defensive to be credible. Talk about the FACT that a .com gets 75x-100x the type-in traffic as a .net and it is across the board with any domain you want to pick that is not developed.
Anyone that owns a .com, .net or .org etc of ANY domain name can verify and testify to these facts.
So believe what you want but please when you all spew bullshit, label it accordingly. You don’t have to put others down to prove what you see. What you see has to HAPPEN in reality for it to have any value. But you are all free to believe what you like.
Beliefs vs facts. Beliefs work best with facts on your side and don’t work well when they are not on your side.
Nobody on the planet ever mistakenly put in a .net for a .com. On the other hand MILLIONS a DAY put in .com for the .net, .org, .co, .info, .xxx, .younameit!. It’s a one way street. Time to recognize the obvious.
Michael Li
Can we please have a conversation about something other than .com being superior? We get it already.
bert
Just to jump in with a quick comment. I’ve got a .com (Luscious) that had an inquiry 5 months ago which died on the table. This inquiry/person built a site at the .net which appears to now have thousands of members.
My .com is now the happy lander for 200-300 type ins per day
sportsca.rs
It’s an interesting thought, that gTLD names
will somehow (when promoted) be sending traffic
to their .com counterparts…!
We will know whether that is true or not in
the near future, when the gTLDs are released.
Speculating on that now is a waste of time, but
what we ARE able to discuss now is that other
element of a domain’s ‘value’, its brandable
value.
AHEAD OF TIME
People hate to be wrong and this is the best news about the gTLDs
because they will keep investing more money trying to destroy .com
this is going to last years until they realise you can’t beat .com and
they have HUGE PROBLEM that the only way to fix is buying the
.com
This is a dream come true for .com owners trust me soon domaining.com
is going to be on FIRE with posts and comments about premium .coms
booming in traffic and offers.
UFO
Sorry, but you are a complete newbie and it shows. THOUSANDS of new domainers have been down this very same logic path.
Your domain sportsca.rs as a website may be infinitely successful but that would be an attribute of the content and not the domain itself. Like for like sportscars.com will blow away sportsca.rs.
Now if you can develop something new to the market and for less than acquiring sportscars.com then you could be onto a winner. Like say how youtube.com brought something new to the market on an average name. But even so, they still used .com. 99% of the worlds biggest brands and most surfed sites have a .com.
Most of the general public don’t even give a fleeting thought to domains, they just type the brand name with a .com after it, and in most other nations also generally type the local cctld.
Anyway, its obvious like other headstrong newbie’s you’ll argue your case until renewal costs eventually teach you otherwise.
nobody important
hello
that type in traffic was the missing puzzle for me. I am using 3 parking accounts and this is one of them.
past 3 months i am testing out more of my type in traffic to internet traffic and rook media.
so far my experiment is working and i am seeing the light of the tunnel.
i am not a big domainer. dont have ricks cash. am not an old time domainer.
sales have more then doubled this year. did 4 deals with berkens and commissions. all profit. we split some commissions. type in traffic is growing. take away the top 900 domainers in the world and i am afraid to to tell you this but most domainers in the middle tear level or lower tear do not get the value of the type in eye ball. its all return on investment for me and in the meantime i am trying to staying focused during these times.
let this gtld non sense begin. bloggers have hidden agendas. rick is a true leader and guess what he has the best batting average then most domainers around. i also love how the old timers are devaluing there own portfolios in the .com market by hyping up this gtld non sense.
rick is spot on. thats what a leader does. a leader gives his wisdom. a leader takes risks. you either thank rick or keep throwing cheap shots at everyone. we had a family death and all i can say is wow, this domain business and reflecting is truly in trouble with egos, agendas. be very care who you take advice from, agendas and be thankful for what you have.
in the meantime trying get back in the game and staying focused. .com values are going up. a few other extensions will do just fine.
i wish everyone many successes.
copy and paste on one of my accounts. slowly climbing the mountain. fuck the noise.
