Between reserved domains, name collisions, premium pricing and awkward domain name registrar interfaces, it’s just a pain in the ass.
I’ve written before about how new TLDs are coming out with a whimper. They are severely handicapped coming out of the gate thanks to lack of registrar support, name collision uncertainty, poor registrar search experiences and a whole host of other reasons.
Earlier this week I wrote about my experience trying to register 17 domain names. I was unable to register most of them because they were either registry reserved or on the name collision list. Those I wanted to register had premium prices.
Since I wrote the previous post about going 0-for-17 I’ve continued to research domain names that I think make sense to register. That’s because I think you can make money buying and selling new TLDs. I want to register a select few. But I keep running into the same problems.
On the rare occasion that the name isn’t on the name collision list and isn’t registry reserved, it comes with a premium price.
If WordCab.com sold for $2,000 a couple years ago, I’m not going to pay $200/year to register Word.cab. I think it’s a very long term bet to think that Word.cab will become more valuable than WordCab.com. If it does later on down the road, how much have I spent in registration fees?
My other issue is with registrars. I primarily use three registrars for my domain names: GoDaddy, eNom, and Moniker.
Scratch Moniker off the list because they aren’t selling new TLDs yet.
That leaves GoDaddy and eNom, two popular registrars.
GoDaddy does the best job I’ve seen of laying out your options for registering new domains. For Donuts domain names GoDaddy does a nice job laying out the Early Access Program options compared to regular pre-registration.
There are two problems with registering new TLDs at GoDaddy, though. First, its prices seem to be about 25%-50% more than many competitors. Second, you may face more competition in pre-orders. GoDaddy is absolutely creaming other registrars when it comes to new TLD registrations. If you pre-order at GoDaddy you’re more likely to end up facing off against another person that pre-ordered the domain and thus paying more in an auction.
eNom has done a better job than most with search for new TLDs. But I find its pre-ordering options rather confusing.
First, I don’t see where you have options for the various Early Access Program days for new TLDs. If you search for a domain during EAP you can order it on the day you’re on, but I don’t see how you can do something like a day 5 pre-order.
Also, if you search for a domain during its EAP and you just want to place a regular pre-order, you have to go to a special pre-order page. If you search for a domain on eNom.com that’s not available yet at all, the search box will change it to a .com domain and not even link to a pre-order option.
For example, if I type thisdoesnt.work into the search box, it changes the search to thisdoesntwork.com.
Even the regular pre-orders on the special page are a bit confusing to me.
The terms state “Fees for Pre-registration will include only the registration fee. If you are not awarded the domain, this fee will be refunded.” Yet when I place a pre-order I see both a “Fee” of $10 and a separate registration fee. That doesn’t look like “only the registration fee”. Are both refundable if you don’t get the domain name?
I suspect you’ll face less auction competition at eNom than you will at GoDaddy. But here’s how eNom says it handles multiple pre-orders for the same domain:
Domains with multiple applications in our Pre-registration queue that we are successfully able to register will be awarded either by sending it to private auction to be bid on by those submitting an order, or it will be awarded on first come, first served basis. You would be notified of the auction details by our auction platform provider should it go into auction.
Wait, so eNom will just decide later whether to send the domain to auction or give it to whomever placed the first order? That doesn’t seem right.
If someone like me, who lives and breathes domains, finds this all confusing then I can’t imagine the typical end user.
The good news is that domainers who think they have a good plan for registering new TLDs will continue to face less competition as long as the process is so hairy.
Maikel Mendez (zuki305) says
If WordCab.com sold for $2,000 a couple years ago, I’m not going to pay $200/year to register Word.cab. I think it’s a very long term bet to think that Word.cab will become more valuable than WordCab.com. If it does later on down the road, how much have I spent in registration fees? – See more at: https://domainnamewire.com/2014/03/06/why-i-havent-registered-any-new-tlds-yet/#sthash.YOiafmJq.dpuf
Strongly Agree…
Phillip says
Ok, I bought into GTLDS via enom, paid almost $300 for pre registration on a tips domain. Multiple people did, they said it will go to auction on namejet on march 5th. So March 5th comes, and goes neither enom nor namejet have a clue, no auction, all while domain sits at enom.
For other direct match domains, I reached out to end users which use the same term in .com, 0 interest, or reply.
I have bought 70 names to date, mostly premium as a gamble, I have received 0 inbound offers in landers with direct contact info, and maybe the odd unique on random days which could be bots.
The more I buy into them the more come out, I get this eery feeling that end users have no interest in upgrading to these, and .com is a stronger brand than I ever thought. I feel .net/.org are a good second choice. .co looks to be the looser of all this.
