information .LINK - throwing in the towel, and advice from a friend

[ThatNameGuy]

Just a few days ago I sent the following email to Yoni Belousov, Vaughn Liley, and Jeff Gabriel of Nova Registry, the new owners of the .LINK extension;

"Yoni etal.....what a waste of time and money to have created a portfolio of 1,500 .LINK domains believing I could help make .LINK successful.

One of my greatest strengths are the people I've gotten to know through Linkedin, and a few of them had reached out to me because they own .LINK domains.

Marek Eckhaus from Prague owns Sex.link
and
Jim Haung from Shanghai owns Free.link

Furthermore, a domain friend of mine Joe N. from Canada was able to help me get domains like; Bicycle.link, American.link and Dollar.link listed @ Dan, but to no avail in that I haven't received a single inquiry much less offer.

I guess you've heard me say, "If it's to BE, it's up to ME", but without some backing that isn't going to happen.

I consider myself sort of a .LINK walk on who could have been a star, but Nova Registry just doesn't see it that way......SAD!

Finally, i'm blind copying a pretty well respected industry leader that was quoted as saying, ".LINK is no worse than .XYZ", but personally I believe .LINK is far better than .xyz.

Unfortunately, we'll never know."


In addition i copied a few domain friends I made around the world, and here is the response Alessandro from a friend from Italy....you might note I've not heard anything back from anyone at Nova Registry;

Richard

There’s a lot of emotion in this industry, and it’s easy to get caught up on “one thing” … It is important that as investors we diversify our portfolios, own Names that make Sense !

There’s this idea that you should only invest in .com and 90% of “The Domain Industry Club“ will tell you the same thing over and over again like a broken record, BUT the truth is you should invest in good names ^ and understand that what we are all looking to accomplish takes time, effort, and determination ^

2,000,000,000 sites online, you cannot limit all of them to .com much less .net or 10 other extensions … the formation of new industries and new business’ continues to rise - and thus GOOD names become more valuable, I believe this to be true for both .com and combination keyword GTLD examples that match perfectly the left and right of the DOT

I was offered $25,000 for mortgage.loans in 2021 @ the ROTD auction with Monte and I was offered $11,000 for easy.credit at the recent ROTD 2023 auction w/ Monte, meanwhile TeamBank in Germany offered me $1000 even though they are a multi billion dollar company, I received a mysterious offer of $125,000 on DAN for e.credit and the buyer vanished, I had some guy in Monaco offer me 3.2 BTC when BTC was trading @ $55,000 so that he could develop e.credit into an online crypto casino … I bet he feels pretty dumb given where BTC is @ … what is my point, GOOD names receive some attention, and not all the time is that attention going to be “Execution” … In fact more times then not, you are going to run into people who will waste your time,

I have watched the Blue Man Group turn down owning blue.com … I’ve personally talked on the phone with the board of Smith & Wesson; while walking the streets of Venice at night … guess what, they didn’t buy sw.com and neither did Nvidia buy ai.com … I couldn’t sell 77.com to 77Bank in Japan, and Weight Watchers waited for my contract to expire to purchase ww.com … the domain industry is cruel, the priceless opportunity of selling BIG names is a rare thing, patience is the name of the game … Like golf, rare to hit a par much less a Hole In One … BUT damn it feels good when ya do !

1500 .link names, say 10% of that are true quality names Richard @ $1000 bare minimum, that’s $150,000, good $$$ to invest with at the moment. Outbound, outbound, outbound, even if 95% of those leads won’t contact you back …

There was a time when I allowed my emotions to play into the industry, ya just can’t do it, either it works or it doesn’t, and if someone doesn’t understand the value, there is no sense in trying to persuade them, this goes for all names …

And if you invest in GTLDs, focus on exact match keyword combinations,

free.link

direct.link

Instant.link

sex.link (shit, sex.xxx sold for $3M)

big.link

cash.link

soft.link

nice.link

Explain the value, build an audience, and people will then come to you … because believe it or not, there are people in the world with the same ideas as you …

So continue walking tall, put that Big Brain of yours to use, relinquish some of your grand names at a discount, and invest moving forward … if you have that BIG name, don’t sell it, you may want to, but don’t do it, you can put a large price tag on that one BIG name, but that’s it ^ focus on everything else, diversify, and move forward >>>

Best wishes !