Monthly Stats Summary
Month Visitors Searches Clicks RPM CTR RPC Revenue
2012-12 3,103 683 377 $31.71 12.150% $0.26 $98.39
2012-11 4,419 1,094 583 $54.83 13.190% $0.42 $242.28
2012-10 5,052 1,625 1,065 $36.21 21.080% $0.17 $182.91
2012-09 5,585 1,514 922 $48.67 16.510% $0.29 $271.85
2012-08 6,357 2,598 1,026 $41.97 16.140% $0.26 $266.78
2012-07 6,158 1,795 917 $47.35 14.890% $0.32 $291.59
2012-06 7,188 2,628 1,156 $31.68 16.080% $0.20 $227.73
2012-05 6,653 2,600 916 $43.34 13.770% $0.31 $288.35
2012-04 5,303 1,996 770 $38.75 14.520% $0.27 $205.50
2012-03 3,658 1,078 501 $19.18 13.700% $0.14 $70.17
2012-02 4,153 1,423 473 $10.33 11.390% $0.09 $42.92
2012-01 4,968 1,393 615 $12.20 12.380% $0.10 $60.59
68,072 21,745 9,873 $34.06 14.500% $0.23 $2,318.47
Patrick Hipskind
Hi Rick,
I checked out what you said about traffic increasing for xxx.com on Alexa and you are correct. The traffic for xxx.com has increased substantially over the past two years.
It does appear that a generic .com domain name will benefit from increased traffic when an identical gTLD extension is launched.
Thanks for this great post.
sportsca.rs
@ufo
Spare me the arrogance, huh?… What is particularly
‘telling’ is that you know nothing about me, yet you
choose to insult me or a forum, while completely
ignoring the things I have said.
I think it’s pretty clear that I don’t need your advice
and I can tell from your reply that you’re an emotional
person who feels they are on shaky ground (hence the
personal insult).
:-)
Anunt
Like it or not…dot com will slowly fade away!
It ALL depends on GOOGLE.
Stop comparing 800 numbers…
Stop comparing Times Square…
The INTERNET can NOT be compared to anything in the past…look at GOOGLE for the answers to the future!!!
UFO
Sorry, we’ve heard it all before.
You are banging on with sheer cognitive dissidence. So you have a URL. Congratulations. Now tell us all how many people look up sportsca.rs a day. ZERO? If you’re using Cpanel then uniques are more or less BS. Look at the transactions log. Zero, thought so.
The only reason I picked on you, is because you stand out by a clear mile that you’ll back your domain as a revelation that all us other domainers have missed. Hell, I likely own domains that are older than you.
Ok, enough baiting. How about developing your site. Prepared to stick 20k on the nose to develop it? Thought not…”Ohhh look at me, I can’t afford a real sports car so I’ll buy a domain that nobody visits and put a car there”.
lol.. keep paying those reg fees.
John Colascione
Have always appreciated your solid belief in .com being and staying King Rick…
sportsca.rs
You’re so angry and bitter UFO!
Is it possible that your lack of progress as a
‘domainer’ has caused you to act this way?!
Now, I know that you’re unable to respond to any
of the comments I have made, and instead you want
to feel that you’re somehow superior to me by
calling me a ‘newbie’, questioning my age, making
silly comments about domains you know nothing
about, etc…. and all of that is JUST FINE…
Just move on to the next thread whenever you’re
ready.. There’s always someone new to hate, or
that you can attempt to belittle, if you search
hard enough.
:-)
UFO
ok, you win. sportsca.rs is the most enviable domain in the world.
Your only hope is that search engines see your domain as Sports California and you get some merge traffic from that.
The chance of you getting anywhere near the top 3 pages on a SE for Sport scars is about nil.
Game over.
UFO
lol, that may be true for ‘sport scars’, but even more true for ‘sports cars’.
Mark Talbot
I guess it boils down to something simple, Occam’s Razor.
“It is a principle stating that among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected.”
That internet real estate IS about location. And it is by far better to have your website on something commonly recognizable. I dont think many reputable international business base their domain landing page on .cn or .ng. (even from their home country)
That would be suicide. You might make a viable interest on a dot net, but the vast majority of reputable businesses reside on dot com, and only reg the others for brand protection even if they bother.
And that is as simple as it gets. I have never been contacted to buy a .cn or .ng for a quality business.
Dot com is the base root number in the domain world at the simplest level, as mathmatical analogy.
Joao
There is a test that i would like to see. What if someone that reads this blog and has a .com domain that matches exactly a nTLD, starts selling sub-domains?