If I grab 1 premium domain in about 700 of the releases I am going to be sitting with $100,000 annual renewals, plus outlay costs. If .com was $10 per year we would be up in arms, now we are paying 2-10 times .com renewals on average. From a financial perspective this model is broken, as the house is not carrying as much liability as the buyer.
Many terms that get registered sit unused in .com, or unregistered. I did extensive research into club domains, and a good 90 percent sat parked, and undeveloped. Maybe the owners want a lot of money, then again so do gtld companies, so who wins here, or is there even a demand? Most clubs can operate on facebook fine?
Those names that we can only dream about in .com, sit there unregistered as we look in awe, it can be hard to contain yourself when anything you type comes back available, but at a 3 figure price.
I have put a good low 5 figure sum into these gtld’s, I am sitting with close to a 5 figure annual renewal on 70 names, and am seriously second guessing this investment, and myself. We are all going to see the Google, Amazon, Nike buy extensions to protect their brands, but they are just parking them. I just see this as one big open highway with cars going in every direction, at least with .com they are all going in the same direction.
I did not expect a return right away, but something just does not feel right, I feel this is not the phase to purchase these, a great drop, with a decrease in renewals seems to be imminent. Reviewing yesterday’s numbers it seemed like one of the weakest opening weeks, maybe others can weigh in?
Kassey says
Thank you Philip for sharing your experience. Very helpful.
TLD.org says
Enom’s process is just broken.
As an example, trying preregistering Business.marketing at GoDaddy. It will tell you it is not available (either reserved or collision I’d assume). Go to Enom and try to pregister it and they will gladly charge you the $95 dollars even though you have 0% chance of getting it. Yes, they should refund you in the future, but they are holding your money for weeks (or months depending which gtld you are preregistering) that you could have put towards a domain that you actually have a chance of getting.
Why? Do they not have the technical know how or do they want to earn interest on the money before they need to refund it? Either option makes them look bad.
jZ says
i notice a lot of the ‘premium’ domain .com matches aren’t developed and are up for sale. who knows how long it would take to sell the new gtld for something worthwhile if the .com can’t even sell.
Steve Banfield says
The ability to do a pre-order for domains in EAP is coming soon to enom and name.com. It’s something we’ve had a lot of customer requests for and we’re excited to be meeting that demand.
As for the issue with auctions and multiple pre-registrations, I’m sorry that the language is confusing. We’ll take a look at how to make that more clear. When enom receives multiple pre-orders for a new TLD domain we are sending those to auction at Namejet.
As always we appreciate the feedback and are looking forward to continuing to improve our user experience for all phases of the new TLD rollouts.
As always if anyone has feedback about enom, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Steve Banfield
SVP & GM, Registrar Services
[email protected]
@stevebanfield
Andrew Allemann says
Steve, can you explain the $10 fee? Is that refundable?
Patrick Hipskind says
It appears to me that Donuts is doing quite well out of the gate. When I look at the average cost of the domains multiplied by the number of registrations, it appears they are doing quite well. 200,000 registrations at an average of $30 per registration would be $6 million, and that is not a bad start.
I haven’t had any problems with GoDaddy, except that instant pages for new gTLDs aren’t showing up yet. They are working on the problem. I’ve used all my word press sites up for landing pages, so I am just going to use instant pages for a landing page. I don’t want to use a parked page on these names. That is too risky with URS. I like GoDaddy for command and control; it’s mission control for me.
One name I was thinking of registering this morning is Piano.today. The registration fee is $69.99 and Estibot shows Piano.com as being over a $1 million domain name. Even if you sold it at 1% to 3% of the value of the .com you are making a nice ROI. It’s a nice domain for whoever wants to register it.
Andrew Allemann says
Donuts will be just fine.
But if you think piano.today is worth 1%-3% of piano.com…I think you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Ryan says
Many people have tried to take a huge outlier sale, and add a letter, or word and ask pennies on the dollar, sounds better on paper, getting an end user to pony up good luck. >Today >Tips are more like blog like avenues, they will not hold the same commercial appeal as a single word category killer .com.
jZ says
piano.today does not equal piano.com! it equals pianotoday.com..
Kassey says
pianotoday.com is parked, which is not good news.
John says
I think it equals pianotoday.never
Ms Domainer says
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I had no problem registering at Dynadot (lower prices) and Domainmonster (Uniregistry). Redirects all work properly.
I have to agree, though, that Uniregistry may be shooting itself in the foot by holding back so many reserves.
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brand says
When i see a commercial on tv where a company has spend big advertising dollars on a .horse or .guru then maybe i will think these new gtlds may have a slim chance.
John says
Dream on brother and count you loses
tony says
You know… NEW TLDs to me are like you are going to the TOILET TO TAKE A PISS, but before you do that, you actually piss in a cup, and then pour the piss from the cup, into the toilet. It’s like a silly process.
Just stick to .com