The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Morning Folks!!

When I first suggested that 90% of all domainers should DROP 90% of their domains and start over again most laughed. I have now suggested it multiple times. People aren't laughing so much anymore. Now they actually see my point and some may be considering it.

During the last days I have asked for domain submissions to sell and then appraise. Do you folks understand now?? What is posted is better than the ones I get emailed to me. I see crap all day long. What the hell were they thinking?

Even worse, you guys got some really ugly domains! The value is just so limited. Let me give you a couple examples of that limitation. First, one commenter yesterday wrote this:

Hi Rick,

Here’s my best old-school domain:

United-States.org – Is it worth anything?!

Similar name: united-states.net was sold for 760 USD in 2009-04-25 on NameJet

Thank you.

So Let's break this apart and look at the flaws in thinking.

First thing that jumped out at me was comparing a sale of nearly a decade ago for a measly $760. Really? That's not aiming very high.

The next thing is his domain actually has MORE VALUE than the .net. Albeit marginal. In this case the .org is superior to the .net.

The next thing of course is the dash. Obviously without the dash the domain would have some real value and be very meaningful.

So then I investigate UnitedStates.org and it's basically "Coming Soon" so that does not help the value. That hurts the value. I go to UnitedStates .com, it's a redirect. I go to United-States.com and it is a holding page from Godaddy.

The ONLY thing that can make that domain valuable is an IDEA! Content! Something real. Or if "Dashes" become popular. (Longshot)

But I keep getting back to that $760 comparison. Why aren't you looking for a $76,000 or $760,000 comparison? How many years do you want to wait for chump change IF you can find anyone to give you that chump change?

And the worst part, this domain was better than MORE THAN half of the others posted!

Then we have the brandables. I like brandables. But that's a really tough game to play and there are way too many variables and choices. I have brandables in my portfolio. But they are more like a topping and not a focus.

ALL Domain appraisals are a SCAM! PERIOD! ONLY FOOLS and DOMAINERS believe them. The only appraisal that counts is your own. If you want to show your rookie status, just go waiving one of these appraisals around. Not worth the paper they are written on.

There are ways to relaunch a domain portfolio. If you have 1000 names that's $10k a year or $100k over 10 years. Go make a deal and buy a $100k domain with 10 year financing and you would be in better shape! 1 GREAT domain has more value if you are not making it than 1000.

Most so-called portfolios are not portfolios at all. They are recurring bills. Recurring bills put more folks in bankruptcy than any other thing. You and ONLY you can decide which domains are assets. But I will continue ti maintain that most domain portfolios I see have no value whatsoever. NON! NAHDAH!

Let's take another domain posted. TrentBridgeHotels.com

So here are the problems.

1. Trent Bridge is a tiny town with 47,000 population. Never heard of it before yesterdays post.


2. Trent Bridge only has a handful of hotels.


3. The domain with value would be the singular and that would only be valuable to Trent Bridge Hotel if there is one. That value would have limits. Maybe a few hundred or a couple grand at most to only ONE potential customer on EARTH. Not a good investment!


4. TrentBridge.com itself has low value and is listed for sale. So a superior name w/o much value.


5. Point is if you do this, focus on larger cities that actually have a lot of hotels.


6. It's all about population centers. This domain has virtually no value for the reasons listed. It's a liability not an asset!

1. Laugh Hard!


2. Laugh Harder


3. Laugh Hardest


4. I can't get off the floor


5. I am dying to catch my breath from laughing way too hard


6. ok, deal!

Morning Folks!!

Ask around, I NEVER EVER give appraisals. I get many emails every day looking for appraisals. Sorry, never have and I doubt I ever will except TODAY!

I have 6 categories of of Appraisal for domainers selling me domains.

1. Laugh Hard!


2. Laugh Harder


3. Laugh Hardest


4. I can't get off the floor


5. I am dying to catch my breath from laughing way too hard


6. ok, deal!

And the 10 multiple is a minimum. Don't like that, then stop selling to domainers and do the legwork REQUIRED to sell to an end user! You are not selling something liquid. So the upside for the buyer has to be tremendous or they would not buy nor be interested.

Personally I see the best bang for the buck in domains up to about $2500. I look for a domain like that, that has a value of $100k or more and snap them up when I see them.

Domainers selling to other domainers is a sign of desperation. That made a lot of us rich. But I understand it is the only game in town for so many. It's the only way to make ends meet. And when you do that, you end up selling your best for the cheapest. Not a smart equation. So you have to figure out how NOT to do that. How not to be in that position. Not saying it's easy, but it's your JOB! It's the other half of your job that so many ignore.

