Morning Folks!!
This post is going to change someone's life today. Maybe more than one. It's a post that will make a grown man cry when they have an aha moment.
Type-ins are the holy grail of domaining from at minimum a historical standpoint. Now PLEASE understand that does not mean a domain without type-ins have no value. What it does mean if you have a portfolio and you have NO type-ins on any domains, wtf are you doing?? If you were digging for oil and and you had 1000 wells and not a single well pumped an ounce of oil are you still an oil man?? Maybe. But a broke one for sure.
Let me give you a little history lesson. There was a substantial reason that .com became an investment and why it was so valuable and THE REASON was END USERS and TRAFFIC. PERIOD! That is what drove investment and drove value to begin with. Even domains with no traffic could evolve into ones that did. I proved that as I was buying mainstream domains. I chase tomorrow, I never chase yesterday. But when I chase tomorrow I can articulate a host of valid reasons and those reasons have a history of coming to fruition.
Now traffic today still and alway will have value. Value. Value! That's the #1 point of investing in domains. VALUE! Face value. That means if you collect dimes and you can buy a dime for 9 cents, you won't lose money. If you buy the dime for 11 cents and you think it has value the risk is too low to pass up. On the other hand if they want a $1000 for that dime, you better KNOW WTF you are doing. You better have a plan. You better know you stuff? Know why?? You may have just lost $999.90.
For me a type-ins can be as lille as 1 or 2 or 5 or 10 a day. It does not take much. But it is the #1 qualifier in VALUE. It PROVES that you are not the only idiot on the planet of 7 BILLION to think of it and type it in. Gee, that means it may mean something to someone or to many. The more the merrier.
Now of course if you have a portfolio with NO TRAFFIC you are going to jump up and down and disagree. It always happens. Go ahead. You are allowed to be wrong. Been hearing this for over 20 years. "All the good domains with traffic are gone." Well, no they are not. It's just your own bullshit that you believe and swallow and too dumb to spit out. YUM!
Type-in domains are born and they are for sale. If you would focus on tomorrow you might see type-in traffic being BORN! Don't believe it. Then you really should look for a new career.
So, now lets fast forward to GTLD's. What LAUNCHED .com domains to have GREAT value was traffic. Traffic was the earnings that PAID for buying the next domain. There was no aftermarket. GTLD's are ass backwards, they tried to create an aftermarket before there was even any value or market to begin with. And ooops, NO TRAFFIC of significance.
According to DomainNameWire.com: Paul Nicks, VP & GM for GoDaddy's Aftermarket, the world's largest registrar, had the following breakdown in domain sales for 2018. NUMBERS DON'T LIE!! PEOPLE LIE! (Especially when they are trying to sell you a bag of smoke)
"92% of sales are .com, followed by 2.6% for .org, 1.5% .net and 1.4% .co. Avg. selling price of $2,268 for .com. .Com and .Org number of sales were up YoY; .net and .co were down."
So if my math is right that adds up to 97.5%. That leaves a whopping 2.5% of sales divided among 350 some odd country codes and about 550 new GTLD's. Got that telescope out yet? Don't worry, you won't need it. The only thing you will see is INSIGNIFICANCE!! Something with no meaning.
This is on a large and grand scale. I think it also proves the point I have made for decades about .net being weak and an orphan extension and that even .org had more demand and more meaning.
Now let me be clear, I would have NEVER EVER focused on or even invested in one domain if I only focused on .org and .net. I would not be writing this blog. Nobody would have ever heard of me and chances are I would have never looked at domains as anything viable or worth my time or effort. I would have gone broke had I focused on those and many more will go broke focusing on ANYTHING other than .com UNTIL you make your first few million. And then you will learn like I did that it was a waste of time, effort and money, And their numbers are exponentially better than any new GTLD now or in the DECADES to come.
I talk from experience. I have BEEN the "Birdie in the mine." In my career I have invested over $1 Million in various extensions. 1 sale. Why? No, need, no want, no desire, no value, no market, no nothing. PRIME one word domains that if was .com would have GREAT value but because it is .net or .org or .tv or .info or .me or .mobi or .biz or .whatever, has virtually no value but MUCH MUCH worse as Godaddy has PROVEN, is there is NO DEMAND whatsoever!!! And of those, .org has the most value and recognition but very small demand.
