Daily Poll

I would be willing to bet that a fair amount of people who own ccTLD domain names don’t realize their connection to foreign governments. Some people buy them for their brandability or marketability rather than for any allegiance or connection to the associated country connected to the ccTLD.

For those who own ccTLD domain names, I am curious if you care about political issues or have any concerns related to politics in those countries – or even between the country where you live and the ccTLD country. I also included an option for people like myself who do not invest in ccTLD domain names:

My wife and I were driving in town over the weekend, and I noticed a pick up truck next to us that was using a new gTLD domain name. Seeing a new TLD being used is relatively rare, and seeing a local company using one is even more rare. I shared the photo on Twitter, and there were some comments about the company not using http:// or www.

Spotted a local company using a .Solutions domain name – https://t.co/Vb73dbVM78. pic.twitter.com/RiAo1naS9Y

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) October 14, 2018

I think using the new extension locally is fine for this company, and their usage could probably be cited as one of the reasons for having the new extensions. Today’s question asks if company’s like this should advertise their website with http:// and/or www or if that is unnecessary.

NamePros, DNForum, Domain Boardroom, and other domain industry forums jointly boast thousands of members. NamesCon, Merge, DomainX, and other industry conferences around the world have several thousand attendees each year. There are also Twitter conversations, Slack groups, and private domain name discussions happening throughout the world.

Even with all of this communication, there are a whole lot of people “under the radar,” who hardly communicate with anyone. They don’t participate in forums, they’re not actively posting on Twitter or elsewhere, and many have never met other people in the domain industry beyond dealmaking. This group of people is actively investing in domain names, but the people are not active participants in discussions.

This may be a silly question to ask, especially if it means asking people who choose not to participate, but I will go ahead and ask anyway. Do you actively participate in domain industry discussion (Forums, social media, conferences, private groups…etc)?

With GDPR in force, “Data Protected” or similar Whois records are becoming common. Some registrars still show Whois information for non-European registrants.

Many domain name portfolio owners, businesses, and others use a generic registrant contact name on Whois records. I have seen “Domain Administrator,” “Domain Admin,” “Hostmaster,” and a number of other terms used as the registrant. I suppose this is done because there are either multiple people managing a portfolio, the registrant wants to keep the person’s name private, or the domain name manager changes more regularly than the Whois record should change. Some companies put the domain manager’s name in the registrant contact field.

I am curious if readers use their own name on Whois records. I would also be curious if people are willing to share their rationale for why they may use a generic term if that is what they do instead.

Do you use your real name on Whois records?

Google recently launched its .Page domain name extension. The launch news was announced on October 2nd on Google’s blog. Earlier this year, Google launched the. App extension to quite a bit of fanfare and considerable interest. At the present time, there are over 320,000 registered .App domain names, according to nTLDStats.com.

I am curious to know if domain investors are more likely to buy domain names in an extension operated by Google. I don’t really understand the marketability of .Page but I do understand why startups might want a .App domain name. From an investment point of view, some people may feel Google search may be influenced by Google’s extensions. I highly, highly doubt this, but there will always be people who might think it is some sort of “trust” signal that helps with rankings in some way and makes these domain names more desirable.

Are you more likely to buy a new gTLD domain name if the extension is operated by Google?

Last week, Alan Dunn started a discussion on Twitter about domain name age:

The age of a domain name does not matter. If mortgage(.com) was registered yesterday it wouldn’t be worth any less. The only people who care about age are affiliate marketers. Stop trying to tell brokers and brands why your old domains are more valuable. No one cares.

— Alan Dunn (@alangdunn) October 5, 2018

When I am posting purchase requests, I almost always mention something about the age of the domain name. For instance, I tend to ask people to only send domain names that are at least 15 years old (ie registered in 2003 or prior). For me, this is more of a filter than an actual requirement. When I say “I want to buy a great dictionary word .com domain name,” many people seem to have a hard time understanding. By adding an age requirement, it makes my request a bit less interpretive so I don’t have to explain what I mean when someone sends me a nonsensical or unmarketable “dictionary” .com domain name they registered a month or a year ago.

I don’t buy trend domain names, and there aren’t too many exceptional names that make it through the full deletion cycle and have a more recent creation date. This filter helps eliminate a whole lot of junk people are trying to sell. Beyond this, I don’t think domain age matters. For instance, I am not going to buy Crappy-Domain-1000.com simply because someone registered it in 1995 and decided to renew it for 23 years.

I am curious about whether readers think the age of a domain name matters. Feel free to share additional thoughts in the comment section.