My best domains slipped thru the hands of those I bought them from. I don't mind sharing that with you because I said all this very early on and throughout the years. But as I buy less, I can share more and more details.

Whether you want it asked or not. Whether you are willing to be straight or not, type-in traffic is still an important qualifier. Especially when dealing with high value domains. There should be SOME traffic. Now I don't base my purchases on traffic like I did early on. That was the holy grail to pay for the renewals. Adult was ALL about traffic and I never looked to "Search" to find that traffic. There are many other methods to grow your audience.

To me, SEARCH is the extra you get and not what you depend on to grow. It's a perk not a foundation. Maybe upside down to most, but that is my strong view. Anyone only talking about search is misguided in my way of viewing the Internet and long term marketing. You can't depend on search. You can't depend on Google. You can't depend on Facebook. You can't depend on Twitter. You have to do some heavier lifting than just spending money or fooling the system for the short term.

A domains' value may be in the different ways it can be reinvented. A great location can support a gas station or a bank or a restaurant or a rental center or a host of other businesses. Other locations may be landlocked in the way it can be used. And that may not be bad. Just know the difference.

So what's the value of your domain name? Hell if I know. I only appraise the ones I buy with my wallet and the ones that make me laugh until I cry all day long!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Sorry, but maybe it is time to question the mental health of the so-called "Domain Industry". There are very smart people in it. There are also some very dumb and silly people. There are predators too. You can decide which group is biggest.

I have been in dozens of industries in my life. 55 as a matter of fact. Never saw one as bjg as ours and so splintered and messed up. Directionless. The golden goose has been abused and misused and many of you are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and also justify the time spent. That equation is in real and serious trouble.

I don't sell domains to domainers I BUY domains from domainers. I don't sell you folks anything since TRAFFIC closed in 2014. But just like before, I share. I share what I see and how I think it will unfold and I share why. I will always piss off multiple groups because the truth is sometimes their enemy and I don't carry water for anyone but progress and success!

We are not progressing. We are not even stuck. We are sliding backwards. Long gone are the VC guys of 2006. Long gone are the $12 million domain auctions of 2007. Long gone are the shrimp as big as my fist in 2008. The month of the stock market and housing crash. Long gone is the hope for new GTLD's of 2013. Long gone are so many things. But folks think they can ignore that. You can. But I look at the pattern. The trajectory. The fallout. The differences. The similarities. The ups and downs. The quality of domains and their prices. I only buy domains in a depressed market. This is a depressed market.

However with time, there is also clarity. Even with the dense fog of bullshit and noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. YEARS of it!! But until you realize that registries and registrars MEAN NOTHING to you as domainers the industry will never have direction and meaning. I am so glad you are letting the Division of Drivers Licenses have so much influence when they should have NONE! Who are they to YOU?? They are not your FRIENDS! They are salespeople! And that is fine. I don't blame them one bit. I blame domainers for being ignorant of their true role and value. They facilitate and protect. PERIOD!!

The domain game is changing. It always has and always will. But we had a 5 year detour that is now coming to an ABRUPT end! With the reported bankruptcy of Famous Four, this is the beginning of the end. But it was all predicted RIGHT HERE on this blog. We looked at it from every single angle and it was a loser each and every time.

Most products may have 1 or 2 weak points. GTLD's have 122 weak points! They sold you a bag of shit and you ate it like Filet Mignon! That's the ugly truth, deal with it!

GTLD's took a thriving industry and derailed it. Did not kill it. Derailed it. The motivation of GTLD's was not to make it easier to navigate like the Library and the Dewey Decimal System. It was a money grab by people that were not making money!

One of the biggest reasons I closed TRAFFIC in 2014 is because I did not want to be involved with this pump and dump scheme and promote their NOISE. I would rather walk away than be USED as a TOOL for their agenda! I was even offered a percentage of Namescon. Howard was not interested. I could not do it. I don't sell out. PERIOD! I would not lend MY NAME to give credibility where it was not deserved. So it was easier to leave the scene for a few years and come back when my predictions started to unfold and MOST domainers would stop being BLIND. They are on record, I am on record. GTLD investors got their heads handed to them and the industry got hijacked.

The worst thing, just look at the GTLD CRAP that they register. Most would be worthless as a .com. What are they thinking?

