What’s the Least Valuable Domain Extension?

Aside from some small speculation in new TLDs, I don’t really buy anything other than .COM domain names. In fact, I looked through my Moniker account where the bulk of my domain names are registered, and around 2% are not .COM names. 2% may even seem him to some people, but keep in mind that this includes personal names like ElliotSilver.net/.info and other protective registrations rather than investments.

I recently saw a couple of decent keyword domain names for sale in a domain forum, but because they were in an “alternate” (not ccTLD) extension, the price was pretty low and there were still no bids.   One name would be a high 6 or low 7 figure city.com domain name, but the owner was asking for under $2,000 without any interest or public offers. I also think this domain name in its country code ccTLD would be worth several thousand dollars.

It got me thinking about the value of non-.com domain names (I was not considering ccTLD domain names). In your opinion, what is the least valuable domain extension? Feel free to post the reason you think the extension doesn’t have much value. This is more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

78 COMMENTS

  1. It depends on your strategy – are you looking to develop or flip? I would have to say the keywords itself must fit the bill, if you have to veer away from .com than keep in mind what industry it is. I’ve flipped a .net domain for 35k in under a week and a .org for 100k which would be usenet.org. This fit their strategy and the keyword as an organization based around the usenet directory system. I find when developing with .org it can walk me into doors I wouldn’t have with .net or .com because it insinuates a non for profit and people have a higher regard for it (again depending on industry). I’ve gotten links on pr 7 – 8 pages because of it where with .com and .net they would have told me to beat it.

    I have an SEO client on the other hand that runs his company with a – and a .net yet it gets about 40,000 uniques a month in the shoe industry. If I touch that site with a good link it jumps so it seems to me SEO wise .net can react the same way as a .com where I find a .org might take a little longer to rank from experience.

    One other example for .info though I have seen these rank, type “black friday” into Google and what comes up? All the other extensions are on lock down as underdeveloped or parked and this guy makes a boatload once a year.

    Overall I would have to say “What’s the keyword and what are your goals?” in terms of value.

  2. IMO .mobi & .ws are way down there in end user appeal with .biz still not attracting many aftermarket buyers. If you are going to register a .US or .Info they need to be top-notch keywords. I hold probably about five legacy .biz domains, one .WS domain, zero .US domains and by year-end probably around 30 .info domains. I realize you are a .COM only investor but I have sold quite a few .Net domains & just received an end user inquiry today on a .TV. We’ll see how it goes.

  3. .TEL wins hands down, the TLD is fundamentally crippled because you can’t set your own nameservers.

    Mind bogglingly stupid. In fact we (easyDNS) just DROPPED support for new .TEL registrations because they’re so useless.

  4. I’ve gotten more inquires about .pro than my .net and .org investments. Don’t sleep on .pro – especially with local professionals.

  5. I have to mention .info as being one of, if not the, least valuable. In fact, I like how .info looks and reads, the problem with it is that by deep discounting the .info domains have become associated with spammers and if you try to build a website on a .info domain you’d be the equivalent of a contagious leper at an open lunch buffet at a popular restaurant.

  6. I disagree with .info as being worthless. I once purchased a .info and flipped it in 10 days. It was a very good name, and the .com purchased it in an ad I put up.

    I own more than 100 .info that are all great names. I seem to struggle with selling the .net and the .mobi. I received an offer on a .mobi, but when I responded with accepting the offer, the .com name owner never replied back.

    Maybe the webmaster thought about the .mobi. The same domain was accepted, and then rejected when I put it in a package deal.

    I own 7 .mobi names that would all be worth a fortune if they were .com. The least valuable extension is probably the .ws, and .me. There are times when the .com is the only worthy extension for specific services.

    The .net is a great choice if the .com is taken, and used for something unrelated to the specific market. The .ws and the .me have little value. I’m find the .mobi is a tough sale, even if you have the best keywords.

  7. @John,

    Awesome .org sale. That’s a blockbuster sale to be pushed at RickLatona.com. What was your initial cost for the domain?

    I plan on having another develop GoGPS.net for me. In past few months, there have many searches for the keywords. It’s only a mere 1.5% of your domain.

  8. The .us has been a awesome extension for me. I sold two this past month. I have many in various fields. I plan to upgrade my Bargain Domains account to push more .us.

