Short domain names hit the market next week.
Rightside (NASDAQ:NAME) is releasing over 25,000 two-character domain names next week that were previously reserved.
The company is modeling the release on what Donuts did in September 2015.
Most notably, the domain names will go through a dutch auction “early access” phase from September 14-20. During that time you can pay a premium to register the domain names at Enom, Hexonet, Name.com and United Domains.
On September 21 the names will enter general availability.
Even during general availability, you can expect to pay annual premiums for the domains. Prices will range from $200 per year (suggested retail) to $2,500, not including about 2,500 names that will not have set prices. Over 16,000 names will be priced below $500 per year.
These prices are high compared to what Donuts is charging for 2-character domain names.
All but 4,000 of the 200,000+ two-character domains Donuts released through the registrar channel last year had premiums, but the premiums were low. About 11% were priced below $50*. More than half were below $100 and all but 2,537 were priced below $150.
So 99% of Donuts two-character inventory is priced below Rightside’s minimum price for a two-letter domain in this release.
The reality is that there’s a lot of two-character inventory out there; they are no longer rare. Still, they can make a fantastic, easy-to-remember domain choice for businesses.
* Prices based on 101Domain.
Adam says
They will just unilaterlly decide to steal the domain back whenever they want. Rightside did it to me, they’ll do it others.
Ryan says
Even the biggest fans of gtlds are burnt out, they are no longer buying, scrambling to pay renewals, they just had their ahhhaa moment.
Rightside is doing the right thing to extract as much $ as they can as quickly as they can, the ship is going down. The premium renewals are absurd, and nobody is buying the endless sea of gtld waste floating around.
Adam says
Yup, agree with that Ryan.
brand says
Yeah i agree with Ryan as well, i still have not bought one.
The funny thing is another round of these things are coming out soon..lol
Steve says
Believe many, if not most, GTLDs are running on fumes.
Some will make it across the desert.
& many are looking for detours and shortcuts.
But when the signs say:
“UNCERTAIN DANGERS AHEAD” ,
“ALL GAS STATIONS CLOSED ”
“CALL 911-PRAY”,
“NO U-TURNS”,
“DON’T FEED THE BUZZARDS”
“NO WAY OUT OF AREA 51”
“WELCOME TO TOMBSTONE”
“NEVER TOO LATE TO REPENT”
& the boring .com. .net, .org and country code models keep going down the road….slow and steady….
It might be time to ditch those GTLD rides and hitch your wagons to those “old-fashioned” & “obsolete” models passing by…
to get over the rough patch of highways, before the signs say::
“REST AREA AHEAD. ICE COLD WATER”
“YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!”
“FREE BEER WITH A .COM”
“SCENIC VIEW: GRAND CANYON”
“GAS DISCOUNTS FOR ONLY NON-GTLD MODELS”
Steve says
Stick with a ll.cctld with no restrictions on registration at $10 – $20 renewal fee/year. Simple
Jeff Schneider says
Hello Andrew,
ALL NEW TLDS are highly dependent on the Google (Obsolesced) Advertising Platform, to be found at all. This makes ALL NEW TLDS Obsolesced Online Marketing Platforms. End-Users who are suckered down this Traffic Starving Path, will Perish Quickly. JAS 9/10/16
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist) (Licensed CBOE Commodity Hedge Strategist) (Domain Master https://www.UseBiz.com)
scrivener3 says
Perhaps part ot the reason for the success of .com was that the registry and the registers did not think that they owned all the names in their TLD.
They took their standard flat registration fee and that was it.
Now new TLDs believe they are cresting the value in the names they enter into the root servers, and charge accordingly. The value comes from the users of their product. Their product is useless without use by me. And we are on strike.