So the industry is now controlled by registrars, registries and GTLD companies. Domain Investors are just a group to be used and abused because they are either brain dead, stupid or foolish. The evidence is overwhelming and it increases every single day. RIP GTLD's. Now run along and make room for the pros again!

Do you know that the difference between a .com and a any of the 1000 GTLD's?? One is recognized universally and is synonymous with the Internet and the other is a total FRAUD brought to market for all the wrong reasons and means nothing to NO ONE on earth but the peddlers of this crap and silly domainers that swallow their shit! (registries, registrars and domainers looking for the second coming). Enjoy driving your Yugo's as they fall apart. I am happy with the Mercedes of extensions. The Rolls Royce of Extensions. The Cadillac of extensions. You GTLD guys are sick of me posting? TFB. Too bad! I had to listen to YEARS of your noise promising this and that and delivering on none of it.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

A week ago Friday was the first time I ever visited the 75,000 sq. ft. factory of Candy.com in Braintree, MA since we made the deal in 2008 when I think they had 3500 ft. That's a little larger than 1/2 of a Costco store. It is set up like a Home Depot. They/We have 120 employees and the $15 million volume figure I gave a few weeks back is a "little" low but I can't say anymore than that.

And they have 2 new divisions. Things are going well! I could not be more proud of Greg and Joe. So let me tell you the story about candy.com from Greg's memory. So Friday we went to lunch at the Chateau in Waltham. A place that opened in 1933 and I loved as a 9 year old and since.

Greg was 22 at the time of the candy.com deal. He told me how many times I hung up the phone on him. Yes, hung up on him. He wanted the name but had very little funds. We laughed so hard talking about it 10 years later. Now both married with families. It was just a fantastic time!

But I always believed in them, their vision and their work ethic as I grew to know them. So we made a deal.It was only $60k out of their pocket. $30k each. Not a huge amount, not small either, but it showed their determination. They have not lost one ounce of energy and determination. They are growing and growing at a very rapid clip as they expand and fulfill.

The one thing we all agreed on, it was the DOMAIN NAME that guaranteed they would have a seat at the table, have credibility and be taken seriously. It helped to guarantee their success IF and only IF they could match their products and services with the same high quality and dependability. And they have!!!! They are a wholesale food company becoming more and more important to third parties.

My share of the company is growing in value. What started at 5% is now 12.55% and these guys are about to really breakthrough in a very big way. 10 years of hard work is now paying off. There are so many things I would like to share about their expansion and visit, but I can't at this time. But it's very exciting so stay tuned. I have watched them grow, I have watched them struggle, I have watched them battle it every single day. Great job guys!! Easily the deal I am most proud of because I have great and energetic and SMART partners and they are still very young and hungry at ages 32 and 40. If defines what a great domain name can become.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Yesterday morning it was reported that Famous Four, The LARGEST new GTLD registry may be getting ready to declare bankruptcy! They have nearly 25% of all new GTLD registrations with about 5 million!! They have 14 of the top 100. 5 of the top 20! The biggest may be about to fall and we have total silence!? Just 1 comment on the story. No other stories. REALLY?? Are you folks BRAIN DEAD?? Hiding?

This should be shaking the new GTLD's to the CORE! The lipstick and the PIG are now available for public viewing! The Clusterf*ck is starting to fall apart. If it is falling apart for them, what's going on with all the others? You know the ones with 2000 registrations not 5 million!

Just an hour AFTER I posted about the domain industry being in decline, this story broke. Talk about timing! I commented on it on my next post. Where are the 1000's of so-called "GTLD Domainers"? Do they not understand the possible and probable impact on their holdings?

This whole thing has been a JOKE! A Mess! The biggest money grab I have ever seen! And funded by DOMAINERS!! Domainers that are poorer now then they were! That wasted time and money and GOT FOOLED! That's right, you got FOOLED!b Deal with it. You can stop your own pumping and dumping now. The jig is up. It did not work.It is collapsing before our very eyes! Even Helen Keller can see it. I know, you might not know who she is.

Need, want desire, value. That sunk them before they ever registered the first domain. It was an ill conceived plan by ill conceived people, with ill conceived motives that were JEALOUS of the success we were having with .com. So they came out with this GARBAGE to HIJACK our industry and now they get to start seeing it come apart and they will forever be associated with this.

The domain industry has been hijacked by these companies and we should get our industry back! They need to go and I can't wait as they ALL die on the vine and we can get back to business.

