.COM, .ORG & New gTLDs Get Relatively More Domain Inquiries

I run a test counting all domain name inquiries in a month to see what TLDs are getting the most inquiries compared to the percentage that each TLD represents in my domain portfolio.

I only counted the inquiries I got for my domains parked at DomainNameSales.com that holds the bulk of my portfolio. I didn’t count any of the direct inquiries through email or to other marketplaces.

These were the results from the domain name inquiries:

TLD Inquiries Percentage
.com 175 45%
.net 3 1%
.org 48 12%
.info 44 11%
.biz 14 4%
.us 22 6%
.gr 25 6%
New gTLDs 59 15%

To remind you this is my portfolio composition:

TLD Domains %
.com 3352 39%
.net 49 1%
.org 764 9%
.info 2245 26%
.biz 460 5%
.us 770 9%
.gr 400 5%
New gTLDs 606 7%

The results show that .Com, .Org and New gTLDs are getting relatively more inquiries compared to the portfolio percentages. New gTLDs are getting 15% of the inquiries but only represent 7% of my domains.

I would think that all in all my .com portfolio as a whole is of lower quality compared to the other TLDs in my portfolio. That is compared to other .com domains. It is not that I think that my .com domains are worth less.

Of course .com domains have higher sales prices than New gTLDs but contrary to what many people think, New gTLDs do get inquiries. But most of the New gTLDs I own are of higher quality so that might skew the results a little.

The inquiry percentages are almost the same to my portfolio TLD percentages in the case of .net, .biz and .gr.

The TLDs that are not doing so well are .info and .us.

Number of Domains Needed To Generate 1 Inquiry TLD
19 .com
16 .net
16 .org
51 .info
33 .biz
35 .us
24 .gr
7 New gTLDs

Are you seeing the same results in your portfolio?

Sold.Domains

About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

20 comments

  1. K-have you thought about buying any .ws names? re their reported push into China and that people like Shane Cultra are now involved in a big way. Thank you.

  2. Thanks for sharing.

  3. I can’t imagine who is inquiring about .info and .biz domains unless they are numerics or LL type domains. I dropped my last .BIZ (great keyword but horrible extension) a couple months ago. I have never sold a .info

    Interesting & impressive stats!

  4. Can you also share your conversion rates? How many of them lead to a sale?

  5. Thanks Interesting data. Maybe the most useful figure would be the ratio of Domains / Inquiry for a given TLD. Using your numbers:

    19 .COM domains generate 1 inquiry
    16 .NET domains generate 1 inquiry
    16 .ORG domains generate 1 inquiry
    51 .INFO domains generate 1 inquiry
    33 .BIZ domains generate 1 inquiry
    35 .US domains generate 1 inquiry
    16 .GR domains generate 1 inquiry
    10 nTLD domains generate 1 inquiry

    The statistical confidence is lowest (i.e. margin of error is widest) for .NET because your sample size is only a small number of domains.

    We can’t, of course, assume that the quality of domain name choices is uniform across all TLDs in your portfolio. What I mean is that you might have picked better names in nTLDs recently than you did in .BIZ years ago. Fruits of experience. Or (one might argue) your instincts for picking .ORG are better than for .US. Not saying that’s so. Just pointing out there won’t be uniform quality of strings across all TLDs in any portfolio (or group of portfolios).

    I’m assuming all domains were owned for 100% of the period covered. If you added domains midway through, then they weren’t around to get inquiries the whole time. And that might disrupt the numbers.

    Also, I notice a higher number of inquiries shortly after acquisitions. That might play a role. Not to mention many other factors.

    • I added a table with the figure you are asking.
      I don’t have many .net so the sample is not good.

      As I said the quality is not the same. .Com is of lower quality in total. (I have many 1-word domains but also many domains that will never sell…)
      .Org, .info, .biz and .us are mostly 1-word domains and 3 letter domains.
      .Gr and New gTLDs have probably better quality.

      Yes, there was no change in the portfolio in the period I tested. And almost no domains added in the past 3 months before the test.

  6. Any idea what this is in the DNS menu?

    Confidential inquiries hide a lot of information from the Owner. Depending on the Owner’s notification settings, they may already have been notified of the buyer’s information for this lead.

    Are you sure you still wish to mark it as confidential?

  7. Thanks for sharing. It would be interesting to see if the larger market produced similar results. Of course results can be different based on many factors however, my take away from this snapshot of market queries is this, quality new tld’s are returning solid queries at least as well as an average .com portfolio in this sample. As China marches on to be the #1 consumer market for the best quality across the board ( that makes sense to their investment culture ), all that will be left is average .com and other limited use legacy inventory. Good news for average .com’s and quality new tld’s.
    Global investors of quality .com’s are going to find it much more difficult to navigate a market that has inventory control that has significant language barriers, strict governmental controls, and a fraud rate higher than any other market place. And as a result,
    A significantly higher number of average investors and end users globally will gravitate to an easier more secure, more affordable alternative at least until the new #1 market makes access seamless and secure with the rest of the world markets. Good news for average .com’s and new tld’s.

  8. Hi Konstantinos, thanks for sharing.
    Here’s my stats,
    my Portfolio is
    60% ngtlds / 25% .com and .net / 15% cctlds
    Period

    29/Dec-15 –> 26-Feb/16 ( Total Sales: 1 )
    Inquiries, actual numbers. Platform/MarketPlace: DNS

    .com = 4
    .net = 9
    .me = 29
    .guide = 10
    .services = 1
    .click = 1
    .casa = 3
    .chat = 1
    .network = 1
    .digital = 2
    .place = 1
    .top = 1
    .design = 2
    .red = 2
    .express = 1
    .online = 2
    .link = 3
    .news = 1
    .plus = 3
    .show = 1

  9. Lots of gtld inqiuries are people who are searching how to register them at reg fee, as they don’t realize they missed the boat on some.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.