OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
I debated between a few titles for this post but decided that the worst one is best suited to wake some people up.
The other title I thought was “there are zero (0) good .dev domain names!”.
“.Dev domains are for idiots!” seems to go well with my other post a few months back about .app: .app domains are for dreamers.
I just want to explain something from the start. I am not talking here about people putting up a hobby development website. They can put their small website anywhere they want. Even .dev. If .dev seems “new” and “hip” at the moment they can use .dev.
But WHY??? It makes absolutely no sense!
You think everyone is going to create a new website now because .dev came out? Where have they been for the past 20 years? Why didn’t they built a website last year? Do you think they are just going to move their website to .dev or leave some free account? Guess again.
Anyway, I am mostly talking about people putting serious money on .dev domains and/or serious money on developing a website/business solely on a .dev domain. And I am talking about people that invest in .dev domains. Sorry if I insulted you. If you came here for “polite” stuff then you came to the wrong blog. This is just business. And the truth.
First of all “dev” means nothing. I don’t see it associated with development or software development or technology. Name one person (excluding people named Dev!) that uses it in everyday life! I searched google for dev and I get little about software development. Do you just buy them because Google said that .dev is for everything about software? Are you the victim of all the (oldest) marketing tricks?
We already have .software, .tech and .technology and a few others. And we have .com, .net and .org and others for many many years. These are WAY more than enough for anyone to find a space. .Dev is almost as stupid as the .onl extension. Yeah, a company that thought that .online would be expensive applied for a .onl extension. There are 4,398 .onl domains today, 5 years after .onl launched.
I think that people are putting too much weight on the fact that Google is the registry of .dev. Just like they did with .app. So what if Google is the registry? This means nothing! Google will not make worthless domains more valuable. There are zero good .dev domains. ZERO. ZE-RO.
I would not even develop a website on .dev given the track record that Google has on abandoning failed projects. And why would I develop on .dev? Someone give me one reason! Just because it is “new” and “hip”? Who cares? I would prefer to build on old and proven.
I think people are so stupid that if Google was backing .onl then the extension would now have 50,000 registrations. Again there would be zero good .onl domains. I would hear “.ONL is the new gold!!!”.
There are very few good domains per new extension and these are either reserved or premiums. Some were lucky to get a few deals in some launches. Some people including myself got a few in 2014-2015. Those days are long gone. I am talking about strong left-right combinations like credit.cards or bitcoin.cash or similar. And even those are really hard to sell!
If .app had maybe 100-200 good domains (all reserved or premiums or gone in the first day of EAP) then .dev has none. Yes, bitcoin.dev is a worthless domain. And someone paid $12,500 for it. Others paid $12,500 for quite a few domains and many lesser fees in the EAP. This does not make the domains valuable. These are mostly vanity purchases from people that have too much money to spend and have no idea about domains. There are no similar sales coming in .dev and if there are a couple that would be the outliers.
If you are hoping to get a similar sale on your .dev domains (because I see domainers bought a few) then you are into sick gambling. You are better off buying lottery tickets.
BTW speaking of “people that have no idea about domains” here is someone that got burned buying a TM .dev domain for $4,500 in EAP.
.Dev is getting close to 100,000 domain registrations just like .app has about 370,000 registrations according to namestat.org. So what? Registrations most of the times mean absolutely nothing in New Extensions in terms of sales/prices or else .icu or .ooo would be the next big things with hundreds of sales. Very very few extensions are doing consistently good in sales. I can only think of .club at this moment.
Where are all the .app domain name sales people were expecting after May 2018? It is almost 1 year since the .app launch. Check Sold.Domains to see how many .app domains have sold. There are 8 sales. Maybe there are a few unreported ones but people were expecting hundreds of domain sales.
If you think developers are going to pay anything above $10 to buy your worthless .dev domain then you better think again.
There are not even that many ****dev.com sales. There are only 4 sales above $5k:
| fbdev.com | 10,000 USD | 2019-02-17 | DomainMarket |
| ddev.com | 10,000 USD | 2018-04-16 | Sedo |
| wpmudev.com | 7,500 USD | 2011-12-07 | Sedo |
| steamdev.com | 5,001 USD | 2018-10-02 | Sedo |
Finally I can only laugh at people saying the Google is going to throw marketing dollars at .dev and make it the next big thing. And even if they did (and that actually “worked” somehow”) why would they pick such a bad extension almost no one except geeks has any interest about???
BTW, countless companies have thrown billions of marketing dollars on something that works already: .com.
Also, Alexa rankings a week after an extension launches mean nothing (they don’t mean much anyway) and NO Google will not rank better .dev websites. (And rank them for what??? “Dev”?)
Wishful thinking like that is way worse than buying lottery tickets or going to Vegas or (.)horse betting. Seriously! There is even a Guy on Namepros promising .dev world domination!!!
OnlineDomain.com - © Copyright 2012-2024 - All Rights Reserved
I normally don’t agree with you very often
but this time – yes
that’s it.
additionally, it reminds me of an adult term
instead of development
Frank
I agree with you on a lot of points. I’m a developer and I wouldn’t mind a .dev name for a hobby project or a portfolio site. But other than that, they are totally worthless as an investment.
How about using .dev domain for a Construction Development company? Is it really only relevant to software developers? Would realestate.dev or similar be a suitable use?
