Categorized | Industry News

Very Strong Extensions, Mediocre Registration Numbers

Posted on 31 July 2014 by Andrei

Was this the worst week ever in terms of registration numbers? No. After the first day of General Availability for 4 new gTLDs (. Reisen, .University, .Toys and .Town), the results were let’s call them mediocre. But what registry operators should be worried about is the fact that two of this week’s extensions are basically as good as they get: Dot University and Dot Toys.

The fact that such strings barely managed to generate registration numbers in the 4 figure area after the first day of General Availability speaks for itself.

Dot University: 1,340 registrations

Dot Toys: 1,320 registrations

… again, these two are or at least were supposed to be “big league” extensions.

I haven’t paid too much attention to Dot University but as far as Dot Toys is concerned, the problem wasn’t something like the fact that the premium domains were more expensive than with other extensions.

Not at all.

If anything, they were cheaper.

At least as far as the domains I researched are concerned, the premium renewals were on the low side compared to other launches.

Yet despite this fact, the volume is just not there.

Registry operators need to pay close attention to these three words: new gTLD fatigue!

Weak extensions tend to generate a 3 figure number of registrations (in a lot of cases, low 3 figs) on the first day of General Availability, while decent or even strong extensions are barely in 4 figure territory.

If the numbers are so weak at the very beginning of the new gTLD phenomenon, ask yourself: how will things stand a year from now, once renewal time comes?

In my opinion, new gTLD operators need to up their game asap because otherwise, they probably won’t exactly be happy with the numbers… to put it mildly.

4 Comments For This Post

  1. Leonard Britt Says:

    I will admit that quite a number of the new GTLDs sound cool but if merged with relevant keywords. SEDO issued their first half report today – only 16 thousand sales in six months on a platform that I believe has 18 million domains. The median sale was only around $600 and over half of those were .COM. What does that say about the demand and potential sales price of new TLDS? If new TLDs typically have a premium price entry point and premium renewals, it can be a challenge for an investor to carry a portfolio of such names. There is only so much domain investor capital on the sidelines so only deep-pocketed investors can buy hundreds of new TLDs and sit on them for seven to ten years and see if maybe an aftermarket develops for them.

  2. Patrick Hipskind Says:

    I think we are seeing domain name investor fatigue. End user purchases of these newly released gTLDs are probably less than 5%. The carrying costs to register these G’s has to be weighing on the minds of many domain investors, especially with no significant aftermarket developing.

    Maybe the registries will start to think about assisting in developing an aftermarket for their domains. It will be a monumental task, but is necessary if domain name investors are to continue putting their money into the pool.

  3. Barry Says:

    No sympathy for the small handfull of dumbphucks who rushed in to buy gtlds. They were clearly destined to fail. Who can say otherwise?

  4. Snoopy Says:

    I think “investor confidence” got hit very badly by those recent launches with dodgy registration numbers, free domains etc. I think there has been a lot of trust lost in terms of registries trying to artificially push numbers to trick people into thinking an extension is getting traction when it isn’t.