OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Here are the 1st day domain name registration results from this week’s 4 New gTLD launches:
On the 11th of November an Australian geo New gTLDs launched: .melbourne. Melbourne’s population is 4,347,955. .Melbourne got 1,763 domains on its first day.
3 Donuts New gTLDs were out of the EAP pricing and into the real (reg fee) general availability on Wednesday the 12th of November: .restaurant, .gifts and .sarl.
.Restaurant got 2,388 domains, .gifts got 1,010 and .sarl got just 176 domain name registrations after their first general availability day.
The “New gTLD 1st Day Registrations” include sunrise domain names as well as any domains registered by the registry or any founder’s program. Any registry is allowed to register up to 100 domains for it’s own use and give out another 100 as part of the New gTLD founder’s program.
(I am always comparing the same first hours from their 1st day for all New gTLDs. The hours between General Availability and the first zone files update.)
It looks like lots of domainers are stating to fold. Disillusioned. I thought a bunch will be all over restaurant and melbourne.
I tried to get a few .restaurant or .gifts but couldn’t find one that I really liked.
For the right price that is. Because I saw a few $500 premium domains that I liked…
Regarding .Melbourne, I don’t enter markets I know nothing about.
Ouch $500 is lots. So are you buying some premiums still?
Bul they are pricing harder, they are forcing you to make that hard call, and hoping there are enough newbies looking for a second round gold rush to put that $500 bet down.
The last few rounds pricing has ramped up, every round that goes thru they learn something new, such as the keyword 247 used to be a simple reg fee, now if you want 247.market it comes with a $1800 annual renewal. So they will continue to to this until the cash flow starts slowing to more anemic levels on launches, or until renewals come around.
In order to pay for a name in a premium setting, hold it for a few years, then try to sell to an end user, INFORMING them of the premium is going to be tough. Especially if that premium is in the $2xx – $1xxx per year range. Having guys like Mind & Machines forcing you to delete their mistakes, so they can reprice 100x higher is another issue at hand in the TOS of these GTLD agreements.
Yes, the pricing is getting absurd/
But there is a way. Everybody just has to hold tight on their wallet and economics will kick in. Just saying
Like with .mobi .biz .us they had momentum out of the gate, some great end user sales, good numbers. The people that sold out early did very well, the ones that held out from that grand payday well, are now looking to get sedo $60 min bids so they can push their liabilities to auction.
I live in melbourne and will let you know when i see one publicly , i know a lawyer who has a .melbourne but he is an enduser and can claim the cost on tax so for him it works