Agreed – Nailed it!
Wow, you really came out swinging, Kon! Lol
If Google did not own the .Dev extension, there would not even be half of the current registrations.
Half? 1/10 at most.
Google is charging $99 for SSL certificate for .Dev domains when renewed! Only free for the first year.
How many people missed that? Lol
That’s paid SSL, which is not necessary. You can use free SSL.
Completely agree with you.
Is Morgan Linton still pushing .xyz? rah rah hurrah
I don’t remember ever pushing .XYZ…I just think .XYZ, .CLUB, .CO, .IO and other non .COMs can work for startups that don’t have the budget for a .COM, same with .DEV.
As for Domainers, I think investing in anything but a .COM means investing in something that is most likely to have an ROI of 0.
its another SH1T gtld and probably stands for Devil since they own it.
MUY BUEN COMENTARIO, SALUDOS … ADRIAN
Agreed in most parts Konstantinos except for the use of the word Dev. In San Francisco I talk with a lot of other startup founders, investors, and have friends that work for LinkedIn, Google, etc. They all use the word Dev all the time, it’s probably the most common word used to describe developers.
I hear people say, “we’re hiring more devs” or “I’m trying to become a dev” all the time.
As for .DEV as a domain extension, yup – good pick for hobbyists, not for Domainers, and I don’t think any big companies are going to be rushing to get one. Google owning and marketing the heck out of the TLD is definitely driving the registrations.
I wouldn’t say it’s just .DEV domains that are for idiots, I’d broaden it to say that “most new gTLDs are for idiots” since I think the logic you put together here applies to the vast majority of new gTLDs.
As always, great article and I agree with 99% of what you’ve said here…now if only we got to discuss this live at NamesCon this year, not the same without you my friend!
What you describe is a very very small niche of people. And even these use it as a somewhat slang word.
And yes most new gtlds are for idiots. But most of them have 10 or 100 or 200 good domains. .dev has zero good ones. It at the .onl and .horse level. The scam of the scam.
Yes! I hope we meet at Lisbon!
Morgan, I was once a “developer” of sorts and even worked in a large IT department. I hate this extension and would never go near it for any purpose. It also smells of vanity to me.
And I really hate .xyz.
P.S. Pretty sure I also sometimes used the term “dev” even in writing when I held this job for years, and I still hate it.
.Dev is owned by the biggest fraudster of internet ; Google!
BTW, United Domains via 1and1 and with the help of Google are doing “ransonware” with their ads!
See this… http://z.quebec/united-domains/
And don’t forget to check all the other posts on http://www.Z.quebec .. internet is run by criminals.
PS, and see this:
https://onlinedomain.com/2019/03/06/domain-name-news/mike-mann-shares-his-domain-name-pricing-levels/#comment-343298
I thought people who are serious about their businesses tend to be polite to avoid incurring hatreds?
Also, “dev” is associate with development. The community of an online game I participated a few years ago often used “devs” (plural) to refer to the game developers.
#slang #plural
I would ONLY use .dev domain for a staging site, or under-development site/project. But then .xyz (and other new crap TLDs) are available for $0.99 or less with their promo, then no need to waste money on .dev even for a staging site!
Only a developer who wants to sell his services can properly use .dev domain, example: “Mike.dev”, but again if I wanna hire a serious web developer, I would rather visit a site which has professional, credible domain like: “MikeWebDeveloper.com”
The glorious Gabon allows anyone to get .GA for free. Which is, if you really need to host a staging site on its own separate domain, since there can be countless staging sites on any single domain.
I think .dev is for personal or project-based using, not for investment. But people got it wrong and invested in it. They registered over 80k domain name in one or two days.
https://dofo.com/search/?extension=dev
I mean, I got 5k months after .app dropped for ‘foodtruck’ and Im quite certain Godaddy bought it from me while I was working there, bc no ‘public list’ has ever shown it, but I assure ya, I got my money for that crap lol…anyway, I have carpet.app and surgery and surgeon ….simply bc the generic single word with the .com variants worth 7 figures (for carpet anyway). I have been livid watching the garbage .app names sell consistently now for 5k to 91k for ZD.app and Carpet hasn’t gotten so much as a sniff. I truly can’t grasp it…. Dev is trash for sure.. I did acquire Immobilier.dev for cheap reg, and got it bc that French word is so crazy high valued, not to mention ya got ‘Real estate . dev’ as a translation… ill renew it for the 40 bucks..somebody will pounce eventually…any advice for carpet would be appreciated
This is one of the most pointless, trite, “old man yells at clouds” ramblings I have read in a while.
You don’t do much reading, do you?
I just like that I was able to get a three letter .dev domain. That’s my main reason.
I got a dev specifically because my last name is one of the most popular names on the planet, and lastname.dev is just clean and easy to remember compared to it not being available for anything else. I do use it to play with code and concepts, and sometimes it is nice to give someone my lastname.dev/whatever to give them a sample of what I can do. Easy for them to remember, it Is a development playground for me, and I would never actually use a dev for a friend or client.
Don’t forget Google SEO advantages for .dev. For business running on .com, .dev can boost their SEO my leaps.
+ Move and more serious companies are investing in DEV now e.g. GitHub, Microsoft, Apple.