Alessandro


Finally, while I still believe in the .LINK extension, without committed support from the Registry and it's owners I just decided to throw in the towel.......VERY SAD!!!

ps. thank you Alessandro

 

[bmugford]

Most recent example was when .realty was launched on Epik. I thought it would be a bit different so I registered about 30 location.realty names of popular MSAs.

Did a ton of outbound emails and calls... and in the year of the promo pricing... sold exactly ZERO.
Let them all lapse.

At the same time, I had a mid $x,xxx offer and sold a Name+Realty.com domain. lol.

Yeah, I have sold many Name+Realty / City+Realty / Brand+Realty in .COM.

The problem with all these extensions is you have to sell the actual extension itself.

With .COM that is not the case.

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Rich, if you still believe in the .link extension, then hopefully you'll hang onto some of the better single word terms that don't carry a premium renewal. I think that's really the key when it comes to the ngTLD names. Limit your exposure to only the top tier names and avoid premium renewals. Swetha taught us all that lesson (whether those sales are legit or not), and it's a valuable one.

Personally, I think this is a great opportunity for you to make a plan for your next area of focus before investing money into more domains. Why not pick one of your interesting business ideas and see it through? Take the next $15K you might have spent on names and invest in some development work to have a website built.

Good advice Joe.....as you know I'm pretty pissed off with the likes of Yoni Belousov, Vaughn Liley and Jeff Gabriel....almost as pissed off as I am with the GD mafia.

You may recall that even some (more than one) of our mutual domain friends seemed to like the .LINK extension. That's not to say they were crazy about it, but i believe even you felt there was merit in it.

You're right about investing to have a website built. That's exactly what I planned to do IF just a few (one or two) of my .LINK domains sold.

Joe, like the two "holes in one" i made at the same hole on Memorial Day 2021 followed by another on March 21, 2022, you just never know about these sort of things. At best I'm a bogie golfer, but the one thing I do know is this rare occurrence would have never happened if I didn't play the game

Finally, thanks for hanging in there with me....you're a good man!

 

[ThatNameGuy]

As with all of the extensions, there are definitely opportunities there... but let's be honest... if that company would be able to register Mosquito.com.... would they even bother with .buzz? as an end user, is it .buz or .buzz? Just too much to education customers.

Of course there are always good examples where these tlds can work...

wedding.pics
plumbing.pro
hunting.pro
etc...

Basically two word search terms that can be made into one word + extension.

But thankfullness.link is just stupid... and majority of these type names will never be in use.

even with direct search... it is no guarantee it will work out.

Most recent example was when .realty was launched on Epik. I thought it would be a bit different so I registered about 30 location.realty names of popular MSAs.

Did a ton of outbound emails and calls... and in the year of the promo pricing... sold exactly ZERO.
Let them all lapse.

At the same time, I had a mid $x,xxx offer and sold a Name+Realty.com domain. lol.

Don't get me wrong, .Link sounds cool and I can think of a few uses, but no way in hell would I pay $150 or more to register a renew a name I would be sitting on and majority of users would not want to touch.

$10? Maybe
$2? Sure... but then drop it if you don't sell it.

Paying $150 for a name to register... guess what? The registry just found a way to cut out the domainer and sell directly to the end user/customer.... and that is YOU.

You said,

"Don't get me wrong, .Link sounds cool and I can think of a few uses" .....so can I, especially for names like Seniors.link, Nurses.link and Nursing.link. Each of these names renew for $118 and I'm now considering whether or not to renew them because I'm one of a Billion "Seniors" in this world, and being very familiar with healthcare I know there are over 25 Million "NURSES" in the world.

