debate When are domainers/businesses going to recognise the value of these keyword perfect domains?

I think general awareness changes will come much more slowly than you believe.

How many people know that domain names are not case sensitive and capitalization could be used for improved readability?

I suspect there is also some trademark/wordmark liability exposure for many of them.

When I told people I was building a website in 1998 they asked "Whats a website"? A few years later the question was "Why would I want one?" Several years after that they would get a guilty look on their face, shuffle their feet and tell me they knew they needed one but hadn't done anything yet.

The pros/cons of a good domain name are even more obscure than a website.

interassets said:

I'm still utterly amazed that over a year into the new gTLD's, domainers, investors and brands.. still don't see the value in them?

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And you expected the whole world to know about, and be eager to, invest/buy new gTLDs within that first year, eh..? Wow. The amazing thing really, is those that think there's a waiting and strong resale market already for the new gTLDs; that there's a sudden 'buyers' interest in them - something less than a year old; that 95% of the world doesn't even know of yet, let alone that has yet been proven if it/they will be accepted or be used long term in the mainstream world!! Anyone expecting 5 month old new gTLDs to sell for decent x,xxx+ profits on 'Flippa', a place full of cheap domainers looking for 'deals', should find themselves another 'get rich' scheme. There's a reason it's called Domain Investing, and not all investments return instant, or sometimes any, profits or gains.

Understandable perspective from an end user/consumer point of view. But from a domainers perspective? Are more in for the quick buck and not willing to thing long term? Or do we really believe these domains will never have any value? I for one, see the future being bright for them.

That kind of difference in opinion and outlook is what makes markets. Probably shouldn't play the game if it is your rent money though. One investor I know calls it his "Roll the dice money."

Long term can get painful as the renewal fees start to add up.

interassets said:

Understandable perspective from an end user/consumer point of view. But from a domainers perspective? Are more in for the quick buck and not willing to thing long term? Or do we really believe these domains will never have any value? I for one, see the future being bright for them.

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..yet you're upset because you put your domain up for sale now 'in the present' and it didn't sell for what you 'thought' it should sell for today. hmmm.......

@hawkeye I understand and welcome your point of view, but your tone is so often aggressive and unfriendly. Do yourself a favour and play nice, state your point but not with a condescending "I hate people" attitude. For the record, I actually bought art.investments at a premium, to sell on for a premium. It wasn't a pay $15 and expect to make thousands. I got in there early and took it to the open market because I wanted to put the cash elsewhere. Please have a good day, one day.

Exact match nTLD's have value if they apply to popular products and services. I don't think any domainer or end user could really say or believe otherwise.

interassets said:

Understandable perspective from an end user/consumer point of view. But from a domainers perspective? Are more in for the quick buck and not willing to thing long term? Or do we really believe these domains will never have any value? I for one, see the future being bright for them.

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You see the future for them that you're trying to flip them quick on Flippa? Reserve met at $21 for the one in your sig. If you believe in a bright future, why are you dumping them this early for that price? Shouldn't you be stocking up and holding?

JB Lions said:

You see the future for them that you're trying to flip them quick on Flippa, huh?

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I've got a good selection that I'm keeping for the long term, don't you worry. As I mentioned before, art.investments was a cash-out for me to raise some cash for an app I'm developing. And.. it wasn't a buy cheap. It was a buy premium, to find a premium buyer. And it was 5 months into ownership, not an overnight sale. Sometime we sell off some assets to buy more? Does that make me a hypocrite? I'm asking the question, why are we taking these domains so cautiously and not embracing and promoting them? Our collective influence as domainers can do so, can't we?

interassets said:

I've got a good selection that I'm keeping for the long term, don't you worry. As I mentioned before, art.investments was a cash-out for me to raise some cash for an app I'm developing.

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Right and the one in your sig? This seems like a pump and dump.

"Staying with .com, .net etc. is playing it safe, but it's short sighted."

C'mon, a lot of the stuff you just posted has been gone thru to death. There is nothing shorted sighted in investing in the #1 extension in the world, it's just smart. Reg numbers already tell a pretty good story..... the lack of interest/market, and not a very good one. The drops will further that story along. If you believe otherwise, stock up. Time will tell but getting good .coms will always be a smart move. You know some of the people out there pumping them because they're selling them are very active buying .com in the aftermarket (Frank). Take the money you make selling new gtlds to newbies and those wishing of another gold rush and invest in .com. Pretty smart.