To make it clear, what if the owner of email.com would start selling example.email.com, and we would compare the sales and impact of those sub-domains over .email domains and their ranking? What the heck, let’s make it more fair, sell sub-domains at the same price as those nTLDs.
If nTLDs are great, this won’t be an issue for anyone. If it is an issue, it’s simply because there is a tremendous leakage.
CNZ域名
i am the living proof of a guy that knows shit about SEO and yet, made his wife business website appear on the 1st position (of the 1st search page result) on google…the secret? i’ve spent nearly 2000$ on the business category .com domain, and 6 months later, my wife website is better ranked than websites that exist much longer. Better ranked than older businesses…and talked mouth-to-mouth by people that we don’t know from anywhere.
EMMA
It is a fact that all websites need SEO and it is a fact that websites donºt need type-in traffic to be successful, so all you need is a website built on a domain name whose extension is credible and recognizable. .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .CO and all country code extensions will do it. In France .FR is more popular than any other extension. In UK .CO.UK is the standard extension, in Germany .DE in the king, just to name few non .com extensions. This is the real reality. If you are clueless just ask yourself this question: How do google, yahoo, ask, bing and other search engines make so many billions of Dollars in revenues yearly???? The answer is you need a domain with a credible and recognizable extension and search engine optimization.
sportsca.rs
Bert, may I ask if the landing page is earning
anything?
Certainly, 200-300 ‘type in’ hits a day sounds
great, and of course the more THEY promote their
site the greater this no. will be. My knowledge
re: this kind of typo-based/weak curiosity traffic,
however, is that (while it may sound good on paper)
it doesn’t ‘convert’ at all well.
I have many .com domains that get natural traffic,
that’s based on genuine interest, and I accept that
.com-related ‘type in’ is a habit; nothing more,
nothing less – it’s a habit.
But I have my doubts that this ‘habit’ will persist
greatly beyond next year, when there will be 100’s
of exc. TLD’s hitting the market. Say what you want
about people reverting to the relative safety of .com,
I think that the gTLDs really will be a game-changer
and will change people’s ‘type in’ habits to a large
degree.
Re: the idea that promoting a gTLD name will send
traffic to the .com….
1) Even if it’s true, I doubt this kind of traffic
will ever ‘convert’.
2) If a gTLD owner has a fairly generic name and
doesn’t want to risk ‘leakage’ to another name they
could simply apply the name to a different subject
area, that has no obvious relationship to the name.
That way, if the .com owner copies their site premise
and tries to monetize with a lander the gTLD owner
will have a case against them.
3) The ‘domain tools’ site, the ‘wayback machine’ or
archive.org, are all marvelous resources for getting
evidence on what people are doing with their domains.
So, a domain owner who’s hoping to make some serious
coin off the back of other people’s efforts (illegally)
can be found out pretty easily.
Rick Schwartz
“1) Even if it’s true, I doubt this kind of traffic
will ever ‘convert’.”
You keep bringing issues up that are already SETTLED!
We have testimony for YEARS about the exact things that are a”Theory” to you!
Let’s start here. You are just WRONG! Period. Nothing to discuss. The evidence is overwhelming and widespread. Like I said and you can go see for yourself. xxx.com was always a great domain name. When .xxx launched so did xxx.com. The value went up more than 10 fold. Their traffic skyrocketed and so did their revenue. That’s called PROOF! You hold on to HOPE and you expect to argue your point?? Unless you come here with NAMES and NUMBERS, your words have little to no value to a seasoned domainers and I’ll tell you why.
We have seen THIS exact movie many times. Not many people. Many times. These people change their handles as soon as they burn out the last one. So chances are what chances are.
Hope and pray all you like and we will support that honesty. But please don’t insult folks here that are arguing with FACTS and NUMBERS and EXAMPLES. Want to make a point? Give domain name and numbers. Without that, no credibility comes with your words, thoughts or beliefs.
sportsca.rs
I know that any kind of constructive debate here
is impossible, as you, and so many others on this
blog are incredibly defensive (scared) but do you
have any other examples to share, apart from xxx.com?
Joao
Oh, so if you have acapulcohotel.com and i have acapulco.hotel, you can’t build a website about it, because i have another one on my great .hotel?
You don’t need to put leakage on brackets. Just read the o.co post and you’ll see the reality.
Listening is a good option, but don’t listen to people like emma, because when there is a question made with real data…they don’t answer.