And most of GTLD demand is domainer to domainer which renders it completely meaningless and worthless. A simple game of musical chairs and so-called "Domain Investors" will be left holding the bag.
It also shows that as I write about each extension Godaddy registrations are very thin. It's very telling when you have many millions of GTLD domains registered and the world's largest is way down on the list of almost every "High Flyer". I have written extensively about it and it certainly catches my attention as a VERY IMPORTANT fact. It tells a story. A BIG story for anyone willing to read the tea leaves and understand. It demonstrates just how HOLLOW and FAKE the GTLD registration market is. It also shows which extensions MIGHT have a fighting chance. But if you don't STUDY the numbers and you still invest in GTLD's, then it's all on you.
The chances of selling anything other than .com is just stacked against you. It's astounding anyone, let alone so-called domain investors, can't do simple math. And when they do, they see they can get 1% to 10% of the .com value, with an audience that is looking for a .com by nearly a 100-1 ratio. Can you folks do math????????????? Do you know what the chances are of selling a GTLD for even what it costs you let alone making a profit??
If I owned a car dealership and one guy did 97.5% of the business and i had 900 other dealers next to me splitting up 2.5%, and then added to that my cars are 99% less profitable, I would rethink wtf I was doing or at least MOVE!
Point is about YOUR TIME. It's about YOUR EFFORT. It's about how much TIME and MONEY are you willing to waste?? And it gets worse. Even if you found an end user starting with a new GTLD, they will eventually upgrade once they wise up. This is now a trend. Many are doing this from .net and .org or multi words to less or one words. When others see this HUGE TREND, it will say to them to BYPASS the other crap right from the get-go. Your best chance at success is their ignorance. Good luck with that as a long term strategy! PITFALLS, 100's of them, will destroy nearly every single end user into submission.
The path is simple. Take a risk, but take a smart risk. As I mentioned last week, ImpeachTrump.com sold for $3500. I f*cked up by missing it. Point is ANYONE reading this could have grabbed that and had something that would fit MY EQUATION of NEED, WANT, DESIRE, VALUE, AUDIENCE and TYPE-IN traffic! That was a domain that can and will be flipped. That's how you START in domaining. You buy a GEM first and then parlay it! So why are so many wasting their time and money on what does not work? Will never work, has been proven not to work? But at the same time ignore what does?? Beats me! Especially since there are PLENTY of .com domains of great value for BARGAIN prices.
Rick Schwartz
UPDATE:
Paul Nicks slide shows the lower entries (after the 97.5%)
.io 0.4 %
.ca 0.2%
.us 0.2%
.co.uk 0.1%
Conclusion: Not only are GTLD's No where to be found, they have proven themselves meaningless. Numbers don't like, REGISTRIES and DOMAINERS DO!
Alex Verdea
Rick- ImpeachTrump.com sold way to cheap, and I missed out on it also.
“92% of sales are .com, followed by 2.6% for .org, 1.5% .net and 1.4% .co. Avg. selling price of $2,268 for .com. .Com and .Org number of sales were up YoY; .net and .co were down.”
Numbers don’t lie. Dot .com is the bread and butter and will be for many years to come. Not surprised to see .org in 2nd place, as I got more inquiries in 2018 for .org names and sold a few.
The last .co’s I sold was NNNs.co in the Chinese “bubble” and glad I got rid of those… Sold all .co in a swoop, bought more .coms
The other week I was talking with a founder and CEO of a new App and I didn’t even know it right away. Long story short they decided to go with “THEXXXXXAPP.com” because “type in traffic” was not important to them and they couldn’t justify spending 5 figures on my XXXXX.com I was like Your APP will survive based on how many people will download it, and convert/subscribe to your “premium service”. If NOBODY knows you, your app is dead. How much WILL it cost you not doing this deal? What’s your ROI on no downloads? What’s the ROI on “0”? Since you think my price is to high, shit let’s add another zero to it moving forward.
Anyways the name gets 200+ type ins a day..and I am holding on to it.
As for GTLD’s… What’s a GTLD Rick? :))
Leonard Britt
Many end users view a domain purchase like a trip to an office supply or book store – $50 to $75 max out of pocket. So when you quote four to five figures for a domain, they make up something else. I have even had end users inquiring about a domain reply they thought an $XXX quote was excessive.