The whole internet thing is still in early days. Lots of opinions, some even backed up with serious money, but no one really has any idea where things will go. I think of it as a casino where some of the chips are cheap enough so anyone can play. If you know how to develop sites you might even be able to generate a little income while you wait for your ship to come in

@ interassets
I'm not aggressive or unfriendly, and I don't have a 'I hate people' attitude, but thank you for your condesending 'assessment'. I do find it confounding to watch people come into this industry with such high expectations that now that they've heard/learned of domaining and have gone out and bought a few domains, and then complain/gripe that they are not finding/getting that 'get rich quick' results they feel they should be getting as they see it. Which is what you were alluding to in your opening post, whereby your premium name didn't sell for your expected results. I mean if you knew/know anything about domains and new extensions, you wouldn't have sold your 'premium' name so fast, and it wouldn't have been your 'biggest regrets as a domainer' ..if..

JB Lions said:

Right and the one in your sig? This seems like a pump and dump.

"Staying with .com, .net etc. is playing it safe, but it's short sighted."

C'mon, a lot of the stuff you just posted has been gone thru to death. There is nothing shorted sighted in investing in the #1 extension in the world, it's just smart. Reg numbers already tell a pretty good story the lack of interest/market, and not a very good one. The drops will further that story along.

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I get what you're saying, and with all due respect, if I have a portfolio of 100+ domains and I choose to sell off one every now and then to raise some cash. It doesn't mean I can't ask the question as to why as domainers we're still nervous about these kind of domains? I personally believe that they are and will always be good investments, because its inevitable that they'll become commonly recognised. With domains like art.investments, I felt even just a year into the market, surely a domain like this would be widely regarded as a high value domain? Given the potential use and value of the name to an end buyer in that market?

hawkeye said:

I'm not aggressive or unfriendly, and I don't have a 'I hate people' attitude, but thank you for your condesending 'assessment'. I do find it confounding to watch people come into this industry with such high expectations that now that they've heard/learned of domaining and have gone out and bought a few domains, and then complain/gripe that they are not finding/getting that 'get rich quick' results they feel they should be getting as they see it. Which is what you were alluding to in your opening post, whereby your premium name didn't sell for your expected results. I mean if you knew/know anything about domains and new extensions, you wouldn't have sold your 'premium' name so fast, and it wouldn't have been your 'biggest regrets as a domainer' ..if..

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Ok, well just be nice. I don't seek your posts out and find a way to disrespect you, so please respect me. It was an error of my judgement, I think I made that clear; it was my biggest regret. I'd thought that buyers/investors would see the value along the line, but I was mistaken. My regret was expecting that so soon, but my post was asking why we're doing it? In my opinion the aftermarket is weak because many of us lack the confidence in change...

interassets said:

I get what you're saying, and with all due respect, if I have a portfolio of 100+ domains and I choose to sell off one every now and then to raise some cash. It doesn't mean I can't ask the question as to why as domainers we're still nervous about these kind of domains? I personally believe that they are and will always be good investments, because its inevitable that they'll become commonly recognised. With domains like art.investments, I felt even just a year into the market, surely a domain like this would be widely regarded as a high value domain? Given the potential use and value of the name to an end buyer in that market?

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Disagree, these are horrible for domain investors. If some person or company wants to get some second rate extension, they don't need your second rate domain, they have plenty of options to choose from. You have no negotiating power. Just look at the picture/photography sector. photo, photos, pics, pictures, photography....... Plural and singular of the same word. For those that aren't getting .com, they have a world of new gtlds to choose from.

JB Lions said:

Disagree, these are horrible for domain investors. If some person or company wants to get some second rate extension, they don't need your second rate domain, they have plenty of options to choose from. You have no negotiating power. Just look at the picture/photography sector. photo, photos, pics, pictures, photography....... Plural and singular of the same word.

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There are certain domains that don't have value, I'm not saying they all do. But there are plenty that do have intrinsic value. For example, property.investments or online.dating etc. I just feel like it 5-10 years, the market will be so much more saturated with the new gTLD's that .com's won't be as valuable. As a new internet user, you will become used to sites having relevant extensions. For example, you're looking for football news.. you'd look at football.news and so on. The .com will be like an extra unnecessary addition.

interassets said:

There are certain domains that don't have value, I'm not saying they all do. But there are plenty that do have intrinsic value. For example, property.investments or online.dating etc. I just feel like it 5-10 years, the market will be so much more saturated with the new gTLD's that .com's won't be as valuable. As a new internet user, you will become used to sites having relevant extensions. For example, you're looking for football news.. you'd look at football.news and so on. The .com will be like an extra unnecessary addition.

