A look at registrants of .domains domain names.
Individuals and companies registered 1,659 .domains domain names in the first hours after the domain entered regular-price general availability yesterday. I’d group the purchases in five groups:
Brands: domain name brands were on top of this release, of course. Many of them got the domains through sunrise as well. Sedo picked up sedo.domains while competitor Afternic has a Domain Protected Marks List block on “Afternic”. Other registrations include archeo.domains and buydomains.domains.
Domain registrar 1&1 registered about 75 versions of its brands, including 1och1.domains, 1a1.domains, and 1og1.domains.
Ameritrade continued its over-the-top brand protection strategy, picking up 18 domains. I can’t help but think someone over there gets paid by the domain registered.
Other registries: New TLD companies registered domains like buzz.domains and uniregistry.domains. Some were registered by competitors that aren’t affiliated with a new TLD. For example, CentralNic registered many domains. As far as I know, it has no relationship with .NYC but registered NYCdomains.com.
Domain Hacks: some people got cute with common terms used before “domains”, such as aged.domains, backorder.domains, brandable.domains, deleted.domains, and TopLevel.domains.
Several domain bloggers got in on the action. Vin of VinsDomains registered ten domains including aged., lll., monetizing., and acquiring.domains. Konstantinos Zournas on OnlineDomains, picked up over 75 domains by my count. Michael Berkens of TheDomains/Most Wanted Domains registered 14 including a mix of brands and generics such as UDRP.domains and ExactMatch.domains.
Domain attorney (who is also with Uniregistry) got the typo Expring.domains.
Domain registrar Com Laude also registered a number of domains like these, including acquire., idn., sunrise., and assign.domains. I count 23 registrations by the registrar.
Topical (but reverse order) domains: I’ve written before about new TLDs that would make more sense at the beginning of a domain, not the end. Domains (plural) doesn’t really make sense at the beginning of anything, but some domains don’t make much sense as SLD.TLD, such as auctions.domains, appraisals.domains, and brokers.domains.
Niche domains: These domains could be used to sell a particular type of niche domain names. Examples include therapist.domains, catholic.domains, pornography.domains, and gun.domains.
Acro says
My total: zero. I already explained why: http://acro.net/blog/domains/no-domains-for-me/
Bret Fausett says
It was an accidental registration. I was hoping to get expiring.* My typo. 🙁
Andrew Allemann says
I assumed so. Michael Berkens is grateful for your mistake.
Acro says
Bret, you can still get Expiring.tattoo 😀
Volker Greimann says
Many people would be happy about expiring tattoos…
John Berryhill says
I dunno, Bret. There could be a big future in former pring domains.
Leonard Britt says
None for me so far…
VinsDomains.com (@VinsDomainscom) says
Thanks for the shoutout Andrew! I plan on starting up some specialty auction houses this Spring-summer
LLL.domains
LLLL.domains
CVCV.domains
NNNN.domains
Aged.domains and
Resell.domains
Everybody says you should list your names everywhere, so I think this is a good opportunity to get my feet into this business, instead of just my toes!
Of course, I got Vins.domains too!
Ryan says
@ VInsDomains
Good catch on Vins.Domains, to bad you didn’t get the single letter V as well, sort of a vanity.
ChuckWagen says
What I predict is a big uptick in the sympathy card business.
Ryan says
Why you say that Chuck?
You think these guys got carried away with their .domains purchases, well they are in the business, so I guess they had to represent, since they are the end users for a change lol.
Kevin M. says
I picked up two –
FixedPrice.domains
dotWhatever.domains
..defensive regs, of course.. 😉
todd says
@Vin
Why would you get these but not secure the dotcoms? Also, do you really think exact match .whatever domains will be indexed in Google when Google basically kicked out exact match dotcoms.
cvcvdomains.com
nnnndomains.com
the above are available.
Vincent Jacques says
Todd, I didn’t because the first five I checked were taken, although I just snagged these with some discount codes, to prevent some bleed, although not really part of the plan (thanks for pointing those out). Regarding ranking, I already have one of my new gTLD sites on page 2 of Google for five different keywords, in less than one month, so…I’ll stick with content being king and look forward to launching these dot domain auction sites. Plan to undercut everybody with fees/commissions, so well see what happens!
Vincent Jacques says
Remember…Google didn’t kick out exact match domains, just the spammy ones!
Randy Love says
Every time Constantinos is caught buying a new gTLD domain name (I only say “caught” as he is less than…forthcoming….on his own blog), he should be reminded of the following post he made in his own blog less than two months ago.
“New top level domains are fools gold”
http://onlinedomain.com/2014/01/30/news/new-top-level-domains-are-fools-gold/
I don’t know how we should celebrate when he buys 45 of them though!
Konstantinos Zournas says
@Randy Do you see the quotes in my post?
And I don’t have a apologize for what I do. I bought a few .domains. Maybe Andrew missed a few more I bought…
Anyway I have explained how I feel about new gtlds. Some are good and some are shit. I buy the good ones.
Randy Love says
Forgive my typo – you said he purchased 75 (seventy five) of them.
todd says
“Remember…Google didn’t kick out exact match domains, just the spammy ones!”
I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said that. Of course us domainers would say this because it is imprinted on our brain to say it. It would totally go against domainer code to say this isn’t true but there are many people that beg to differ.
Since brands are king why wouldn’t you buy a really good .brandable?
When can you tell us your .whatever so we can check it out?
Konstantinos Zournas says
So did Google kicked out ALL exact match domains? I don’t think so…
Kevin M. says
@Randy Love
Why do you feel you/we should celebrate anything because Constantinos, or anyone, buys a gTLD domain?
Randy Love says
Have you looked at the post in question, or did you just decide to write a comment?
Kevin M. says
Just decided to write a comment. You?
Randy Love says
The post in question references a video that is also featured in that that really dreadful looking blog your name links through to. Maybe acquaint yourself with the subject matter before getting involved hey?
Kevin M. says
Ok.
Now, why do you feel you/we should celebrate anything because Constantinos, or anyone, buys a gTLD domain?
Bob says
Picked up just one:
TopNotch.domains