Thanks!

 

[Kyle Tully]

i paid just $118 for Chocolate.link and even Jeff Gabriel (CEO @ SAW.com) felt it had potential. At the time the owners of Chocolate.com were asking well over a million dollars for it. I see now someone (GOATfoods.com) must have bought it? Seriously Bailey, if you can't see why I might have invested $118 in Chocolate.link when Chocolate.com sold for over a million dollars you'll never understand my strategy/thinking.

The problem is you can't compare a .com sale to a new gtld that has very little sales data to back it up. One person's casual remark about "potential" means nothing.

At best you're looking at about 1/100th of the .com price which puts a .link at $10k max when all the stars line up.

You can still hand reg a bunch of chocolate.whatever names for $1000 or less so that brings the price down. And ChocolateLink.com is available for $4k which limits your upside as well. And that's before we try to even figure out what the name means or would be used for.

You could hand-reg 11 2-3word .com's for the same price and I guarantee you've got a better chance of selling them than a .link, based on years of historical sales data.

 

[anantj]

Revelling in someone's misfortune is a bit harsh and petty........calling him a loser and a dum dum.....really?

He can't say he wasn't warned that this venture was doomed to fail though.....

https://www.namepros.com/threads/link-binge-continues.1289392/

Hopefully Rich will learn from this (and his other splurges over the last few years) and bounce back stronger

I just read through about 3-4 pages of that thread and holy cow that was a difficult read.
The Koolaid was flowing in gallons on that thread.

Finally, while I still believe in the .LINK extension, without committed support from the Registry and it's owners I just decided to throw in the towel.......VERY SAD!!!

What sort of support are you expecting from the registry? Can you be specific? Are you expecting them to build websites for you? Or sell your domains for you? Or something else?

but one would think the Registry would bend over backwards to work with me in some/any capacity to keep me as part of the team.

What would constitute bending over backwards for you? What team are you a part of that you're referring to here and that the registry should try to keep you a part of?

 

[ThatNameGuy]

The problem is you can't compare a .com sale to a new gtld that has very little sales data to back it up. One person's casual remark about "potential" means nothing.

At best you're looking at about 1/100th of the .com price which puts a .link at $10k max when all the stars line up.

You can still hand reg a bunch of chocolate.whatever names for $1000 or less so that brings the price down. And ChocolateLink.com is available for $4k which limits your upside as well. And that's before we try to even figure out what the name means or would be used for.

You could hand-reg 11 2-3word .com's for the same price and I guarantee you've got a better chance of selling them than a .link, based on years of historical sales data.

I understand all that Kyle. Actually the asking price for Chocolate.com was 2.5M and not 1M, so 1/100 of the .com price puts a .link @ $25K when all the stars line up

As an entrepreneur myself I can think of many applications for Chocolate.link, one of which is to introduce to the general public ALL the different chocolates our world has to offer......it could be like a Chocolate Nirvana for chocolate lovers.

Finally Kyle.....i am diversified in that I do own several hundred decent .com domains, a few of which are brandable and I'd like to develop.

Thanks!

 

[ThatNameGuy]

I just read through about 3-4 pages of that thread and holy cow that was a difficult read.
The Koolaid was flowing in gallons on that thread.



What sort of support are you expecting from the registry? Can you be specific? Are you expecting them to build websites for you? Or sell your domains for you? Or something else?


What would constitute bending over backwards for you? What team are you a part of that you're referring to here and that the registry should try to keep you a part of?

Being that I intended to help promote/grow the .LINK extension by purchasing 1,500 .link domains, wouldn't you think the owners would want my help? I happen to have a track record of growing businesses from startup to maturity, so why do you suppose their reluctance to work with me? Why do you think that is anantj?

 

[Joe N]

Being that I intended to help promote/grow the .LINK extension by purchasing 1,500 .link domains, wouldn't you think the owners would want my help? I happen to have a track record of growing businesses from startup to maturity, so why do you suppose their reluctance to work with me? Why do you think that is anantj?