Snoopy
Agree, most people have a budget of $10, so no point getting worked up about 1 inquiry because 99% of people would not pay the price and never will.
Alex Verdea
Snoopy- I was pointing out that the prospect didn’t care about the type in value… When they decided to hand reg the name, I decided to send that msg and added another 0 to my price. At least I came to an agreement with the prospect that it was expensive… ;)
I usually go with the 98/2 rule, but your version – 99% of people won’t buy is close enough :)
Here’s something to think about: ALL leads convert 100% sooner or latter. If they don’t transact with me they will with You, Rick, Godaddy, etc etc. So what if you can get “a piece” of that 99% to convert with you? Dismissing the 99% is silly, and that’s were the “magic is”…
Snoopy
99% have a budget of $10 and they’d prefer to spend it at Godaddy, so it isn’t a market worth chasing or corresponding with.
Focus on the 1%, get rid of the 99% as quickly as you can because they will never agree with you.
Bul
Don’t go hard on yourselves on the impeachtrump.com. A friend of mine once owned a domain that contained the word “trump” and that Michael Cohen had no problem wrestling that domain away from him. Why? Because trump has been stamping the word “Trump” on almost anything for 30 years (and if i am not wrong, he owns the “TRUMP” trademark) and has acquired rights on that name for use in a commercial sense. As soon as that domain becames popular, he will certainly take that domain in an instant. His been taking them with such an arrogance for years. Good luck to the buyer…a trump associate perhaps?
Steve
There was a “santa claus store” which “Marcus” on the profit television show invested in. He lectured the owners on why they were crazy to have a .net and they needed to upgrade to a .com. This is an update from their site, “Santastoys.net now redirects to Santastoys.com”
Alex Verdea
Steve-Marcus acquired SantasToys.com for $? an undisclosed amount. It makes sense since he invested in that biz. I did see the episode where he was like “what’s a .net? or Why a .net? ” and the business owner was like it only cost $70USD.
Marcus also owns other amazing names marshmallows.com, strawberries.com etc…
mize
Rick, I’ve always been curious what held you back from “backing up the truck”……buying up all the type-in traffic domains you could get….with the profits you were making from the type-in traffic domains you already had…and just keep repeating the process with the new profits. I suppose many around that time did not realize they could make money with the type-in traffic…and maybe not even know they were getting traffic. Was there something holding you back or to be cautious about?
Rick Schwartz
Many Reasons
First, I was was still wading into unknown territory that was a “Fad” if you listen to many on Wall Street and in Media.
It could be over tomorrow and that was a fear I had every day. I did not want to get caught with my pants down and lose everything. I saw that way too many times in my life. Slow and steady.
There was no reseller market whatsoever.
I had to balance it between being retired and living well and risk and sometimes it’s just better to be cautious and move slow.
Besides that, I myself was learning. Learning how too monetize. Learning how to corral the traffic. Learning how to convert the traffic.
There was a point, that I could have kept it all to myself. But it a race against time. It was better for me to share the wealth because it would help me than suffocating things.
And I did repeat what I did 3 different times. I made a $1.5 MM revenue machine. Then added another one and another one. But part of the equation is enjoying life. So I always factored that in. You can never ever get that time back.
And I was not sophisticated. I don’t know how to write scripts etc. I was limited to what my own mind could think of. So you could see that alone put me at a disadvantage.
I did not know how to Cut and paste. I did not know how to FTP. I did not know the difference between an ISP and a UPS.
All I had was some business history. I felt like Hellen Keller. I remember back in the early 1980’s trying to get online with CompuServe. I wanted to rip my hair out. I was lost and in the dark without a way out.
I invested tons of $$. Millions. But by then smart guys like Slavik and many others in the adult world started copying what I was doing with much more sophistication. And that was still YEARS before Frank arrived on the scene.
So adult domains skyrocketed. I was buying whatever I could and fighting for the rest. But what I did then, was part buying mainstream domains and remember, there was NO mainstream at the time. No way to make revenue. They were a CENTURY behind the adult guys.
And of course adult guys started buying mainstream domains.
I was flying high until a very expensive divorce. That took me out of the game for 2003, 2004 and was not until 2005 that I was able to recover and bought Property.com. for $750k. Then Candy.com etc. and was back in the saddle. 2007 and 2008 were my best PPC years. But 2015 was my best selling domain years.