    I received an offer at Sedo for a .us. I closed the deal two weeks ago. The company developed the domain 4 days after purchasing the domain. Don’t disregard the value of the .us.

  9. Least valuable:

    .Aero
    .Name
    .Ws
    .CC
    .Tel
    .Pro

    I bought about 100 .Mobis and by seling just 4 of them I recouped all my costs plus few years of renewals for the rest.

    .Info has been the most valuable for me among newer extensions; have had over $200K sales in them since acquiring them in 2001/02 landrush.

  10. “.co is definitely the least valuable! Just sends traffic to the .com”

    Lol, a CO hater who is angry because he missed out the landrush.

    You have to be horribly biased to say that CO is the least valuable.

  11. “.co is definitely the least valuable! Just sends traffic to the .com”

    wouldn’t that make .co the second most valuable extension?

    I vote .name and .aero. even the top 5 left of the dot keywords prolly wouldn’t sell.

    Fun question

  12. @ John, great sale! Are you the John Daly of golf fame?

    .ki, because it’s so expensive: $2500.00. Then again, maybe that would guarantee only developers register .ki, and create great websites. Golf.ki is still available, last time I checked.

    The ones mentioned above seem the higher value ones, except .mobi. Latonas is auctioning flowers.mobi, and Rob Monster is auctioning SEO.mobi. We can gage its worth depending how those do.

    .info is increasing more and more. It’s a more popular registration than .org or .net in some cases, I’ve noticed!

    Hey, I flipped my one-and-only .cm for registration fee!

  13. Jim,
    Sarcasm.co, you should look it up, learn it, and possible buy it from the current owner. I got the only name I wanted in the .co land rush. I got out of the slots.co bidding after it went past $200 :-). Some sucker will regret that purchase! Obviously, with some of the crazy high bids and the registration numbers .co is not the least valuable. Again Jim, sarcasm.co is the name for you!

  14. I think some gambling/adult domains are of some worth in a different extension. Let’s compare Poker examples:

    OnlinePoker.com vs OnlinePoker.cc

    Poker.cc sold for $6,802..hence making domains like OnlinePoker.cc more valuable than a random .cc which has no value.

    Just my $0.02 🙂

  15. Adult and gambling domains are always very valuable in ay extension. Take:

    OnlinePoker.com vs OnlinePoker.cc

    So if someone owns OnlinePoker.cc, he could ask for a higher asking price. Poker.cc sold for $6,802 so definitely OnlinePoker.cc has a solid monetary value.

    Just my $0.02 🙂

  16. I would ask myself which domain extension has the most amount of ‘least valuable’ domains relatively speaking. I don’t know the answer.

    There are some valuable .aero’s and info’s used by businesses that couldn’t get the .com. An anecdote about .info: Couple of years ago, I registered a [professionname].info for a friend., other extensions like .com were taken. Then I build a barely seo’d site on it that generated more customers for my friend. So this .info proved to be very valuable.

  17. .co because its the only domains which has a dependent identity and feeds on the .com success.
    .co is like a semi sneeze that never make it to become a heard one.
    And no, trust me; I’m not one of those who are angry for missing the landrush.
    However, the .co success has truly cheapened this whole industry in a way.

    What’s next? .ho, I guess this would be more meaningful than .co.

  18. i think i will stand up for the poor .cc LOL’s
    when you want a favicon to be generated, you normally end up at favicon.cc and there’s a few other dark horses out around.

    .name is an epic fail +10
    .mobi kinda got lame real quick

    i think its what you do with it, good marketing can help any extension.

  19. I’d say .mobi, & .biz are by far the worst. I don’t have any .ws, .cc, .tv, or .tel. I don’t agree with the statement that .info is worthless, because Germans seem to love it. After .de and .com, it’s the extension they buy the most. Considering all of the offers I’ve received this year have been from German buyers, I pay quite a bit of attention to .info.

  20. I have to agree .mobi domains are worthless. .cc domains are worthless also but personally I have had good experiences with the extension. I sold OnlineCasinos.cc and Online-Casino.cc for $2,500 and $1,000 respectfully. Now, I hand reg’d both of these names and sold them in less than 30 days via SEDO but I’ve had Easter.cc for a year now and I can’t even get a bite…..therefore .cc is bad but a good casino name in any extension is probably going to make a good profit.

