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

Morning Folks!!

BREAKING!! Bloomberg is reporting that Web.com has been SOLD for $2 BILLION to venture Capital group, Siris Capital!! WOW!! HUGE!! Can't wait to hear the details of this mega deal!

Here is the Release.

More to follow as it breaks!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

This is your chance to post amd expose your VERY BEST new GTLD with a price. MUST have a price or will not be listed. You can post up to 2 new GTLD's. Today Only!

Just 2 domains per post with a limit of 2 posts.

Have Fun!!

Rick Schwartz

This post will also be promoted on domaining.com pages

Morning Folks!!

When I look at a particular GTLD and their numbers I look for certain things. Mostly I look to see who the middleman is to see how strong a GTLD might be. As I have previously stated if it's not Godaddy, I raise an eyebrow since the are the #1 Registrar in the world and when I talk to just everyday people, it is Godaddy that they use. Almost exclusively for consumers and end users.

Here are some examples.

I started with #15 .stream. Over 97% of all registrations (284,921) are registered with NameCheap. Godaddy is #6 with 398. Huh? Why? Isn't that curious?? I am curious. If the #1 registrar in the world has 0.14% I am curious why? No end users?

Then I decided to dig a little deeper with the top 10 new GTLD's which combined have 11.5 Million Registrations. Slightly more than half of all new GTLD registrations. Godaddy had just 710,000 of those registrations. Not even close to 10%. Hovering around 7%.

220,000 regs were .xyz and 231,000 were .club and 144,000 were .online. Leaving the remaining 120,000 divided among the other 7 of the top 10.

The only extension of those that Godaddy was #1 is with .online

So I can't help but think how many of these registrations are, well let's just say "Questionable". I question whether they are registrations by registries themselves. I question if there are only a handful buying most of the domains. I question whether some are warehousing domains to pump up their numbers and to help keep foolish domainers buying more. I question whether these were giveaways.

I'm a numbers guy. Numbers paint pictures. And some pictures make little sense. There are questions to ask. Of all new GTLD's how many are owned by domainers? How many are owned by the registry? How many are owned by closely held companies, friends or family? And finally how many are being used by end users. HINT: The smallest group is the last group.

So when you take the 22MM registrations and break it down, the picture could not be uglier and the 22MM is far from a real number. It's fake because of all the shenanigans.

They smothered their own golden goose that was made of tin to begin with and now they have cornered the market except there is  no market! There is no demand. There is no need. And nobody in the universe wakes up in the morning desiring a new GTLD except some demented domainers.

It was a clusterf*ck in 2013. It's a clusterf*ck in 2018 and it will be a clusterf*ck in the future. We now have a winner of the demolition derby and so far the winner is NONE! 5 years into this and who is the clear leader? NOBODY! Easier to pick out the clear losers however there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. There are over 100 GTLD's that have less registrations than .horse. HA!

Go look at the disaster known as .Best. First of all the word "Best" comes first. Best this, best that. Their extension is ass backwards and so are their numbers. They lost 15% of their registrations yesterday. In 4 YEARS they have managed to now have 2700 registrations after topping out at 3274 more than a year ago. Just more domainers losing $$$$.

The bottom 250 extensions had a net loss but I don't have the time or desire to look at how many. I just see big numbers in red for deletes and tiny single digit green numbers that show registrations. It's remarkable. I also have to go to #91, .Art to find ONE SINGLE GTLD that had 100 registrations yesterday. Just 31 out of 500+ had 100 registrations or more. While deletions were a whopping 80,000+.

Any way you want to slice it, GTLD's are bleeding and bleeding badly. Their future is not bright, it is bleak and dark. Many are abandoning their plans of even using them and they paid for them. 500, 600 1000 extensions and so far, nothing meaningful in all these years. Not a single one has broken out or even shown any promise.

A stopped clock is right twice every single day of the year. Making money in GTLD's is the same. It's by accident. It will happen every once in a while. But that does not make YOUR clock work or have any value.

And I discount ALL REGISTRY SALES! ALL!!! If it's not a private domain investor that made the sale, there was no sale the way I JUDGE this game.

Have a GREAT Day!!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!

2 Years ago there were more new GTLD registrations then there are now. 2 years of gains wiped out and that is during a time that hundreds of them were released for the first time. Numbers should be skyrocketing but they are not. They are crashing and they are crashing very badly.

On June 22, 2016 there were 22,654,036 new GTLDs registered on the way to a high of 29,470,568 on April 13th 2017. Since then, it's been almost all down hill. As I write this today, the number stands at 22,674,069. A TOTAL of 33 domain increase over 2 YEARS and now we have over 1 million still to drop.  We have 2 days left before it's exactly 2 years.