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You just made an argument for .com. So much more saturated = confusion. You own nature.photo, maybe somebody else has nature.photos, nature.pics, nature.photography, big mess basically.

interassets said:

I don't seek your posts out and find a way to disrespect you

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and you think/feel I 'sought' your posts out to find a way to disrespect you? I've never even heard of you before, so...uhhh.. no I didn't do such.

I wonder what percentage of traffic is from people who find sites via search and never have any idea of what the domain actually was?

JB Lions said:

You just made an argument for .com. So much more saturated = confusion. You own nature.photo, maybe somebody else has nature.photos, nature.pics, nature.photography, big mess basically.

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I get you, but you're using a very rare example of extension. I see the issue with the saturation, but I can't help but feel that in 5-10 years time, these extensions will become the norm and older, irrelevant .com's etc. will decline as people learn to use new extensions to find what they want.

mhdoc said:

I wonder what percentage of traffic is from people who find sites via search and never have any idea of what the domain actually was?

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I actually got an email from a guy about Crazy.discount, asking how the domain worked and how it could be used? Most possibly wouldn't even notice the domain!

First off everyone needs to stop using the term "We" We are not all on the same team, different backgrounds, knowledge,experience, bankroll, time frame in which to work.

What premium value is there in crazy discount ? 170 people searched the exact phrase last month. No one advertising under the phrase.

The problem with talking about things getting older, means the .com will actually have more age, a developed .com will have more links, more mindshare, no one is going to be saying in 2025, .Com is getting old, let's retire it and get a dot ??? By that time possible 10,000 extensions ? So there is no hard value in investing, there is specualtion and that can pay off big time, some new gtlds imo will sell for a nice price.

Developers may want to use a new gtld, they may like the intuitive nature of Dress.Sexy but if it is owned by a domain investor who wants $50,000 for it, they will seek out another opportunity.

New gtlds and their future are not tied to the future of a domain investor making money. There are some I think make great sense and some combos sound great, I believe these will be used as satellite websites to add to a company's overall branding scheme. If I owned a fashion company that resided on say a short .com. I may want Dress.sexy for a new marketing campaign, it is short, fun, intuitive, but I am not closing the .com and rebranding to the .sexy name. They will be used in a lot of creative ways, but I don't think it will be by existing brands abandoning .com.

People don't really use intuitive keyword domains to find what they are looking for, they use search engines, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, etc... On mobile they use apps, and as the world becomes more mobile that is something for domainers to think about. People want quicker, shorter on mobile than they do on desktop.

We are in the early innings of a baseball game going extra innings. I would say we are now just entering the top of the second inning it is a long way to go. For the domain investor he or she has to ask themselves this important question, "Do I have the budget and the stomach to hold these things for ten years to reap the rewards I believe are waiting there ?"

50 domains with an average 30 renewal, for 10 years, $15,000 is not something everyone will be able to handle at the part time/hobbyist level. The worst result would be you were right but could not hold on to see it through and a name you dropped sells for $10,000 in 2025.

There is a lot to think about, not just these make sense, and there is no intrinsic value,intrinsic value implies there is value and you have some way to look at the discounted future earnings of the asset, these are not assets, these are leases. There is no liquidity when it comes to a new gtld, on the other hand a three letter .com has liquidity, someone with an LLL.com can go many places day or night and find more than one person willing to pay them something, maybe not their optimal price, but there is at least a liquid value, new gtlds do not have that currently, it might change but each domain investor has to adhere to their individual not collective goals and bankroll.

Im still a newbie but my theory is that there are too many new gtld and in the future there will be more and in my opinion, value of gtld will fall. I think .com will be always king and .net, .org and .info will be more and more valuable because domain market will be saturated. But thats just my opinion Im still learning. But my basic target is profit. I dont worry how much my profit is as long as it is a profit. Sometimes I sold domain as twice as much I paid for somtimes a dollar more then I paid for but doesnt matter as long as I dont lose my money. So dont worry be happy

interassets said:

Who's going to be the brave soul that launches a big marketing campaign with a gTLD, for them all to suddenly become widely recognised as domain names?

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Nobody. End users do what they think meets their business objectives, not those of an extension as a whole or a whole class of extensions.

Without enough developed sites probably an extension will fail to cover its costs and go bust. In fact the mobi extension auctioned their premiums - at 5+ figure prices - on condition that the buyer had to develop a site or lose the domain. And some brands and big names used mobi initially. Failed, registry became insolvent and was handed over to Afilias.

Buyer beware. Unless you intend a quick flip, you need to research a registry just as you would if you were buying stocks.