- Impact
- 30,457
You've heard it. In so many forms. "The market is taken, all good names are registered and owned for years. People are migrating en masse to other TLDs. You can't make money anymore with .COM so you have to focus on .xyz, .online or whatnot. Etc etc.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I've been watching the evolution of the .com TLD over the last few years. My conclusion is that this TLD is far, far from being "spent".
Yes some TLD's have been rising, like .co and .xyz. Others have been falling, like .info, .biz and I'd also say .net.
But .COM adoption is still growing.
What has changed?
- Many years ago, domain endings like "fy" or "ify" became acceptable. Today, all domains of this type are quickly snatched. And sold.
- More recently, double vowels are acceptable. Like "crediit" for example. They didn't use to be, at all. I don't yet bet on these but I've seen them selling including in NP reports.
- Endings like "itizer" or "imizer" were absolutely unacceptable. Not anymore - and I've sold domains with such endings for 4-fig.
- 3-words and more are becoming more and more acceptable
- A large number of buyers have been bouncing back from certain nGTLDs to COM again. And most new extensions launched fail to even get more than a few tens of thousands registrations, with very few notable exceptions.
- A lot of quality/action words are becoming usable, and they didn't use to be in the past. In fact, due to this I can estimate there is still a lot of domains that can be hand regged. The big question is when: So you don't have to renew them too long, or worse, lose money on those unsold.
- The .com mass of domains is still growing; and the growth is not slowing down, but accelerating. This also supports everything I've said here.
- Experienced domainers are betting on .com. (see the latest @AbdulBasit.com interview where he discloses the fact that he aims for 95% .coms in portfolio). Betting hard. (I'm also betting on .coms and largely discarding my other TLD's in portfolio which I frequently mentioned in posts.)
- There are about 500K .com domains in existence (just a very rough number). I've estimated the useful combinations to be in much higher numbers, actually somewhere in the 1.5M - 2M range. These are my numbers but pick yours. Of course there are many more combinations but I'm sticking to most useful words as per my preference. This could get to 10 million if certain combinations or modifications get adopted, that we might not be able to figure out today.
- Given the fact that it took .COM so many years to get here, I estimate that for the foreseeable future, and at least the next 20 years, the demand will be ever increasing and number of .COMs will grow 3X or 4X from today. And new combinations will become acceptable, perhaps some we don't think of today.
- Your not so fancy .COMs that you are discarding today? Indeed they aren't worth much right now. Well, if you have the guts and the sharp eye to know which to renew, and renew instead of discarding, few years down the line you might exchange them for a nice amount. (Edit: That could mean the difference between a nice retirement or passive revenue, OR being broke if nothing else comes your way meantime),
- Prices are always growing. That's good news - renewal prices are hardly growing, in fact less than inflation. So you can say, not only .coms are about the cheapest domains out there but they also get cheaper and cheaper! Even with all the ICANN planned increases over the years.
...And so on.
What is your take on .COM? And how do you see this developing further? Which changes are already happening that I haven't mentioned here?
Thanks!
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I've been watching the evolution of the .com TLD over the last few years. My conclusion is that this TLD is far, far from being "spent".
Yes some TLD's have been rising, like .co and .xyz. Others have been falling, like .info, .biz and I'd also say .net.
But .COM adoption is still growing.
What has changed?
- Many years ago, domain endings like "fy" or "ify" became acceptable. Today, all domains of this type are quickly snatched. And sold.
- More recently, double vowels are acceptable. Like "crediit" for example. They didn't use to be, at all. I don't yet bet on these but I've seen them selling including in NP reports.
- Endings like "itizer" or "imizer" were absolutely unacceptable. Not anymore - and I've sold domains with such endings for 4-fig.
- 3-words and more are becoming more and more acceptable
- A large number of buyers have been bouncing back from certain nGTLDs to COM again. And most new extensions launched fail to even get more than a few tens of thousands registrations, with very few notable exceptions.
- A lot of quality/action words are becoming usable, and they didn't use to be in the past. In fact, due to this I can estimate there is still a lot of domains that can be hand regged. The big question is when: So you don't have to renew them too long, or worse, lose money on those unsold.
- The .com mass of domains is still growing; and the growth is not slowing down, but accelerating. This also supports everything I've said here.
- Experienced domainers are betting on .com. (see the latest @AbdulBasit.com interview where he discloses the fact that he aims for 95% .coms in portfolio). Betting hard. (I'm also betting on .coms and largely discarding my other TLD's in portfolio which I frequently mentioned in posts.)
- There are about 500K .com domains in existence (just a very rough number). I've estimated the useful combinations to be in much higher numbers, actually somewhere in the 1.5M - 2M range. These are my numbers but pick yours. Of course there are many more combinations but I'm sticking to most useful words as per my preference. This could get to 10 million if certain combinations or modifications get adopted, that we might not be able to figure out today.
- Given the fact that it took .COM so many years to get here, I estimate that for the foreseeable future, and at least the next 20 years, the demand will be ever increasing and number of .COMs will grow 3X or 4X from today. And new combinations will become acceptable, perhaps some we don't think of today.
- Your not so fancy .COMs that you are discarding today? Indeed they aren't worth much right now. Well, if you have the guts and the sharp eye to know which to renew, and renew instead of discarding, few years down the line you might exchange them for a nice amount. (Edit: That could mean the difference between a nice retirement or passive revenue, OR being broke if nothing else comes your way meantime),
- Prices are always growing. That's good news - renewal prices are hardly growing, in fact less than inflation. So you can say, not only .coms are about the cheapest domains out there but they also get cheaper and cheaper! Even with all the ICANN planned increases over the years.
...And so on.
What is your take on .COM? And how do you see this developing further? Which changes are already happening that I haven't mentioned here?
Thanks!
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