22,654,036 on 6/22/16

29,470,568 on 4/13/17

22,674,069 TODAY (with 1,072,036 to be deleted)

Registries made money. Registrars made money. Domain investors lost their asses and continue to get financially hurt! Every day that passes most get weaker as renewals never take a day off.

Whatever your nut is, be sure to multiply it out by 10 YEARS! That's the real carrying cost. 20 50 years if you are smart.

The chart below tells the sad story. And that's with all the pumping and dumping and domain shows that are only held to prop up GTLD's. They have turned into Registry and Registrar shows for new GTLD's. Domain investors be damned. None of this is in YOUR best interest. It's in THEIR best interest. So they told you black is white until you swallowed it. Hook, line and sinker and guess what? What Many/MOST have now are BILLS not ASSETS! It's 5 years. It's not looking good!

Even Favorites like .Club are down 20% and more from their top level and their growth looks to be over as they struggle to maintain 1 million registrations. 14% of their entire registration base is about to be deleted. That's over 145,000 names and that will drop them to about 860,000 registrations from a high of 1.3 Million. That's about 35% of ALL their registrations and EVERY ONE is a domainer that lost money!

Even with TWO Triple Crown Winners in 3 years .Horse struggles as one of the worst performing New GTLD's with 2300 registrations in FOUR YEARS!

https://ntldstats.com/tld

So many others are simply DYING ON THE VINE! A term I have used for 5 years. Now you see why.

Domainers looking for the next coming are just being foolish. And the CRAP they register is just sad! They are chasing yesterday and not tomorrow.

Win, Place, Show. There COULD be up to 3 winners. But that means there will be 997 losers. 997 .Mobi's. Speaking of .Mobi, Estibot estimates my holdings that are worth $0 are actually worth $179k. LOLOL! But I have GREAT keywords! Guess what?? It is MEANINGLESS!

GreatKeyword.DumbGTLD = NOTHING!

GreatKeyword.Com = $$$$$$

One plants a bad seed hoping to sprout and it won't. The other buys someone else's thriving plant and it continues to thrive and grow.

GTLD's = SQUARE WHEELS!

The poor (and i mean poor) GTLD guys refuse to read what was predicted YEARS ago and memorialized and see how it dovetails with reality today. They refuse to recalibrate given new information. They are in way too deep. They are angry, frustrated and BROKE! Worst of all, they WASTED 5 YEARS of their lives on a bag of smoke when they could have actually made money with something tried and true. So they reinvented a square wheel that nobody wants. Especially end users.

So they said it was for startups. Well I would beg to differ. The best way to put a startup out of business is with a beautiful brand new GTLD that nobody ever heard of including MOST domainers.

When you see tens or hundreds of thousands of registrations and Godaddy has just 1000 of them, it's a really good chance it's a LOSER! If Godaddy is not the #1 registrar of any GTLD, you got a loser. I won't mention the names of the registries to be careful of. But you should be able to figure it out if you do your homework and research.

Domainers got lied to. They got fooled. They swallowed ever piece of shit that was fed to them by people with a motive. These folks have their minions that they use as their LOUD mouthpieces. They make up press releases and distribute them as fact. As news. As something important. Why not label it the advertising it actually is and charge to publish? I am sent stuff all the time. It seldom if EVER gets posted here. Glad so many others are willing to carry their water. I don't think they serve their readers very well and many censor negative viewpoints when it affects their agenda to begin with.

Independent voices are shut down, shot down and minimized regardless of the evidence at hand. And I still see the other side and look for it in the wild. I am even willing to post a picture of one in the wild. But if you don't ask the question: How much traffic do I lose to the .com" you are a schmuck that would rather ignore reality. There is a loss. There is a number. You MUST put a number if you don't want to fool yourself. Then of course you tell me about search. SCREW SEARCH!

Here is how many people see your url. On a BILLBORD. In a MAGAZINE. Advertised on TV or RADIO. Only a total techie fool would IGNORE those mediums. And don't forget Word of Mouth. The one below was in blacked out windows. So you have BostonSeaport.xyz. Does anyone really believe there is no leakage to .com?? Really? If you do, let me tell you one thing, you could not be any wronger and that means EVERYTHING gets filtered thru something based on hope not fact. Put a number on it. It's bigger than you think!! It's not 1%. Or 2% or even 20%. But keep fooling yourself into believing whatever you want. I guarantee that BostonSeaport.com is getting a lot of free and potentially targeted traffic.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

So, this is a story about sales, markets and steering wheels for cars in Detroit. I did business for many years with an importer. Then one day he got this bright idea that he was going to sell steering wheels and make a fortune. I laughed at him. I said Detroit has been buying steering wheels, brakes, etc from the same vendors for decades. No way they will buy.