  21. I wonder how much the content of these comments would change if all the emotion was removed…? 🙂

    It’s interesting to me that some tlds that are mentioned are ones with many registrations and some fairly high-priced sales. I don’t like .info anymore, but I know they are popular in Europe for example.

    I would say the least valuable in general are those tlds with very low reg numbers and very high renewal costs. And I think that excludes all of the tlds I heard mentioned here.

    Oh, I heard about a private auction sale last week of a .co domain that sold for $76,000! I dislike .co, but that is an emotional response because I am too stupid to get in on the domain “musical chairs” action there.

  22. As non .com search engine traffic generators it seems that .net and .org are the best (excluding ccTLDs). With the right SEO though the rest of the extensions might be up to par. We have some nice generic .co and .me domains including CowboyHats.co, WorkShoes.co, LaptopComputers.me and Surfboards.me that with some SEO elbow grease might be as good as their .net, .org counterparts.

  23. A very good point that all SEO consultants know, but not so many domainers. With SEO and other marketing and promotion techniques, just about any domain can have a site that performs well. The first expired domain we ever bought was BizProLink-Internet.com and that site has been one of our top 3 money makers for years.

    I guess you can’t really judge a domain by it’s TLD. 🙂

  24. For me , Develope or sell ? if you will develope go with any extension , if you will sell try to get .com
    John daly , your comment is perfect ,
    Here is , “Overall I would have to say “What’s the keyword and what are your goals?” in terms of value.”

  25. .CM

    I spent about $3,500 on them, no offers (good terms too: OnlineCasinos.cm, HomeMortgage.cm, alcoholism.cm, etc.)

    Next up: .us.com (had some good terms, including “silver” and never an offer.)

    Mobis, nothing.

    .com, .net and .org…seems to be the only good market for me. (With the vast majority of sales being .com)

  26. “TEL wins hands down, the TLD is fundamentally crippled because you can’t set your own nameservers.”

    If you understand how .tel works and what you can use it for you will change your mind very quickly.

    Most useless:
    .ws
    .name
    .jobs
    .mobi
    .cc

  27. I’ve had more success in the last 6 mos. with non.com domains on the reseller front than with .com in the last 2-3 years combined. Mostly .nets & .infos… I have had some exceptional sales with .coms, but that extension has long since been mined for its valuables. As Elliot mentioned above in regards to protective registrations, I believe non .com equivalents have grown in value with .com owners, even if they themselves are resellers.

    IMO, value lies in the eye of the end-user 😉

  28. .Us has been an excellent extension for me. Of course, .com is my number #1 extension. .info is in a close third. .net has been a disaster, though I do have some good names. No action with .biz and .mobi are virtually impossible to sell.

  29. There’s constant demand for the .us. Owning the keyword “blog” in any extension will generate interest. Blog is a popular keyword type-in.

    Blog has average keyword results of 100 million. Blog.us will definitely generate interest. I’m sure Sedo would approve the domain for the great domain auction.

  30. Just read Neustar’s news release that DNSSEC are fully deployed in .biz/.us, with .biz having an extra security feature of Registry Lock. Those security features elevate .biz/.us extension in a huge way to me! There’s no denying Neustar is cutting edge as far as security. Developers might find it a great selling point for properties they actually invest $$/time into. It speaks well for .co Neustar is handling that as well, plus there are no private registrations with .co!

    DNSSEC also recently enabled for .eu.

    DNSSEC gives authority to those extensions; maybe it will make them more appealing!

  31. @Jason: Sorry this is so late. I didn’t see your comment at first. In terms of Germans & .info – I meant German terms. These types of domains (depending on keywords, of course) are in high demand on Sedo. An example is Baukredit.info (not mine), which translates to “construction loan.” If you search in Google.de you also see .info being used for company websites.

  32. If you type, “website hosting” into Google in quotes,

    WebsiteHosting.cc is page 1; #7.

    If you type in just: Justin, Justin.tv comes up #1!

    The other day I saw a .biz on page one of a generic search – wish I could remember! It was a big term.

    It takes effort to build a site, then patience to watch it rank!

    Elliot is going to do well with Bahamas.co!!!