The reluctance likely came from the lack of an established up-front agreement on what that type of partnership would look like.

They may have had the feeling that, by first buying hundreds of .link names, and then approaching them to work together, you were essentially bullying your way into their "team".

Did they like what you were offering?
Did they like how you promoted yourself and the extension?
Did they find value in the potential collaboration?

For you, the obvious answer to all these questions may have been yes. But you didn't ask them what they wanted/needed before investing in the extension. You went in blind.

In addition, I can't imagine a scenario in any other industry where this type of arrangement would fly. What if you produced and sold baseball caps... and one of your customers liked them so much that he bought 1,500 of them with a plan to profit off of their resale? Would you be keen to work with him? Or would you be pissed that he has the nerve to try to profit off your product, and think that it earns him the right to a seat at the table?

Remember that registries generally don't like domainers.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

The reluctance likely came from the lack of an established up-front agreement on what that type of partnership would look like.

They may have had the feeling that, by first buying hundreds of .link names, and then approaching them to work together, you were essentially bullying your way into their "team".

Did they like what you were offering?
Did they like how you promoted yourself and the extension?
Did they find value in the potential collaboration?

For you, the obvious answer to all these questions may have been yes. But you didn't ask them what they wanted/needed before investing in the extension. You went in blind.

In addition, I can't imagine a scenario in any other industry where this type of arrangement would fly. What if you produced and sold baseball caps... and one of your customers liked them so much that he bought 1,500 of them with a plan to profit off of their resale? Would you be keen to work with him? Or would you be pissed that he has the nerve to try to profit off your product, and think that it earns him the right to a seat at the table?

Remember that registries generally don't like domainers.

"Remember that registries generally don't like domainers."

Joe.....i'll have to say that I'm really puzzled by all this? I view the registry for .LINK similar to the way Ford and GM are manufacturers of automobiles. And domainers like local car dealers who sell automobiles to "end users" aka "consumers". In the case of the domain industry, there's an extra link in the sales chain; registrars like Go Daddy, Namecheap and Epik who might be considered wholesaler's that domainers purchase domains from.

Maybe like the idiom, "It's the Nature of the Beast" that's keeping a relationship like I'm proposing from happening? I do believe there are contractual obligations between registries and registrars that I'm unaware of that may be at play here, but I can't imagine what they are? I can't imagine there isn't a work around, but what do i know

Thanks Joe!

 

[Grego85]

Being that I intended to help promote/grow the .LINK extension by purchasing 1,500 .link domains, wouldn't you think the owners would want my help? I happen to have a track record of growing businesses from startup to maturity, so why do you suppose their reluctance to work with me? Why do you think that is anantj?

Want your help? Its clear and obvious that you were desperate for THEIR help! Can you even imagine what would happen if word got out that a registry was hooking certain people up with massive domain discounts because they hand regged a certain volume? How would it work for the registrar(s) involved? Did you ever even consider this harebrained plan wouldn't work? Either of the times you tried?

The only track record you have is for a clear misunderstanding of how anything in domaining actually works, and for just shear money wasting failure. Work in all the times you've butt into conversations and tried to play the expert, and I'd say you are not only a failure, but a determent to the domain industry. I'm thankful that your cadence is so genuinely unlikable and crackpot like, that at least I can feel confident that no other domainer has taken you seriously enough to be damaged by your imbecilic and over confident nature.

Also, you really think you're a visionary for assuming you could pick up hand reg names in one extension and bank on getting 1% of that keyword's .com value? Any one can make that assumption, and be would completely wrong. Why not .zone or .express or literally hundreds of other options? Especially when the keyword and extension word barely fit together, if at all. You are not a visionary, you have a greatly over-simplified mind and are quick to reward yourself for impulsive behaviors, and you lack the understanding of how things really work.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Want your help? Its clear and obvious that you were desperate for THEIR help! Can you even imagine what would happen if word got out that a registry was hooking certain people up with massive domain discounts because they hand regged a certain volume? How would it work for the registrar(s) involved? Did you ever even consider this harebrained plan wouldn't work? Either of the times you tried?

The only track record you have is for a clear misunderstanding of how anything in domaining actually works, and for just shear money wasting failure. Work in all the times you've butt into conversations and tried to play the expert, and I'd say you are not only a failure, but a determent to the domain industry. I'm thankful that your cadence is so genuinely unlikable and crackpot like, that at least I can feel confident that no other domainer has taken you seriously enough to be damaged by your imbecilic and over confident nature.

Also, you really think you're a visionary for assuming you could pick up hand reg names in one extension and bank on getting 1% of that keyword's .com value? Any one can make that assumption, and be would completely wrong. Why not .zone or .express or literally hundreds of other options? Especially when the keyword and extension word barely fit together, if at all. You are not a visionary, you have a greatly over-simplified mind and are quick to reward yourself for impulsive behaviors, and you lack the understanding of how things really work.

Oh, i know how things work Grego. far better than you ever will You gotta know when to hold'm and know when to fold'm, but unlike you my winners have outnumbered my losers

 

[Joe N]

"Remember that registries generally don't like domainers."

Joe.....i'll have to say that I'm really puzzled by all this? I view the registry for .LINK similar to the way Ford and GM are manufacturers of automobiles. And domainers like local car dealers who sell automobiles to "end users" aka "consumers". In the case of the domain industry, there's an extra link in the sales chain; registrars like Go Daddy, Namecheap and Epik who might be considered wholesaler's that domainers purchase domains from.

Maybe like the idiom, "It's the Nature of the Beast" that's keeping a relationship like I'm proposing from happening? I do believe there are contractual obligations between registries and registrars that I'm unaware of that may be at play here, but I can't imagine what they are? I can't imagine there isn't a work around, but what do i know

Thanks Joe!

I think your analogy of the car manufacturer and dealer is a good one, except that the registrars are in fact like the dealers. Your example also serves to illustrate what I was saying about having a pre-existing arrangement in place. The registrars have this with the registries, but you do not.

Registrars negotiate terms and conditions of selling extensions in advance. They're also able to offer the benefit of a large audience of potential buyers who trust the services they provide.

You, despite your good intentions, are not able to offer this. You also didn't approach the registry in advance to negotiate a partnership. And unlike registrars, you seek to profit 50 to 100 times or more on the names you sell, and so any partnership arrangement benefits you vastly more than the registry.

 

[E-Promote]

Success in domain investing comes from selling what people want to buy, not in buying what YOU want to sell.

 

[bmugford]

Success in domain investing comes from selling what people want to buy, not in buying what YOU want to sell.

Well said.

Brad

 

[BaileyUK]

so why do you suppose their reluctance to work with me?

They probably came across some of your posts on Namepros. Either that or you used an introduction of a similar nature to most of your posts.

Just calling it the way I see it

 

[HotKey]

"link" seems kind of temporary, almost a band-aid solution. People and companies are looking for a brand, with a url to represent that. I mostly stayed away from this extension because it really is just a link, not a poster name.

I'm glad you saw the light, nothing wrong with throwing in the towel. Certainly a few combinations that can work but most are left to be desired for something better.

Always picture a billboard. Some extensions emote authority, others are weak even in the same domain name.

 

[Lox]

Actually the asking price for Chocolate.com was 2.5M and not 1M, so 1/100 of the .com price puts a .link @ $25K when all the stars line up

puts a .co @ $25K
puts a .net @
puts a .org @
puts a .io @
puts a .ai @
puts a .ccTLD @
puts a .geoTLD @ eg .miami, .boston, .nyc etc
..... etc ngTLD eg Chocolate.store , Chocolate.shop, Chocolate.gift, Chocolate.center, .city or .news, maybe Chocolate.place or Chocolate.party etc or how about Chocolate.market ... Chocolate.love?
.....
puts a .link @ $150 (if even)

That's the DNMV reality

Regards

 

[Grego85]

Oh, i know how things work Grego. far better than you ever will You gotta know when to hold'm and know when to fold'm, but unlike you my winners have outnumbered my losers

What winners??