Well he did not listen. I asked before you buy inventory, why don't you try and sell some first? He laughed at me. Said they needed inventory first. I laughed back, first sell one and the buy. He did not listen.

So he imported 7500 steering wheels.

How did he do? Well it sat on his shelves for years. He never sold any. I mean NONE! I think he died before the steering wheels were even sold.

Point is, get your first sale, FIRST and then figure out how to fulfill it. The only way to prove something is salable is to sell it first. Have a fist full of orders and you will be on your way up and be taken seriously.

There are millions of websites that have never made a sale and never will.

I have never started a business with a physical product without sales before I opened the door. If I can't make THREE sales FIRST, I have NOTHING! And the sales can not be to anyone I know. Cold calls. NO NONSENSE! You want a REAL result? Then you have the GUTS to get NO RESULT!

So many folks waste their time with something unproven and are too scared to actually prove it first. They are scared of the RESULT?? I would be scared of wasting my TIME! I want to know and I want the info quick!

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning folks,

An Iowa man was robbed of his domain name at gun point. Doitforstate.com was transferred from the owner to the hijacker at gun point in his home!! He has been sentenced for 20 years for that action.

A criminal complaint from the US Attorney's Office in Iowa said: "Hopkins pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket, which contained a series of directions on how to change an internet domain name from one account to another account."Hopkins put the firearm against the victim’s head and ordered him to follow the directions on the piece of paper. Hopkins also took the victim’s cell phone and threw it so that he could not call for help."

Read the entire story here:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/17/internet-domain-jacker-jailed-20-years-armed-website-heist/

Have a GREAT Day!!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

When you are an early adapter, it's not a surprise to be early on the exit as well. That means you move on from Technology and Fads earlier than those that show up late.

As a group we were among the first to use social media. We will also be among the first to move on. That's what early adapters do. They adapt before the masses. They move on before the masses.

Another one is the amount of time we spend online as early adapters. But that also means we will be the first to spend less time online. And that is already happening. Do online companies understand this dynamic?

It took more than 50 years for folks to adapt to driving a car. But I bet the early adapters were also first to use a Taxi.

And early never means you have to be the first. I have even come into industries last and was able to make my way and make my mark. Entry point is important, but don't focus on it.

I don't think I have ever been first. But I have always been in the first 5%-10% and that works.

But to be an early adapter you have to have an open mind to things you might not want to open up to and you have to differentiate between fads and true opportunities. In my experience it takes some time and thought to adapt. Adaption accelerates with knowledge and success. And part of that knowledge is knowing the things that are not adaptable. They may not even make it to fad status!

People did not adapt to "New Coke". It was a product failure but a huge company success as Coca-Cola got more shelf space at stores and squeezed some of the competition right off the shelf. They never relinquished that space. So you even have to be adaptable when you fail. Failure is a step closer to adaptation.

Since you have early adapters, you also have LATE adapters. Case in point, Domains and Bitcoin. If you were an early adapter of bitcoin you may have done very well. If you are a late adapter, chances are you blew your brains out and bought at $19,000.

Late adapters of domains ended up chasing all types of shiny objects and the vast majority blew their brains out too. Even some early adapters of both did not have a strong belief in what they were doing and sold way too soon and blew their brains out like that.

Why do people adapt to begin with? We get back to my favorite saying: Need, Want, Desire, Value. In other words there is something in it for THEM. To make their life easier or more efficient or other great benefit. That's why GTLD's fall short. It's an example of a Fad without consumers and few end users.

A fad is when something gets hot. When the fad is over, they get dropped like hot potato's and without notice. Early adapters are also keen to spot fads that die. Fads that have a short lifespan if one at all vs those fads with staying power that become staples. I love staples!

Adaptation's sister is rejection. We adapt or we reject. We recognize something life changing or we don't. I hope as long as I live my gift of adaptation and rejection stays strong and true. I simply look for the intersections of the future and seize them. What's the next thing to adapt to? Stay tuned. Jumping on the fad bandwagon does not make you an early adapter. It usually makes you broke.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

One of the deals I am most proud of is my candy.com deal of 2008. It has all the elements of what I like in a domain deal. Now, after 10 years, later this month, I will be going to Boston and while I am up there I will visit the Candy.com factory for the very first time. Have never been there, never seen it. But they are now a $15 Million annual entity and growing!

Every once in a while an unexpected check will come in. Just a dividend. The last one earlier this year would have paid for the domain name when I bought it. They also paid off the $1 Million balance owed on Candy.com in 2018. It took them 10 years to get where they wanted to go but now they are flying higher and higher and have a very bright future. I am just along for the ride and never hid my intent.