  33. I think
    .ws
    .mobi
    .name
    .Jobs
    .cc
    .aero
    are most least valuable extensions.

    However if you develop a website with lot effort on any extension it worth more than popular extension name.

    my $0.02

  34. .info can definitely do very well when developed properly – there appears to be no penalty for the .info extension with search engines, even for very competitive keywords.

    In my (limited) experience google analytics data confirms that plenty of people seem to remember how to type in a .info site once they become aware of it.

    And people don’t look at you like you’ve landed from Mars when you tell them your site is xxxxxxxxxx.info

  35. I would say .tel .ws .aero

    Some say .mobi is in this crowd. Maybe for now.

    Well with a few tweeks with the technology then they could still be worth a fortune later on.

    Dont count that extension out, esp since everyone has a mobile phone… MMM I wonder why they where bought out

  36. I think exact match domains are best if you are willing to pay the price up front for them.

    Google gives them a bonus it seems. However, there are lots of sites ranking really well without and exact match. I guess it comes down to how much time are you willing to invest to get the site to rank. It you have the time then you don’t necessarily need the exact match, but if you are in a hurry and have the money go for the exact match.

  37. I was wondering if anyone thought socialseo.info would work nice for an authority site for social SEO? I am developing a hosting company that will be offering an SEO package and I thought I could use socialseo.info for traffic.

  38. @ Elliot
    I appreciate the straightforward reply. I just did a Google using “seo info” without quotes or operators and the third organic link was an .info site. The results for “social seo info” returned an .info site for the fourth organic link.

  39. I registered buyco.ws and sellco.ws
    hoping to find a buyer in the cow business.
    Anyone tell me what’s so bad about that?
    I am really a newbie domainer and have ireckon about 150 domains registered so far.
    Looking for a 12-step program so I can quit.

  40. I read every comment and enjoyed all the opinions. I was discouraged then encouraged about .co. I own newyorkcityny.co.

    I am preparing to sell it on Godaddy or Sedo auction.
    Any insight on which would be best for a .co of this caliber? and how about a price, any suggestions? Its my only .co and not too up on its market value when it comes to this name. Thats why I have hesitated to put it up for auction…lack of knowledge on the extension. the .com ext is on Godaddy for $48,000
    I will be looking for any insights from some of you top dogs who live and breathe domains.

    • I don’t think it’s worth much.

      Just because the com is listed for sale at a high price (in my opinion) doesn’t mean it’s worth close to it. The only thing the price means to me is that nobody has bought it.

  41. I know few ppl will agree with this, but the least valuable domain extension to
    me is .org!

    .org is supposed to be NOT FOR PROFIT.
    sure, there are some high profile exceptions but in general .mobi and
    .org usually lead to dissapointment.

    I put my money where my mouth is too
    just to prove a point, i put one of
    my better .org domains up for sale
    on Go Daddy Auctions recently for
    $99 and it still hasnt sold.

    The Domain is VacationHotel.org
    and all of the appraisals i have on
    this domain say it is worth between
    $3,300 and $5,000 dollars.

    .org in the end, will be the biggest disspointment I believe for domainers
    TRYING TO MAKE A PROFIT. As a matter of preference I like .com, .co and .biz
    for reselling. I think even .info is
    a better investment than .org

    I expect alot of people to be in disagreement with this, but its just
    my 2 cents worth. I will never buy another .org ever again.

  42. That is good to know John. but the .com version has already got bids close to 40k on Marchex. Obviously they werent yours (laughs) Sometimes immediate value I guess is not so obvious in the domain game.

    When i heard about the .com bids, I bought
    the .net and .org versions, but havent been
    able to do a thing with them. But i will never ever ever buy another .org domain again that’s for sure.

  43. Oxford Moron if it were NewYorkCity.co
    you would have a good one, but if I
    were you I would post it everywhere
    for sale.

    starting with afternic.com

    My guess is that it will not be an
    easy sell, and is worth less than
    500 if that. The good thing about
    domains though is you can ask
    whatever you want for them and
    maybe just maybe you will get
    lucky with the right buyer.

    A good idea would be to park it
    maybe with afternic or sedo so
    it will get listed on DomainTools
    marketplace. Your chances are much better if this occurs.

    Best of luck.

  44. Thanks sir for your effort and I really appreciate that. I think .net and .da are the worst and also least used domain extensions in history of web. I always prefer .com which is perfect for all country and destinatior,

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