Rick Schwartz
Actually it is YOUR TURN to give an example. A REAL example. Not a theory.
I have not read one from you but there are several here posted.
.xxx just happens to be the PERFECT example and it defeats everything you believe.
So the only one on this thread that is incredibly defensive is you. Why?
Why be stuck in ignorance when clear evidence is in front of you? That’s not being intellectually honest.
Stop running away from .xxx and explain it and how it does not square with anything you have said here? The burden here is squarely on you and turning the tables just shows how shallow your argument is. So have at it.
sportsca.rs
I’m sorry Rick, I don’t have any examples…
Now, don’t let me take up anymore of your valuable
time. I know now that asking ‘questions’ is not
really in harmony with this pump/cult blog!
Cheers,
Rick Schwartz
I did not see questions.
I saw something quite different.
You are entitled to believe what you like but you want what you”THINK” to be EQUAL to what has been”PROVEN”.
YOU asked for an example and when you got one, it was PERFECT and hit hit you right between the eyes. Your”Question” was DOA. Proven! Why not tackle that instead of running away? Instead of DISMISSING the evidence. That’s the point. xxx.com and .xxx
Why use this? Because this is the most recent evidence. This is the most exact evidence. This it the most public evidence. These are all facts and those that ignore facts have an agenda or something else going on. Most are here to learn and put the pieces of the puzzle together. When somebody comes here and tosses a meaningful piece of the puzzle away it is ODD. It is not normal. It is something we have witnessed for 10-15 years.
Come and qualify yourself with your personal examples. Domain name, numbers. Those that don’t or can’t do that are taken less seriously than those that do. Then add it all up and what do you have?
So if someone calls you a newbie it is because they have seen this movie so many times they can’t even count anymore. The domain industry is made up of people trying to fool people and when they get challenged they do what you do.
Altaf
@sportsca.rs
We alone are not sufficient. This board is the oldest domain forum, having a great deal of experts. I learned a lot from zero and remained grateful to Rick or other folks for much attention, But with due respect and diligent. My advice will be, not to challenge, rather learn each day new things. lucky that you are here, so please bring new issues we may learn from expert discussions. Don’t take anything personally.
AHEAD OF TIME
Examples
FACT – Alexa top sites .com
FACT – Saveme.com.br losing tons traffic to saveme.com and when they realise the HUGE LEAK they found out the more successful the business grows the larger LEAK will become.
BIG MISTAKE not buying or leasing the domain before.
FACT- Not only do you lose traffic not owning .com lots of customers will email the wrong email and this will loose tons of business and upset customers having to explain wasting their valuable time. It will look like your business is not successful enough to afford the .com
and it will cost you more money on customer service replying to everyone.
FACT
xxx.com traffic increase after .xxx
FACT
Billions spent on .com already and been around years so its imbedded in people’s brain and has the trust factor because most of the top sites are .com
FACT
When you go register domains at all the top domain registration sites .com is always first on the list.
Anunt
Casting.xxx and Casting.com
Yes, it would be nice to own casting.com along with casting.xxx
casting.xxx gets huge traffic because it has a website that has repeat customers.
casting.com gets only few visitors per day…maybe couple visitors from casting.xxx
The future is going to be ALL about websites and not ALL about domain extensions.
casting.com is making NO money while casting.xxx is making good money….numbers don’t lie!
My point: STOP comparing xxx.com and .xxx….compare domains to domains…
Don’t compare domain(xxx.com) to the whole registry(.xxx)
Compare Casting.com verses Casting.xxx
Casting.xxx wins because it has an awesome website!!!
Dave Wrixon
Rick to be honest, I am shocked. I thought ASCII dot coms got a lot of traffic.
I have an Arabic IDN doing a quarter of million visitors parked, and I know that some others are getting much more than that. I am pretty sure there must be IDN.com now getting a million visitors a year just parked.
Rick Schwartz
Dave,
You left out a big part of the equation. How much did those 250k visitors earn?
Fuck the noise
I think the point is comparing the 800 number to .com is people remember. Its a consumer habit. Just like how people always remember 1800 numbers. Same goes with .com domains and that commercial value of name.
Whats amazing is how Ricks league of investors are hyping up the gtld non sense.
Wait until the bloggers get advertisers. They wont be doing posts from there hearts. Instead they will focus on pleasing the gtld advertiser.