And this tidbit, the last thing I wanted to do was have to sell a domain name. When I sold Men.com in 2003 or 2004 it was not because I wanted to. It was distressing to me to be FORCED to sell. I had to, to get back on financially stable ground again. And it was also an opportunity its to PROVE the value of domains. And finally that was the sale that gave me the street cred to start and finance T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
There were domains like porn.com I was chasing for years. When It was $750k I could not afford it. When I could afford it. The price was $1.5MM. When I had $1.5MM the price was $3MM and so on.
But at $3MM I am no loner a buyer. Too risky for my blood.
My Porno.com netted a little over $600k less than Porn.com sold for. However Porn.com was a superior name with superior traffic.
I was getting 33,000 visitors a day perhaps a little more. Porn.com was closer to 200,000/day and a much more current term.
Caution and enjoying a good life every day is the short answer to the equation.
Plus remember, they were $100 a pop to register. I was still guessing which domains would have traffic and which would not. Now that’s really easy for me.
mize
Thank You Rick for the insight….very much appreciated!
Reuben
Yes Rick, you are right, talking from a speculator standpoint. But if talking from an end-user stand point I thing you are not right, because most GTLDs, specially .CO domains are being bought by end-users who refuse to pay or don’t have large sums for .COM domains, whereas most premium .COM domains are just changing hands between speculators. The so called domain investors must be thankful to God for this domain investing business is possible only with the existence in this world of people who have illusions, who are unrealistic dreamers, who have excessive and unreasonable hope for lots of money, no difference to gambling business, and it is due to the fact that this type of people are many that we now have domain business, that is, domain investors selling premium domain names to other domain investors 99,99% of time, without getting them to end-users. Almost all domain names that sold for millions of Dollars all these years are parked or undeveloped. YOUTUBE,FACEBOOK, YAHOO, GOOGLE, AMAZON, SNAPCHAT, TWITTER, ALEXA, CRAIGSLIST, LINKEDIN, WALLMART, WIKIPEDIA, HOTMAIL, INSTAGRAM, GITHUB, JASMIN, PORNHUB, XNXX, XHAMSTER etc etc etc are not premium domains, they are made up domains, and are the ones that are the top 20 OR 30 0R 50websites in the world. The owners of these websites did not need/want to buy any premium domain names because to project initiators domain name is the least of their problems. In fact premium domain name business is the only business I know of in the world that is driven almost entirely by excessive and unreasonable hope, by dreamers.The product rarely is bought by end-users. Sorry, the other one is lottery business.
I suspect in the near future premium domain names will become memorabilia, no usefulness. Watch, some premium domain investors will be left holding bag if domain names keep on changing hands among investors.
Snoopy
You think Amazon.com, Alexa.com, Jasmin.com not premium domains? So many errors in these posts.
You think .co is a “gtld”? .com is a gtld, .com/.net/.org are the main gtlds.
So much of these posts are mixed up with basic stuff all wrong.
Richard
Amazon bought prime.com
Google bought GV.com
Facebook bought FB.com
Snapchat bought Snap.com
Rick Schwartz
Yes Rick, you are right, talking from a speculator standpoint. But if talking from an end-user stand point I thing you are not right, because most GTLDs, specially .CO domains are being bought by end-users who refuse to pay or don’t have large sums for .COM domains, whereas most premium .COM domains are just changing hands between speculators.”
Yes, thanks.
I am a domain speculator as are most of my readers and that is my primary view. However, I have been in many businesses and I can also see it thru the eyes of an end-user. The problem is you did not articulate the PITFALLS they have and just because they don’t see it, just because they don’t understand it at the beginning, one day they do. And the costs might be staggering.
Nobody ever downgraded to a .co or a .whatever. People, end-users, upgrade to .Com every single day of the week.
Snoopy
I think the vast majority of business people see the pitfalls of new tlds straight away. The endusers who buy them are some small fraction of one percent. Some % of people still bought Zune’s, HD-DVD and smokeless cigarettes as well. If marketed enough a bad product sells to some degree.
Sigma
It’s about how much TIME and MONEY are you willing to waste?? ~ R.S.
Apparently, there are plenty of domain speculators with more time and money to wastw than good sense and patience.