It does not say much about the smarts of domainers as they keep going to shows that ONLY want to present the GTLD Kool-aid. They are ONLY in business for REGISTRIES and REGISTRARS to convince you that their shit is not shit. OPEN YOUR EYES! It's shit!

Is there a single show without .Club on stage pitching or Registrars that mean NOTHING! What happened to the REAL domain investors?? No room for REALITY! At this point they are advertisements. They are infomercials, no longer information. Total waste of time, money and energy and you get fooled too and domainers are clueless as they get RAPED with misinformation that could not hold up to honest scrutiny! They feed you SHIT and domainers swallow that SHIT! Time to burp!

The industry is SILENT about the single biggest story to hit us in a very long time. Maybe years! If they are in trouble and silence suggest they are, they WON'T BE ALONE!! This will be the beginning of the end. TIMBER!!!!!

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I sold all my bitcoin a while back before it crashed. Timing is everything! But Bitcoin has lost a lot of luster since then and it may be poised to hit a 6 month low of $6000 from a high close to $20,000 last December. Crypto is depressed.

Will I buy bitcoin again? Not as an investment. I may buy to use as a form of payment, but that would only be in small quantities. I might still take bitcoin as a form of payment.

I pulled down a 7 figure total bitcoin gain in 2017. About half from coins I had bought during earlier years and then about half from those coins that I bought in 2017 up to the $5000 mark which was my cutoff and I wrote about it at the time. But I don't see that repeating itself anytime soon. I feel bad for those that bought at the high. Hopefully they cut their losses before they got hurt.

Supply and demand in real time. Supply is up, demand is down. Last year it was a HUGE Christmas gift. THAT is what I believe drove up the prices along with the momentum. Both are now gone and while I think there will be a modest rise during Christmas, it won't be a repeat of 2017 IMHO.

That frenzy is over! Looking for the next wave. The next thing. It's sitting there RIGHT NOW!! What do you think the next "Big Thing" is and how to get into it TODAY!

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

The first question I asked myself was how do I carry these great domains for 20 years? 20 years because that was the timeframe I believed it would take for all this "Information Superhighway" as it was called back then, to hit critical mass. Most concern themselves first with selling the golden goose they just acquired. I wanted EGGS!

My thought process was how do I AVOID being forced into selling a domain name? My GOAL was to have as much of my entire portfolio intact in 20 years and only selling when the goose was perfectly Golden Brown.

My GOAL was NOT to sell domain names but to acquire and collect them until TIME ran out on that. It was a race against time. I was filling up my shopping cart. I was filling up as many carts as I could as fast as I could. The thought of selling was NEVER even on my mind. What was on my mind was demand for what I owned. The rest would naturally fall in place without me doing a thing.

But that was all BEFORE I began the process of monetizing those domains. That gave it an entirely new dimension. A profitable dimension. One I never expected in the volume it did. PPC raked in about $30 million over the years. Why sell?? Those eggs were being laid faster than I could count them or eat them. It was a windfall far greater than anything I had ever imagined.

At the time I had no idea which direction things would go. There was no mainstream and adult had barely begun. But adult was the only game in town for the first few YEARS!

Adult was the only way to pay for the domains I had and allowed me to keep buying more and more and better and better domains. I will never apologize for following the only trail there was at the time. I could have made tens of millions more had I had adult content. But I did not want the liability. Laws are murky at best. Any politician can decide to make an example of you. Just ask Sahar.

So I sent the traffic to third parties. I decided if they tried to make me liable for a simple link, then the entire Internet would just collapse as the Internet is all about links. I still believe that. Mugshots.com may have a problem, but try and go after somebody just linking to them. That dog won't hunt on this medium.

Fast Forward to today. My portfolio is still almost all intact (my original goal). The Golden Geese I have sold all made the DNJournal top sales list. Many in the annual top 10 or 20. I sold when those birds were golden brown which was also my original goal.

Thru all the naysayers I never veered off the path that I envisioned nearly 23 years ago. So here I am on the other side of my 20 year plan. What a fantastic ride it has been! Time for me to get back to the Geese!

I always believed that getting domains was like musical chairs. Once the music stopped, the best domains would be gone and never available again. So the key I really had, was a SENSE OF URGENCY!

Now when I see folks using that same game plan with GTLD's, I can only shake my head. It's just not the same. It's not even close. It's a bad dish with a terrible recipe and it has nothing in common with .com. Different time, different era, different demand, different needs, different audience, different EVERYTHING but these GENIUSES expect the same result. Not happening.

