Someone sent me a LinkedIn message this afternoon asking me to appraise some “premium” new gTLD domain names. I told him “no” because I am not really active in that part of the market. It is difficult enough to give a meaningful (accurate) appraisal of a .com domain name, but I think it is pretty much impossible to appraise new gTLD domain names with any level of certainty.
If an appraisal can’t be at least somewhat accurate, it doesn’t make sense to even try. I want to share some of the reasons for why I think it would be impossible to give an appraisal of new domain extensions:
There is a lack of public sales reported. Yes, there have been some publicly reported sales and public auction results, but those are a tiny fraction of domain names that exist. Believe it or not, there are now over 17 million new gTLD domain names in existence, according to nTLDStats.com. I see few new gTLD domain name sales reported weekly.
Domain registrars privately sell (or work out deals) on their premium inventory. This means that we have an even more limited amount of data available to look at to get an idea of appraised values.
There are a ton of alternative extensions that may be very similar. How can you even hazard a guess about the value of a domain name when there are several similar extensions that can be registered, in addition to even more keywords. If someone wants to open an online pet store on a new gTLD, all of these might be fairly equal: Pet.Shop, Pet.Store, Pets.Online, Pets.Website, Pets.Site.
Premium names and different extensions may have high renewal prices. Pet.Store seems like it could be a five figure domain name to a buyer perhaps. However, if the registry is charging a huge annual renewal cost, the value to a company would likely be less if they have to shell out a fortune each year to renew it. Without that information, it is silly to hazard a guess about the value.
These are just a few of the reasons off the top of my head why I think it is impossible to put a value on individual new gTLD domain names. Yes, I still think there are good reasons for people and companies to use the new gTLD domain names, but I am certainly not in a position to offer my thoughts on how much any of the names are actually worth on the market. I don’t think anyone can appraise the new domain names.
Good reasons all.
But I think the strongest one is, of course, the first one. I guess it may be that way for a while. (See, for example, “2% – new TLDs (new top level domains)” in http://bit.ly/1Y3tsld, posted by SweetMantra.com, which DNW twitted this am.
just set up a website and link to rain man on youtube where he says… “bout a hundred dollars. not only will it be funny… but is actually a good estimate.
This is an extremely interesting topic and a very complicated one as well. The new tld era changes the game as we know it. Some of the new tld’s are so ideally suited to specific industries that their significance & value are likely to be quite high. Obviously, if the best .com for a company or industry is taken, then an industry-specific tld option becomes much more appealing.
“Yes, there have been some publicly reported sales and public auction results, but those are a tiny fraction of domain names that exist. Believe it or not, there are now over 17 million new gTLD domain names in existence, according to nTLDStats.com. I see few new gTLD domain name sales reported weekly.”
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This speaks to names being worthless rather than “hard to value”.
Snoopy, yes, they are all completely worthless which is why they are tough to value since there simply is no value. If anything, they have a negative value since whoever uses will actually lose traffic. Best to consider the new extensions a tax.
I am trying new .GDN domains at the moment. “GDN” stands for “Generic Domain Name”. There are plenty of free generic domains in this extension and they cost less than $3.
It stands for Global Domain Name. If you are interested in buying send me an email I can direct you towards the best options.
I predict that soon a lot of the these TLDs will go sky high and compete with the .COMs. Why will probably many say? The answer is simple. Many of the new TLDs are quite simply better and more correct than the .COMs. Why pay overprice for poor 2-3 word .COMs when perfect new TLDs are still available at attractive price levels?
I see, your theory is because stronger keywords are attached to .crap, it will surpass values to that of dot com? LMAO!. It’s always entertaining coming here and reading what the clueless post.