I started with 5% and thru several restructures over the years I ended up with 12.55% as a silent partner with no duties or responsibilities. However I do make suggestions about the site flow from time to time.

And make no mistake about it, it was the DOMAIN NAME that transformed and propelled their small company along with their work ethic etc. But you need BOTH or you will always be working harder to make less and maybe just flop. The domain name made folks STOP and take notice. It was instant credibility. The industry was forced to take them seriously. They got a seat at the table. You can't buy that and it's very hard to obtain to begin with. A great domain name allows you to elbow your way into the inner circle and grab a seat at the table of most industries. Whether they want you or not!

Matter of fact, the other similar deal I have structured after the candy.com deal is Punchbowl.com, they are just up the road. Never been there either!

Life is about working and surrounding yourself with good and talented people. Don't crowd them. Give them time and space to do their thing. Finding those good and talented people is always a challenge! Matching a domain name with the right person and/or company is what makes all the difference.

I don't sell domains, I invest in people and their ideas. They can have the domain name for pocket change or even free, but they better come armed  with a great and solid business idea and a well thought out strategy to achieve it.

So, looking forward to physically seeing what a great domain name has built and where the future leads form here.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

So Estibot came out with a tool to appraise your entire portfolio. It is very cool. I have never given a lot of credence to Estibot. Anyone that waives their appraisal in my face gets their email automatically DELETED and NEVER answered. Rookies!

To me, it is strictly an amusement tool and I am completely amused!

What is stunning is that it shows if  YOU as a domainer are selling to other domainers, you are leaving YOUR FORTUNE on the table and willing to give YOUR FORTUNE to somebody else!! That's just downright IDIOTIC and I have been saying so for 2 decades!

A FOOL would sell my portfolio and probably get less that even their $2.4 million because so many domainers are clueless when it comes to value, weak on negotiations and scared. They sell in fear instead of confidently holding what has great value and they don't even know the difference. SAD!!

In their estimate, Estibot shows a 22x difference in what ends up in your pocket if you sit around selling to other domainers. WEAK!! VERY WEAK!! In this respect, Estibot shines! It clearly shows the disparity! So PLEASE WAKE UP!! If another domainer wants YOUR domain, RUN!

They appraise both Ass.com and Booty.com for $5 Million EACH. Hello?? Sorry, I wish they were worth  $5 million each. They are not! If Estibot has a cashier, we can cash these 2 in right now!

On the other side they show many domains that have value under $100 that are missing 3 other Zeros! So while it is cute and maybe some of you will get your rocks off, the actual value of a domain name can not and can never be done in mass. I don't do appraisals, but a domain must be appraised individually just like a diamond, house, car or other things of great value.

The charts below show my numbers.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I don't write this blog to report news tho at times I do. I don't use it for press releases fed to me by others in the industry for their benefit or mine. I don't take advertisements. I am beholden to no one but my thoughts, opinions and truly strong beliefs. It's truly "Rick's" Blog.

So I wrote the majority of the posts to be timeless. Even when I was promoting TRAFFIC I would make sure to include some pearls that had value.

I started RicksBlog.com in 2007. I can go year after year after year and find relevant posts that may have been written a decade ago but still are relevant and current and beneficial. I wrote it to stand the test of time and also be able to look back thru our history.

My blog is my life's book. I have touched on about everything I can think of. I wish I could include the posts I made for the 11 years before I had my blog. One of these days I may fire up my Gateway 2000 Pentium Tower from the 1990's and see what I can find.

Lots of things have been said about domain investing. I have the time stamps to prove I said it first. ;- ) That's one of the things I really love about the Internet from the very first days. It's in ink and it has a timestamp.

Point is I wrote this blog to be read from the beginning for it all to make sense. Hundreds and hundreds of different chapters addressing anything and everything concerning Domains, Business, History and Life itself. And that is what it is all about. LIFE!

Is your soul mortgaged by working for others and having them own your time or do you own your time outright? My last job was 34 years ago when I got fired for making too much money. Working for other people is fine on the way up, but hopefully today people have 2 tracks. A job and a business that can grow and allow you to quit that job and own your time. Own your life!

Why is life important to domaining? Because there is only a short period you can enjoy the fruits of your labors. It will take hundreds of years for the Internet to fully develop. We will all be dead much sooner than that. The key to it all is working smarter. You work smarter by learning from other people's mistakes and history.

And just as important than all of that: My blog is my diary and maybe my legacy. A public diary that I hope proves to be timeless and helps countless people from every walk of life to look at things in different ways and learn to dig deep to find true answers.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz