discuss Revisiting .Realty - Holy Guacamole!

[ThatNameGuy]

August 28, 2023 - by Andrew Allemann and Domain Name Wire

"Two Top Level Domains have changed ownership

Perhaps most notably, Identity Digital sold .realty to Internet Naming Company. Internet Naming Company, run by Shayan Rostam, contains some of the remnants of Uniregistry. According to the company's website, it manages more than 10 top-level domain names.

Rostam told Domain Name Wire that the backend for the registry will move to Tucows' registry services.

.Realty has just over 1,500 domains in the zone file."

Many of you reading this might say.....Holy Guacamole! what the hell is this nut job thinking? Well, it was on September 27th 2020 i started a thread here on NP titled,

$1 .Realty Domain Sale - Marketing ideas​

While this was three years ago, other NP members and myself registered well over 1,500 .realty domains alone. However, very few ever sold. And by very few, I sold just 1 out of about 500 that I'd registered over a 90 day period. One of the biggest problems as I see was, Jay Westerdal the owner of the .Realty TLD made the decision to charge $298 for renewals, and sadly that wasn't received very well by the real estate industry.

Moving on.....many of you have seen me binge buy on other TLD's that i liked; .link, .homes, and .online, but all to no avail/success. In each case however I knew these names wouldn't sell themselves despite listing them with the likes of DAN and Afternic, so if .Realty is to be successful a different marketing approach needs to happen.

I've connected via Linkedin with the new owner of the TLD .Realty Shayan Rostam, and we've shared a few email's about my aggressive/progressive outbound marketing approach especially since realtors are so easily accessible and approachable via email, phone and text.

Finally, i'm sure Shayan has checked me out since he was one of the founders at Uniregistry. I'm also sure he knows well the new owners of .link who I tried my best to connect with and get to know, but maybe when he learns my favorite .Realty domain is;

Sold.realty

he'll be interested

ps. No Binge happening here.....just sharing my logic.

 

[jmcc]

These are the imporant figures for .REALTY:
| 202211 | 13,530 |
| 202212 | 2,871 |
| 202301 | 1,543 |
| 202302 | 1,495 |
| 202303 | 1,525 |
| 202304 | 1,534 |
| 202305 | 1,544 |

And the largest registrar?
| 202211 | Epik, Inc. | 11,998 |
| 202212 | Epik, Inc. | 1,480 |
| 202301 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202302 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202303 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202304 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202305 | Epik, Inc. | 223 |

The problem wasn't the decision to increase renewal fees.

Here's another important change but this time for the realtors' official gTLD:
| 202202 | 62,830 |
| 202203 | 62,803 |
| 202204 | 30,627 |

When it comes to real estate, the .COM is still king. There is a possiblity of turning the gTLD into a short-lived promotional gTLD but it would need to keep the junk registrations out of the zone. That would be quite difficult with an unmanaged gTLD that did not require proof of entitlement like .REALTOR. With a count of 1,544 domain names in the zone, the gTLD has a serious visibility problem when it comes to end-users.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ThatNameGuy]

These are the imporant figures for .REALTY:
| 202211 | 13,530 |
| 202212 | 2,871 |
| 202301 | 1,543 |
| 202302 | 1,495 |
| 202303 | 1,525 |
| 202304 | 1,534 |
| 202305 | 1,544 |

And the largest registrar?
| 202211 | Epik, Inc. | 11,998 |
| 202212 | Epik, Inc. | 1,480 |
| 202301 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202302 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202303 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202304 | Epik, Inc. | 226 |
| 202305 | Epik, Inc. | 223 |

The problem wasn't the decision to increase renewal fees.

Here's another important change but this time for the realtor's official gTLD:
| 202202 | 62,830 |
| 202203 | 62,803 |
| 202204 | 30,627 |

When it comes to real estate, the .COM is still king. There is a possiblity of turning the gTLD into a short-lived promotional gTLD but it would need to keep the junk registrations out of the zone. That would be quite difficult with an unmanaged gTLD that did not require proof of entitlement like .REALTOR. With a count of 1,544 domain names in the zone, the gTLD has a serious visibility problem when it comes to end-users.

Regards...jmcc

"With a count of 1,544 domain names in the zone, the gTLD has a serious visibility problem when it comes to end-users."

Thanks John for sharing this, but like I've been saying "If it's to be, it's up to me". Since there are millions of realtors in this world you wouldn't think it would be difficult to sell McCormac.realty to John McCormac for a few hundred dollars if he were in the real estate business

I think Shayan Rostan believes I may be on to something, but without some commitment from him there's no way in hell I'll waste my marketing talents on his new toy

Thanks again John!

 

[jmcc]

Thanks John for sharing this, but like I've been saying "If it's to be, it's up to me". Since there are millions of realtors in this world you wouldn't think it would be difficult to sell McCormac.realty to John McCormac for a few hundred dollars if he were in the real estate business

I think Shayan Rostan believes I may be on to something, but without some commitment from him there's no way in hell I'll waste my marketing talents on his new toy

Thanks again John!

The problem with .REALTY is that it isn't a global gTLD. Real estate tends to be highly localised in terms of domain names and that means a ccTLD outside of the US.

What some realtors in the US do is very clever. They register the address of a property as a .com and this makes it highly searchable.

The .REALTOR gTLD is the official realtor gTLD for the US and it only allows registrations from accredited realtors. It took a major hit in registrations because realtors stuck with their existing websites and domain names. The registry tried to repurpose the gTLD as a kind of realtor web directory complete with profiles and links. As a gTLD, .REALTY has no equivalent buy-in from the business. In terms of domaining, location keywords and a few generics would be important.

The problem with niche gTLDs is that the extension itself acts as a limitation. It almost makes every domain name in the zone a kind of domain hack.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ThatNameGuy]

The problem with .REALTY is that it isn't a global gTLD. Real estate tends to be highly localised in terms of domain names and that means a ccTLD outside of the US.

What some realtors in the US do is very clever. They register the address of a property as a .com and this makes it highly searchable.

The .REALTOR gTLD is the official realtor gTLD for the US and it only allows registrations from accredited realtors. It took a major hit in registrations because realtors stuck with their existing websites and domain names. The registry tried to repurpose the gTLD as a kind of realtor web directory complete with profiles and links. As a gTLD, .REALTY has no equivalent buy-in from the business. In terms of domaining, location keywords and a few generics would be important.

The problem with niche gTLDs is that the extension itself acts as a limitation. It almost makes every domain name in the zone a kind of domain hack.

Regards...jmcc

John....i believe you're missing my point. Prior to registering any .REALTY names my research discovered the word "realty" appeared in over 40% of real estate companies names. For example, here are the names of the top 8 real estate companies in the US today;

1. Redfin
2. Re/Max
3. Coldwell Banker Realty
4. Keller Williams Realty
5. Home Services of America
6. Southby's International Realty
7. Compass
8. eXp Realty

Note that "Realty" appears in half of these names, thus here in the US it's very popular. While i happen to own the domain BroadBayRealty.com for my own personal use, what I've learned about this crazed industry is that BroadBay.realty is just as good, if not better

 

[pb]

.realty doesn't even have a working whois server.
It's a non-tld.

 

[jmcc]

John....i believe you're missing my point. Prior to registering any .REALTY names my research discovered the word "realty" appeared in over 40% of real estate companies names. For example, here are the names of the top 8 real estate companies in the US today;

1. Redfin
2. Re/Max
3. Coldwell Banker Realty
4. Keller Williams Realty
5. Home Services of America
6. Southby's International Realty
7. Compass
8. eXp Realty

Note that "Realty" appears in half of these names, thus here in the US it's very popular. While i happen to own the domain BroadBayRealty.com for my own personal use, what I've learned about this crazed industry is that BroadBay.realty is just as good, if not better

The problem with .REALTY is that it has no visibility in the market. Most end-users are unaware that it even exists. Thus someone hearing broadbay.realty might instinctively type 'broadbayrealty.com'. This .COM dominance has been a major problem for any new gTLD trying to get both market share and mind share. If people cannot remember the domain name, they can't communicate it and may not revisit the website. This is a terrible warning about the danger of rebranding with an unknown, as it was, TLD.

https://domainincite.com/7992-o-co-loses-61-of-its-traffic-to-o-com

Realty is hyper-local and that means that location keywords are important but not in the same way that they can be with .COM or other legacy gTLDs. They work in a manner similar to the way they work with ccTLDs. With a ccTLD, the user already identifies with the ccTLD as being their TLD. That effectively makes the TLD extension psychologically invisible. In thinking of the ccTLD, the location keyword becomes important when searching for a service or product locally. That's what .REALTY needs to achieve.

Ironically, the movie "Raise The Titanic" ends with the phrase "Thank God for Southby". That's much like the task of relaunching .REALTY as a viable gTLD.

(Sotheby's is the auctioneering company.)

Regards...jmcc

 

[bmugford]

Some people never learn.

Good word+realty have some value in .COM. I have sold many GEOs, brands, etc.

The proof is in the pudding when it comes to reported sales.

865 total reported .COM sales that end in "realty". Total sales are $830,000.

Word.realty has basically no resale value.

5 reported sales for $1,475 total. None have been recorded since 2017.

While not every sale is reported, low reported sales generally equal low overall sales.

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

The problem with .REALTY is that it has no visibility in the market. Most end-users are unaware that it even exists. Thus someone hearing broadbay.realty might instinctively type 'broadbayrealty.com'. This .COM dominance has been a major problem for any new gTLD trying to get both market share and mind share. If people cannot remember the domain name, they can't communicate it and may not revisit the website. This is a terrible warning about the danger of rebranding with an unknown, as it was, TLD.

Realty is hyper-local and that means that location keywords are important but not in the same way that they can be with .COM or other legacy gTLDs. They work in a manner similar to the way they work with ccTLDs. With a ccTLD, the user already identifies with the ccTLD as being their TLD. That effectively makes the TLD extension psychologically invisible. In thinking of the ccTLD, the location keyword becomes important when searching for a service or product locally. That's what .REALTY needs to achieve.

Ironically, the movie "Raise The Titanic" ends with the phrase "Thank God for Southby". That's much like the task of relaunching .REALTY as a viable gTLD.

(Sotheby's is the auctioneering company.)

Regards...jmcc

John....we agree 100% about .REALTY having "no visibility in the market" That's why I've been saying, "if it's to be it's up to me"

You're also right about "Realty" being hyper-local, thus I happen to own the domain BroadBayRealty.com. And when I was buying .realty names a few years ago for $1 i also owned BroadBay.realty. Why? Because it was catchy, and it made for a decent alternative to BroadBayRealty.com.

Ironically the new owner of .REALTY resides in Manhattan Beach according to his website. And if you were to go to ManhattanBeachRealty.com you'll find that Go Daddy will sell it to you for $4,888.....Wow! What is this telling me? First it's telling me that that like you said, "Realty is hyper-local". It's also telling me that pretty much anything KeywordRealty.com is highly recognizable. Having personally visited Laguna Beach (just 50 miles from Manhattan Beach) I just discovered that LagunaBeachRealty.com forwards to a Berkshire Hathaway site; bhhscalifornia.com where broker Rick Blazer and lifelong resident of Laguna Beach has sold 1,200 properties in Laguna Beach alone. I know if i were a realtor in Laguna Beach and the name LagunaBeachRealty.com were taken I'd luv to be able to tell buyers and sellers to just email me; [email protected]

Finally, like with real estate itself EXPOSURE is what's needed for the TLD .REALTY to succeed.

Sold.realty

 

[jberryhill]

Finally, i'm sure Shayan has checked me out since he was one of the founders at Uniregistry.

You might want to actually read his LinkedIn profile.

He was the director of registry operations at the .XYZ registry until 2018, then did a stint with the group which ran .inc, and became the bag holder at Uniregistry in March 2020.

Since Uniregistry, and the name along with most of the assets were sold to GoDaddy in a deal which closed in early April 2020, Uniregistry became "Uni Naming and Registry" and continued to exist principally for the purpose of selling off the pieces GoDaddy didn't want.

Uniregistry was founded in 2012 by Frank Schilling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniregistry). Shayan wouldn't be around until the very end of its existence.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Probably everyone active in this thread already know this, but just pointing out that one can use (with Google) the site:.realty command to find active websites using the .realty extension, in order to assess how much real use there is.
-Bob

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Probably everyone active in this thread already know this, but just pointing out that one can use (with Google) the site:.realty command to find active websites using the .realty extension, in order to assess how much real use there is.
-Bob

Wow.....thanks for that Bob. While I haven't counted the number of active websites yet, i have accessed sites like Outlaw.realty that's located in Big Sky Montana. Interesting though, if you access Outlawrealty.com it leads to a different realty firm in Austin Texas.

It's information like this that can be a great help developing a new marketing strategy for .REALTY domains.

I know we'd have made a good domain marketing team Bob Hawkes, and thank you so much

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Some people never learn.

Good word+realty have some value in .COM. I have sold many GEOs, brands, etc.

The proof is in the pudding when it comes to reported sales.

865 total reported .COM sales that end in "realty". Total sales are $830,000.

Word.realty has basically no resale value.

5 reported sales for $1,475 total. None have been recorded since 2017.

While not every sale is reported, low reported sales generally equal low overall sales.

Brad

Brad....do you mean to tell me that a name like Amazon.realty has no resale value? Or names like TopGun.realty or Hollywood.realty?

The stat you shared with 830 reported .COM sales that end in "realty" is very encouraging. I know you don't mean for it to be, but it is.......Thanks!

 

[Lox]

EXPOSURE is what's needed for the TLD .REALTY to succeed.

developing a new marketing strategy for .REALTY domains.

STOP .... take a step back and

1. Learn A-Z how registries & registrars (affiliates) make money & why there's no big paid ads.
2. Prevent yourself from saying things others will blindly follow.
3. Hold yourself accountable for your words > actions.

You're an intelligent thinker ... please ... brains with critical thinking will not blindly follow what you're saying BUT 1000s of newcomers will blindly follow any trends (gamble) or such discuss-info & fall off a cliff.

At least, make a footnote s.a. : IMO

Regards

 

[bmugford]

Brad....do you mean to tell me that a name like Amazon.realty has no resale value? Or names like TopGun.realty or Hollywood.realty?

Yep. Again, there has not been a reported .realty sale on NameBio since 2017.

The market agrees with me.

There are only 1,500 .realty regs.

Do you really think "Top Gun" is a top 1500 term?

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

STOP .... take a step back and

1. Learn A-Z how registries & registrars (affiliates) make money & why there's no big paid ads.
2. Prevent yourself from saying things others will blindly follow.
3. Hold yourself accountable for your words > actions.

You're an intelligent thinker ... please ... brains with critical thinking will not blindly follow what you're saying BUT 1000s of newcomers will blindly follow any trends (gamble) or such discuss-info & fall off a cliff.

At least, make a footnote s.a. : IMO

Regards

Wow Lox.....thanks for crediting me with being an "intelligent thinker", and considering yourself a "critical thinker"? So John McCormac says; "The problem with .REALTY is that it has no visibility in the market. Most end-users are unaware that it even exists." Then I say; "like with real estate itself, EXPOSURE is what's needed for the TLD .REALTY to succeed.".........and I'm somehow misleading and disingenuous

Some might say it's only your opinion that that i'm an "intelligent thinker", and others might say it's only your opinion that you're a "critical thinker"

To quote you; "At least, make a footnote s.a. : IMO"

Regards

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Yep. Again, there has not been a reported .realty sale on NameBio since 2017.

The market agrees with me.

There are only 1,500 .realty regs.

Do you really think "Top Gun" is a top 1500 term?

Brad

Brad....it's great to see you're still following me with such critical thought. A good friend of mine in my Kiwanis Club is a former "Top Gun", Navy Pilot and he and his wife just so happen to be in the real estate business here in Virginia Beach. Do you have any idea what the US Navy's "Top Gun" Fighter Program is about? If you did, you wouldn't be so critical

 

[jmcc]

Exposure is only part of what is required. There also has to be development. That creates what registries call a virtuous circle in that people see developed websites and register domain names and develop their own websites. That process drives the adoption of a TLD. The mistake that a lot of domainers make is in thinking that the same keywords or phrases that are valuable in .COM will also be valuable in other TLDs. With newly launched TLDs, that is a very dangerous and often expensive mistake. The reason for this is that the TLD, its primary market and its secondary market has had a chance to develop. It is, in realty terms, a green field site. And it is development and then usage that give a TLD its value. Without both, a gTLD can become a zombie zone.

This isn't quite the same as the .EU fiasco. It has more in common with how Frank Schilling launched some of his Uniregistry gTLDs but reserved a lot of potentially high value (in .COM) keyword domain names. It killed interest in these gTLDs from domainers. Domaining and the chance at finding a diamond in the rough drives a lot of speculation in the landrush phase of any TLD launch. It is free advertising and easy money for the registry and the registrars. Without that buying and selling frenzy, the gTLDs did not do well.

There's no must-register argument yet for .REALTY and this also affected other real estate focused gTLDs. If large realtor operations started to register their brands in the gTLD, it would be a sign of acceptance of the gTLD by the industry. At the moment, most realtors will probably be sticking to their developed websites and brands, typically in .COM, rather than switching to .REALTY. This switching cost problem also affected the .REALTOR gTLD. It costs money to switch and to change all the stationery, website and business cards. More important;y, the registry has to work with the registrars to market the gTLD. Many of the new gTLDs that didn't achieve critical mass did so because their registries often underestimated the amount of marketing that would be required to launch a gTLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Exposure is only part of what is required. There also has to be development. That creates what registries call a virtuous circle in that people see developed websites and register domain names and develop their own websites. That process drives the adoption of a TLD. The mistake that a lot of domainers make is in thinking that the same keywords or phrases that are valuable in .COM will also be valuable in other TLDs. With newly launched TLDs, that is a very dangerous and often expensive mistake. The reason for this is that the TLD, its primary market and its secondary market has had a chance to develop. It is, in realty terms, a green field site. And it is development and then usage that give a TLD its value. Without both, a gTLD can become a zombie zone.

This isn't quite the same as the .EU fiasco. It has more in common with how Frank Schilling launched some of his Uniregistry gTLDs but reserved a lot of potentially high value (in .COM) keyword domain names. It killed interest in these gTLDs from domainers. Domaining and the chance at finding a diamond in the rough drives a lot of speculation in the landrush phase of any TLD launch. It is free advertising and easy money for the registry and the registrars. Without that buying and selling frenzy, the gTLDs did not do well.

There's no must-register argument yet for .REALTY and this also affected other real estate focused gTLDs. If large realtor operations started to register their brands in the gTLD, it would be a sign of acceptance of the gTLD by the industry. At the moment, most realtors will probably be sticking to their developed websites and brands, typically in .COM, rather than switching to .REALTY. This switching cost problem also affected the .REALTOR gTLD. It costs money to switch and to change all the stationery, website and business cards. More important;y, the registry has to work with the registrars to market the gTLD. Many of the new gTLDs that didn't achieve critical mass did so because their registries often underestimated the amount of marketing that would be required to launch a gTLD.

Regards...jmcc

All Good Stuff! You understand the dynamics of this industry better than anyone I know, and I appreciate your comments and analysis. Your comment, "There's no must-register argument yet for .REALTY" By yet do you mean by "domainers" or "end users" or both?

With regards to development, i believe i have someone on board with me that I met on NP who's a real shaker and roller Like you he seems to understand me, and especially the exposure factor.

Then speaking of meeting other NP members, it was Bob Hawkes who earlier in this thread said if I wanted to learn about any live developed websites for .REALTY just Google site:.realty and Voila!.....damned if Bob wasn't right. Of the 1,500 .realty names registered, about 100 of them lead to developed websites, some of which are pretty good imo.

Finally, you've heard me speak of a "user group" in the medical billing business I started in 1980. Well don't you know that business is still in business today, and it still has a very active users group. My point is, not only do I plan to use these realtors as references for .REALTY, i also plan to sponsor their "user group".

Thanks John......you've been GREAT!

 

[jmcc]

Definitely end-users. A gTLD cannot survive on domainers alone and while domainers might do some unpaid promotion of the gTLD, they rarely develop websites. A newly launched or relaunched gTLD needs development and usage.

The .REALTY has to find a use and a reason for people to register domain names and develop them with working websites. Turning it into another junk gTLD full of gambling and adult affiliate landers is not a good use of such a gTLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Definitely end-users. A gTLD cannot survive on domainers alone and while domainers might do some unpaid promotion of the gTLD, they rarely develop websites. A newly launched or relaunched gTLD needs development and usage.

The .REALTY has to find a use and a reason for people to register domain names and develop them with working websites. Turning it into another junk gTLD full of gambling and adult affiliate landers is not a good use of such a gTLD.

Regards...jmcc

I can't thank you enough jmcc. Your post just inspired reWebsiteDesign.com where the "re" can stand for either "Real Estate" or simply "Regarding". Since registering this I've been researching all things website design that can ad value to our .Realty portfolio. Thanks again.

 

[Joe N]

Rich, this feels like a very similar path to what you were attempting with .link.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Rich, this feels like a very similar path to what you were attempting with .link.

Yes and No with the main difference being that I don't intend to spend a dime buying and promoting .Realty domains until such time I get some backing. I really don't care where the backing comes from but as the old saying goes "it takes money to make money".

jmcc, the owner of Hosterstats has essentially confirmed what I've known all along...."If it's to be it's up to me" You and i both know these new gTLD's rarely sell themselves, thus my throwing in the towel with .link.

Regardless of who might invest in my marketing plan for .Realty, it's really an investment in me and my ideas

 

[Joe N]

Yes and No with the main difference being that I don't intend to spend a dime buying and promoting .Realty domains until such time I get some backing. I really don't care where the backing comes from but as the old saying goes "it takes money to make money".

jmcc, the owner of Hosterstats has essentially confirmed what I've known all along...."If it's to be it's up to me" You and i both know these new gTLD's rarely sell themselves, thus my throwing in the towel with .link.

Regardless of who might invest in my marketing plan for .Realty, it's really an investment in me and my ideas

Very wise to not invest in the names until there's evidence of improved uptake.

I think @jmcc was also saying that promotion is only a part of the equation. Possibly even more important is the need for the extension to achieve a sort of critical mass among end users, where they are willing to both develop sites on the names and pay a premium to acquire them.

Your plans often focus on promoting to the end users themselves, but it's not their education in ngTLDs that will drive their interest in buying them. What they need to see is mass adoption by the general public and by their industry's community.

Attaining that mass adoption is no small thing; something that brands spend fortunes to achieve through years of advertising, promotion, and product expansion. I can't imagine how one (or a few) individuals would make meaningful strides in that kind of endeavour when working against an extension (.com) that has such an incredible moat in the world of domain extensions.

Educating end users about technical matters is one thing, but ultimately businesses don't buy .com names because they think they work better technically. They buy them for the intangible authority and trust that the extension carries in the mind of consumers.

Even "successful" alternate extensions - like .net, .xyz, .io - despite their popularity in the domaining community, see only limited use among end users. Domainers typically only profit from these names when they invest early in very strong single-word terms.

Anyway... that's just me thinking out loud. You've tried this promotion and business development route quite a few times. Why not at least try out the formula that has proven profitable for so many other domainers? I'm just a shlub with none of your business experience, and even I make money with domains by picking decent ones, listing them, and sitting on my hands. Imagine what you could do if you employed the same name selection strategies, while also employing your networking/outbounding skills.

 

[jmcc]

Yes and No with the main difference being that I don't intend to spend a dime buying and promoting .Realty domains until such time I get some backing. I really don't care where the backing comes from but as the old saying goes "it takes money to make money".

jmcc, the owner of Hosterstats has essentially confirmed what I've known all along...."If it's to be it's up to me" You and i both know these new gTLD's rarely sell themselves, thus my throwing in the towel with .link.

Regardless of who might invest in my marketing plan for .Realty, it's really an investment in me and my ideas

The problem is that most of these new gTLDs had their origins in an artificial scarcity created by Domain Tasting over the years 2005 to 2008. Basically, people couldn't register on the drop because most of each day's drop was being hoovered up by a few registrars. Google stopped monetising new registrations, legal action was taken by Dell against a few of the main registrars and ICANN turned up years late and millions short with a restocking fee on domain names deleted during the five day Add Grace Period that was being exploited for Domain Tasting.

Fast forward to 2013 when the new gTLDs started to launch and there was no large-scale Domain Tasting. There was no artificial scarcity.

Many of the new gTLD registries had based their business plans on the artificial scarcity with major helpings of snakeoil. Even ICANN projected 35 million new gTLD regs in the first year. That's the level of cluelessness that infected the domain name industry at the time.

I posted something earlier about Epik being the major registrar in .REALTY. That, on its own, was a major red flag given the poxification of various new gTLDs with its Digital Town rubbish. Some of those new gTLDs had a chance but once the Digital Town rubbish regs flooded their zones, development was killed in some of them. It may take years for some of them to recover. It was a horrifc thing to see gTLDs that could have served a community being nearly destroyed and turned into dead zones.

The problem for .REALTY is that it isn't a category killer. There are other property and real estate gTLDs and that cannot be solved without a lot of expensive marketing and development. It is also a US focused gTLD because the real estate business outside of the US tends to use ccTLDs. Even in the US, the .COM dominates the real estate business so the main competitor for .REALTY is not other real estate gTLDs but rather .COM itself.

On the registry side of things, most people working for registries do not think in terms of domaining. Domaining is only a small part of any gTLD and registries tend to be more focused on development. The initial pricing of some new gTLDs is intended, in no uncertain terms, to deter domaining because domaining rarely results in developed websites.

Some of the gTLD registries that rely on heavy discounting as a business model can see over 95% of a zone being replaced each year. They make a small profit from each registration but development in those gTLDs is almost non-existent. If there's no development in a gTLD, then the gTLD is rarely worth a gamble. The number of "good" keywords still available is almost a metric of the health of a gTLD. High value ones are going to be reserved by the registry for auction or later release. If a large number of keywords that are valuable in .COM are still available, it may point to low development or interest in the gTLD.

When the Epik regs were deleted in .REALTY, the numbers collapsed. That, alone, was a very bad sign. It was also a good indication for any domainer who was considering investing. On the upside, it removed a lot of the deadwood regs that would never be developed. This has made the number of developed websites seem impressive with respect to the zone total but many of them would have been developed while Epik was still the main registrar in the gTLD.

Regards...jmcc