New domain name likely sets launch record for new domain names.
The new .online top level domain name received over 28,000 registrations in the first 30 minutes of general availability today. It now has over 30,000 registrations, including 1,130 high priced registrations during the early access period.
In addition to being a very popular word tacked onto the end of existing registrations in .com, .Online registry has been heavily promoting the domain name. I received two promotional emails yesterday from registrars. Also, former .online partners Tucows and NameCheap will push the domain.
Radix is also buying outdoor advertising in San Francisco to promote .online. All told, it’s putting millions of dollars into its marketing.
The thing I see holding .online back is steep premium prices on many domain names. In many cases I checked, you can get [Word]online.com for much less.
i buy like 5 ,,and I am going to auction for other 4, only numbers…
I thought those 28K registrations might be TMs perfunctorily snapped up by companies’ in-house legal, but it seems not much concern there. The following were all still available: jetblue.online, american.online, delta.online, britishairways.online, virgin.online…
Noted that jetblue.online is $30, whereas delta.online is 7K…virgin.online is 13K…so that’s a sportive algorithm. Maybe the UDRP could lease that script.
It’s very shortsighted “exuberance.” .Online is appealing but is priced much too high. It is priced for flash in the pan disappointment after a perfectly understandable interest in the opening bell.
P.S. And of course, I’m not even addressing the “premium” issue now, but merely the standard reg fee.
As a coupon guy, what I really wanted was Coupons.Online, but that one is registered to the registry itself… a reserved premium I suppose.
So I settled for just two:
PrintableCoupons.Online
BabyCoupons.Online.
I hate when registries hold back domains. I realize they think they can get more money by charging huge premiums for these reserved domains. What they don’t realize is that when you tinker with free markets, it backfires.
I think they can actually make more money by eliminating reserved premium domains because if somebody actually builds a popular site using a new TLD, it brings public awareness to the TLD itself, which can lead to a lot more registrations.
I’ve said it before, but until there are at least a few popular sites using a new TLD, the public won’t even know they exist, and they won’t even recognize them as domains if they saw them in ads.
I really do have a strong hunch they don’t even know what they are even when they see them on the screen, hence they might not visit because it doesn’t occur to them that it’s a domain. In fact, I’m not even talking about without the “www.” but even when they see it as “www.Example.neversawthatbeforemustbemadeup.”
So what is needed is marketing an promotion, the very thing that has kept it so that people in this country still practically don’t even have a clue the .US exists after 13 years, for instance.
I’ve got news for you, a lot of people don’t even know how to enter ANY URL. As a tech consultant, most of the people I encounter enter whatever they want into the search box on their home page.
This has bothered me for many years. Whenever I tell a client to type something into the address bar, the most common question is “what’s that?” or “I don’t have one”. This often means that their (often hijacked) home page takes them to a search results page.
Even when they type the entire domain into a search box, the results page may not even list the domain at the top, or if it’s there, the first result might be your own paid ad, so you’re paying a search engine for traffic even though the visitor typed the entire domain.
What bothers me more is when the top listing is a paid ad from a competitor who uses your domain, in bold fonts as the only title. I’ve complained to Google about that and showed them screen shots. They didn’t care.
If people can’t even understand how to enter a .com domain into the address bar, we’re going to be at the mercy of the search engines to play fair.
It’s as if domains are becoming irrelevant.
I was disappointed about the premium price as well. Ending up not able to register any .online … Oh well stay with dot com 🙂
Agreed. It’s bad enough paying more up-front, but I’ve been getting premium renewals from a bunch of domains that have no real value.
Meanwhile, .Coupons is $42, even for the non-premium names, and the ones I would’ve ordered were held back.
I’m trying to register the domain name I already own/managed. For example, premium pricing of $6K for que.online it’s a bit too much.