There was a domainer hyping up .us domains I been told at a traffic show and guess what I heard a horror story on this. That person lost xx, xxx amount by being taking advice from the fan boy. Now the fan boy tone is now geared towards .com and whatever he is doing on development.
Be very careful who to listen too. In the meantime, my type in traffic continues to grow and while I speculate in other extensions, .com is the way to go.
That pure type in traffic is more of a value in time.
UFO
Hey, seriously don’t worry about anything that is said, NOTHING is actually personal.
Basically all value in the domain world is built on recollection by consumers.
The second issue you don’t grasp is the massive level of sunk cost by the websphere itself. Just how many billions if not now trillions have been spent on promoting and building huge corporate marketing and delivery systems on the .com extension.
See? Huge corporates will NEVER have the inclination to migrate and consumer psych is such that you can’t overcome their attention span.
Lastly, there is money to be made in non .com that is for certain, but the lower cost has to be assessed relative to the disadvantages. This is all about making money, eyeballs are money.
With .xxx I think there’s money to be made. I think porno.xxx is a better domain than porno.com because if I got porno.xxx at 9.95 Pa then my cost per aquisition of an eyeball would likely be lower than Porno.com which Rick would fully value. Effectively the whole business case of the net revolves around us domainers and website owners acquiring eyeball traffic at a lower cost than we on sell it for.
Dave Wrixon
Rick,
I will be the first to acknowledge that we are not there yet. Things in the IDN are still very patchy, however, things are probably not as bad as you imagine. We were greatly immpacted by the actions of some imbecile at Google that didn’t have a clue what Punycode is and went on the rampage blocking IDN on mass. He was stopped but the damage has yet to be reversed.
Russian, Chinese and Hindi really are not working out at the moment. Russian and Chinese both get significant traffic but are not converting well.
Japanese get huge clicks often up aroudn the $30 Dollar level but traffic is still low volume. And I believe price per click will tumble when traffic picks up. Parking revenue is very much supply and demand.
Arabic is the bright spot for me. Domains are bringing in North of $100 a month, but I have credible reports of four figure monthly returns on sex related domains. We don’t have any in that sector. Possibly a mistake, as that was a conscious decision.
Our average conversion rate is about 9% with CPC of $0.12.
This is heavily skewed, however, as much of our traffic comes from single characters. Generic word terms have much higher conversion rates typically around the 50% mark.
The difference, however, between our portfolio and those of other is is that our revenues are at five time higher this year than last and we would expect that explosive trend to continue with the roll out of nGTLD.
However, none of this conflicts with your basic premise because out Domains are Dot Coms.
The biggest development at the Top Level is the roll out of Transliterations of Dot Com. The news that has not really grabbed the market yet, is that only those that already hold IDN.com will be able to take advantage.
Sure, you could buy me out tomorrow. But only if I were selling which I am not.
Joao
???
Good Domains
The value of a domain name does not solely lie in tangible numbers, but more in intangible factors.Yes, numbers are of course very important. But what I am saying is there should be more to be considered in determining the value of domains.Mother’s love cannot simpy appraised with certain numbers.One of the intangible factors is consumers’ trust in your business as a domain entity. Imagine you start a business with a domain .whatsoever.And your friend starts the same business with the same name .com.Who do you think consumers will choose for a deal? You will have to spend several years to build up consumers’ trust in your business that has only .whatsoever domain that can be easily bought for several hundred (or even thousand) dollars on a secodary market.But your friend with a good .com will almost instantly get trust from consumers just from the fact that your friend’s business has such a remarkable .com. That trust is invaluable. And the value of a domain name should reflect that invaluable intangible factor. I agree with Rick 100%.
Good Domains
I guess few belive that high rankings in search engines mean trustworthy business entities.Consumers will think those high ranking companies spent much money on SEO.That’s all.Nothing more than that.
trolling & digging
I’ve been sniffing around the net this evening looking for another name in a specific market… and the number of times I’ve come back to Frank Shillings network is quite surprising. Funny thing is that most of the landing pages have no monitization links.
Also, Amazon bots have been spending quite a bit of bandwidth on one of my sites, I guess they are doing comparision scraping, well F* em IP range 184.169.128.0 – 184.169.255.255 banned.
Chas
I like the way you think Rick.