And as I write this it is reported that the biggest GTLD player, Famous Four, may be heading to bankruptcy. How much EVIDENCE would you like? Need more? Stay tuned as these folks start to DIE ON THE VINE!

Maybe it is time to question your sanity? If you want to have a real gut check, look at the domains listed on my post for GTLD's for sale. These are THEIR BEST!? Even I was surprised about the quality! A couple were ok. But by the time anyone ever hears of those extensions many of us will be DEAD! I never even heard of a few of them! I mean a nine letter extension to replace a 3 letter one? Really?? Why are 3 letter .com initials going for so much? Why are 3 digit and 4 digit .com number domains going for so much?

This entire Clusterf*ck is ass backwards as are half the extensions. Sorry, but verbs and adjectives usually go BEFORE the noun not after the noun. English 101.  .Best is one of my favorite upside down extensions. It's best this and best that. It's not this best and that best. DUH!

Here is the 20 year plan for new GTLD's for domain INVESTORS: You will all be broke and most of the registries will be as well.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

As I look at the current conditions of the domain industry I can only come to the conclusion that the industry is in major decline. It did not start yesterday or even this year, it started a few years back and it is just getting more noticeable. My vantage point may be different and probably much longer than most readers.

Looking back I would say 2005-2015 was the epicenter and also the peak for domain name investing. At least so far. Business is cyclical. Ebb and Flow. The very essence of business.

Now that does not mean domains won't roar again or continue to roar. But what it does mean is the market gets much more choosey and that affects our marginal domains. The domains of value will always rise to the top. Difference is the ones with no value will now fall all the way to the bottom as there will be less domainers to catch them and less cash chasing that garbage.

Now there are many opportunities that will come down the pike. All these Mergers will help to spinoff new companies and entities. These startups start out with $$$.

The Life, The Death and The Rebirth of the Industry of Domains is still how I see things. I just don't have a timeline for the rebirth mostly because of the new GTLD detour. But that detour is about to expire. That detour went nowhere. It wasted the time and money of domain investors and that is the primary reason for the decline. All those $$$,$$$,$$$ transferred from the wallets of domainers to the wallets of those that pulled the wool over your eyes and convinced you to buy a bag of worthless .crap. And btw, the majority of GTLD registrations I have seen are so bad that even with a .com on the end they would be worthless because just look at the junk posted for sale yesterday on my blog. Only a couple even made any sense.

Since 2004 I have maintained that registries and registrars are not your friends. They are nothing more that the Division of Motor Vehicles where you pay your damn tax and get your license plate and get the hell out. But Domain investors allowed them way too much control and influence and what was a thriving industry is now a totally splintered industry without direction or meaning.

Perhaps the thing that saved domainers last year was Bitcoin and Crypto. Does not look like that will repeat and demand/interest in those items have fallen considerably. The next big thing is not domains and it won't be crypto either. Those were the last big things. The ones losing their asses are playing a game that is already over. They don't look forward to tomorrow, they just keep chasing yesterday. They should just buy hula-hoops. That fad started in 1957. They still sell today. They would have better results even with that!

That all said, many of us will be domain investors for our entire lifetime. We have domains of great value that we plan to pass on even after we pass. We have to think like that. We play the long game and we play with blue chip .com names. We don't worry about making sales. We know they will come when they come. Personally, I look to just sell 1, 2 maybe 3 names a year. But for the rest of the group that has to hustle every day to make ends meet, that's a game that will get harder and less profitable as time passes. The steam roller of financial devastation is always close behind for so many. That's the decline I can visibly see.

Rick Schwartz

Good Afternoon Folks!!

What if I were to tell you there was one new GTLD that has 96% of all their domains about to be deleted? What if I told you that there were 55,786 .Realty names of which 54,078 are under Uniregistrar and 53,911 were to be deleted with 98.94 parked and as of now just 1976 in the zone file?

Maybe there is more than meets the eye but is this the future of stinkers?

https://ntldstats.com/tld/realty

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!

Click to Enlarge and for clarity.

How bad is it?? REALLY REALLY Bad! Just consider the 100-200 maybe even more new GTLD's that came to market during past 2 years. The level of hemorrhaging going on and being ignored is stunning. It's like holding a stock like Sears, buying more each and every day and know that the value can only go down and eventually be worthless. Even the graphs have similarities.

If you bought Sears a year ago you would be down 80% and still liquid. That's a lot better than GTLD domainers are doing and they are far from liquid. Think about it.

Rick Schwartz