RaTHeaD
Chill Maestro. A word to wise is sufficient. A fool will never learn. You were right and they were wrong. and so it goes.
Snoopy
“That leaves a whopping 2.5% of sales divided among 350 some odd country codes and about 550 new GTLD’s.”
Little doubt that the vast majority of that 2.5% would be be country codes, both mainstream (.co.uk, .de) and rebranded ones (.co, .me, .cc .tv, .io, ai etc).
Would have been very interesting to see the GTLD numbers, is it something like 2.5% of that 2.5%? It must be pretty ugly for Godaddy to not even state what it is.
John
>”This post is going to change someone’s life today.”
Thanks for posting again. This is definitely a great and valuable post. The deeper truth is that God is the one who can use your post to change someone’s life. All the credit always has to go to Him. He uses people as instruments of “grace,” and everything you even did and learned all those years by the sweat of your brow and passion of effort came from Him as a gift nonetheless. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive at all. And contrary to what some might think too, for the purpose of this concept the fact that you were involved with “adult” domains including one of the few big whoppers of them all is completely irrelevant and does not detract from that in any way. But that leads to a whole side can of worms there’s no need to go into now.
So I for one really appreciate this post, it definitely resonates with me, and I definitely think God by His divine providence has already used it to change my life and life trajectory to some degree. How many times have you used the word “calibrate” or “recalibrate”? I like that terminology too and it definitely applies here.
John
And this of course is far from the only such post as well.
Snoopy
Paul Nicks slide shows the lower entries (after the 97.5%)
.co 1.4% (fell 23% over the year prior)
.io 0.4 %
.ca 0.2%
.us 0.2%
.co.uk 0.1%
No gtld even measuring on the the Richter scale.
Jose
You know this domain (.com) as the discovery of a whole new era, as well be, you and others, find all the words and numbers of 1, 2, 3 ………. that with the years since 1995 has been strengthening your portfolio valued by you if I remember correctly in 500 or 1000 million USD may not have a 0 next to some of these numbers.
Always since I met him in a photo not in person (unluckily mine, now I would not be writing this comment, in his blog) I admired him as a business and financial man for his business, premium domains (.com)
I am interested to see you inform yourself about this blog Domainnamewire.com I read all of this market domain, market advertising, strategy, e-commerce, logistics, economics, research and innovation, applications, photography, music ….. the emerging culture of the online business, in which there is always one like Mr. Paul Nicks who reports for the other High Positions of the Godaddy Board of Directors and so on all the others of this market and the others that I follow, listening to events, conferences online and in person
What I do not like are the televised and online shows of the big chains, this is not a Show now see for yourself what you re-publish Domainnamewire.com for this first comment 2019 January 26, 2019, at 6:43 pm
How does Vacation? rentals rank today?
Google: “3rd-page result”
Bing: “2nd page”
Yahoo: “2nd page”
In relation to this link:
https://domainnamewire.com/2018/04/11/vacation-rentals-domain-name-sells-for-record-500300/
A $ figure, nothing despicable.
I in premium gTLD domains as I already write in your blog gives me to live very well, with expired domains (.com) I’ve been three years with these domains of a single word without being able to sell, can be remembered and can be do business in many categories and online activities Nayuma.com, Nakaty.com, Vacry.com do not ask for a $ 1,000,000 what I have come to offer recognized domainer from $ 500 to $ 2,500 that you would do, I would clean my lips from my mouth to not pronounce what you write assiduously in your blog.
I decided that at the end of this year 2019 I will leave the domain for buying and selling, I will only buy to develop online business on websites, e-commerce ……… of my viable and updated web projects and I will buy premium domains for commission for my new clients in startups, how to leave written in my last comment in your blog.
Happy Day. Jose
Snoopy
A bit more number crunching on this,
Godaddy’s top 10 extensions account for 99.0% of aftermarket sales (based on Godaddy slides). If you see on the slides though other large country codes look to be just outside the top 10, e.g. .de and .com.au.
All those other country codes (.de, .com.au + hundreds more), all other gtlds such as .info, .biz and all new tlds are sharing the remaining 1%. Can you imagine how low the share of new tlds actually is in the aftermarket? I’d say it is unlikely that it is even 0.1%.
Adam
SO what’d you think about his stats on their appraisal tool ?