Last week, I received my renewal notices from GoDaddy for N.Holdings and N.Ventures. These domain names are expensive to renew for another year, but I plan to keep them for the time being. Perhaps I will put them up for sale this year or next, but I think they are worth more than the renewal cost, so I will keep these two names.
I don’t own many other new gTLD domain names (fewer than 10 I think), so my renewal decisions are pretty easy to make. If I owned hundreds of new domain names with thousands of dollars in renewal fees, my decisions would be more complicated.
I am sure people in the domain investment space are thinking about their own renewals, and I am curious about whether you plan to renew the majority of your new gTLD investments.
This is probably not all that cut and dry of a question, so I think it would be helpful for you to share some feedback about why you are making your renewal decision. I also understand that most people do not renew every single domain name, so the question asks about the majority of new gTLD domain names rather than a simple “yes” or “no” question.
Please vote in the poll below and share your feedback in the comment section.
Elliot et al –
I feel like I’m still flying blind with the “generic” ccTLDs (eg, .co, .io, .ly), much less the New gTLDs (NgTLDs). Is there enough publicly-available sales data from the NgTLD registries for investors to evaluate the comparative worth (or at least market penetration) of the NgTLDs, without regard for the SLDs?
I’ve seen where the large registries do comparisons of the top gTLDs sales, but wouldn’t know where to find market data on the NgTLDs.
Roger Kay (Forbes, 1/22/15) offers a pessimistic viewpoint on the NgTLDs here: http://bit.ly/bobs-domains_forbes_NgTLD10, Why, Even After A Year, There’s Still No Land Grab For New Internet Domains.
Are there research tools for making sense of the NgTLD sales so far?
– Bob
I don’t know what kind of tools would provide the information you need, but I look at the various public sales reports I see to gauge aftermarket interest. In addition, I watch for branding and domain names used by startups to see if there are trends.
As I have said many times, I’d rather pay a premium in a few years if there is a solid aftermarket than buy a whole bunch of new domain names now. I think my money is far better deployed on .com purchases now.
Seeing that renewals for .ventures and .holdings are $89.00 each per year is just painful, especially if you purchased the name for resale purposes. I have not purchased any gTLDs. I might at a later point if it economically makes sense, but for the time being, spending that $180 on a nice .com at an aftermarket auction would provide a much more liquid return.
There’s some research out there, I know the Domain Name Association has some polls out there where they’ve done some research.
I’ve also publicly released some results of my research in the form of a white paper that shows that it costs less to use a new gTLD domain than a .com domain on Google AdWords.
I think the poll needed more questions, example, I am reregistering about half in total and of that the cheaper options that make just as much sense as the expensive options
I figured people would add commentary of that nature.
I’m quite sick of all of these gtld’s. It’s just too much and seemingly many more unnecessary one’s to come. I’m getting a headache.