 

[anantj]

Being that I intended to help promote/grow the .LINK extension by purchasing 1,500 .link domains, wouldn't you think the owners would want my help? I happen to have a track record of growing businesses from startup to maturity, so why do you suppose their reluctance to work with me? Why do you think that is anantj?

Well, I have many thoughts on why that is but it is immaterial. As evidenced by this thread and the other thread, you are unwilling to consider and listen to contrarian viewpoints. You say a lot of words without any real meaning and give non-sequitur answers. Even in this comment, you have conveniently sidestepped my question - Be specific on what help or working model are you looking for?

The .LINK registry isn't obligated to help you. Why should they? Do you have any demonstrable or provable skills in the domain industry? Simply registering a whole bunch of domain names does not make you good at it despite what you claim to have accomplished before. You keep citing a hole-in-one in a golf game as one of your accomplishments. Sure, maybe you did. But what relevance and relation does it even have to the domain industry? The same as random name drops. They really don't impress a lot of the folks on this thread.

 

[anantj]

Oh, i know how things work Grego. far better than you ever will You gotta know when to hold'm and know when to fold'm, but unlike you my winners have outnumbered my losers

Prove this

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Success in domain investing comes from selling what people want to buy, not in buying what YOU want to sell.

E-Promote....thanks for this sage advice. Probably the biggest mistake I've made is thinking i could find an audience for my domains. Obviously no one is looking for them, but that's mostly because they don't even know they exist. While I still own some decent .com names in industries that I know, exposure for these names is still very limited due to the Nature Of The Beast Thanks again.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

"link" seems kind of temporary, almost a band-aid solution. People and companies are looking for a brand, with a url to represent that. I mostly stayed away from this extension because it really is just a link, not a poster name.

I'm glad you saw the light, nothing wrong with throwing in the towel. Certainly a few combinations that can work but most are left to be desired for something better.

Always picture a billboard. Some extensions emote authority, others are weak even in the same domain name.

Linkedin with over 170M users worldwide is probably one of the best known brands ever. Can you think of anything better? Doesn't sound like a band-aid solution to me?

 

[BaileyUK]

Linkedin with over 170M users worldwide is probably one of the best known brands ever. Can you think of anything better? Doesn't sound like a band-aid solution to me?

Isn't this thought-process very similar to a lot of newbie mistakes. There is this very successful, professional business model and I believe I can tap into it with my take. (domain or extension) because I think it is better.

Why would anybody want to associate with an idea (supposedly complimentary) to something that is already fulfilling all their needs and is professionally executed. As purely a domain extension this is hardly a service bolt-on. This would probably on work if linkedin took control of the whole extension from the beginning and envisaged an additional directory based service. (almost a second independently managed internet) Never going to happen now .link is in the public domain.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Isn't this thought-process very similar to a lot of newbie mistakes. There is this very successful, professional business model and I believe I can tap into it with my take. (domain or extension) because I think it is better.

Why would anybody want to associate with an idea (supposedly complimentary) to something that is already fulfilling all their needs and is professionally executed. As purely a domain extension this is hardly a service bolt-on. This would probably on work if linkedin took control of the whole extension from the beginning and envisaged an additional directory based service. (almost a second independently managed internet) Never going to happen now .link is in the public domain.

"This would probably work if Linkedin took control of the whole extension from the beginning and envisaged an additional directory based service"

I totally agree Bailey.....why do you suppose Linkedin was part of my plan/vision for .link? Yet when I told Vaughn Liley (GM for .link) about it, he told me he was working on something with Linkedin In hindsight this probably has something to do with Joe N's statement, "Remember that registries generally don't like domainers", proving Verisign's observations about domainers

 

[Lox]

Linkedin

LINKED IN not LINK ED IN

Wake up

Regards