Three second level domains under new top level domains sold for least $500,000 each.
Big dollar sales of new top level domain names are rare, but Donuts announced three blockbuster deals in 2018–each clipping the prior record by a small amount.
First, Donuts announced that Home.Loans sold for $500,000 to a Florida entrepreneur. Blake Janover had success with other new top level domains before plunking down a half million dollars for this one. (Listen to a podcast with Blake here.)
Then a Missouri entrepreneur bested that sale by paying $500,300 for Vacation.Rentals. The extra $300 was not random. Mike Kugler wanted the press that came with being the record holder. (Listen to a podcast with Mike here.)
That record lasted until November, when Domain Name Wire broke the news that Donuts sold Online.Casino for $510,000.
The home.loans and vacation.rentals buyers both cited perceived search engine optimization benefits as a key reason for paying so much money. At the time of writing, both are on the first page of Google for the search term matching the second and top level portions of their domains, e.g. home loans and vacation rentals.
snoopy says
“each clipping the prior record by a small amount”
It’s all staged PR garbage.
John says
Well this is ironic because I have to more or less agree with Snoopy this time, even though I happen to like the names involved. But I don’t like them even within a million miles of the .com versions or the .us versions.
Judith McGarry says
Well hello there and Happy New Year, commenters! Since I run the “PR garbage” here at Donuts, please email me directly at [email protected], or call me at 415-971-2900. I would be delighted to speak to you 🙂
Dr. Krein says
Judith don’t listen to these trolls they probably do not even own any great domain names. have a happy new year.
John says
That’s what Judith thinks. I’ve charged Snoopy with trolling before myself, which is why I said it was ironic, so I won’t speak for him. I suspect he really means what he said, however, which would mean it’s not trolling no matter how blunt. In my case, however, any review of my comments going back years will readily show that I am anything but a “troll.”
I was just coming back to reply to you in fact. And what I would say is that I believe this kind of conversation is best done in public, not private.
I will also mention that in my humble opinion what I call the “money grab model” by which new gTLDs were introduced, has been flawed from the start, and almost dooming. I know a smart guy who went to Harvard Law and has had a great career. Many years ago he told me he thought domains were not that valuable because they were “infinitely expandable,” i.e. he envisioned this day would come. Well that day has come and gone, and the one who is the most correct about it is Rick Schwartz.
And I’m a guy who is primarily and end user first, not a domain investor first, and I actually even like a few of the new TLDs.
I’ll tell you one example that I like personally which almost everyone in the domain industry either does not like or never even cares to talk about – .Gold.
Long story short, the high pricing on .gold is all wrong, and is more or less guaranteed to make sure it is never widely adopted or used. Perhaps that is what Donuts wants. So what were you all thinking there? I’ve had some education in marketing before, so I might have a few good guesses. For example, perhaps you all were thinking the one dimensional obvious – that the customer base would have to be almost all people involved with literal gold. So then you might think the pricing is okay because of that.
On another note, perhaps you were engaging in “psychological pricing,” thinking that anyone and everyone would not even want .gold unless it had a high price.
Perhaps Donuts is content with low registration and modest profit above whatever it cost to get .gold and run it. Oh well, to each their own I guess.
As someone who is primarily and end user first and has a lot of vision about some things if I can say so myself, however, I will say that .gold is one which could have been popular and well known and widely used if you had only made the price closer to “normal.” And of course I believe you would probably be making a lot more money. Another long story short, since I’ve already written about it in the past, “gold” is one of the most highly “evocative” and highly metaphorically used terms ever. The literal “metallic” application is merely the tip of the iceberg. That term can and does resonate positively with people for all sorts of myriad applications.
But not at the obnoxious pricing at which it is distributed and which is required for renewals, let alone also “premium” renewals. Case closed, end of story, the sad end (already) to what actually could have been a rather nice pleasant new TLD in the wild.
John says
Typo: my opening statement is supposed to say “That’s what Dr. Krein thinks.”
Mike Adkins says
yawn
John says
Thanks, Mike. Good illustration of trolling to help folks distinguish.
Snoopy says
Well I’d have to be a masochist to call you and hear even more PR garbage.
Is the next sale of $510,500 ready yet Judith?
John says
So Judith, as you can see I shared with you well considered thoughts and valuable nuggets of gold. 😉
Anon says
With all due respect, Judith, why would they want to call and let you try to mislead them? The sad fact is that the new gtlds continue to be regarded as the sewage of the internet and its going to take more than Donut’s pr division to change that general consensus. Many feel that the .crappollas are used by spammers and those who lack the ambition, money and fortitude to obtain a trusted .com. Large cajones are sometimes needed to be successful in business. Will it be easy? Nah. Will it be cheap? Perhaps not. But, is a .com truly needed? Yessiree!
A few will not have the strength, funds or willpower to proceed and may settle for a .dud, but the wise and the determined will persevere. They will read blogs like this one and educate themselves on the importance of having a good domain. They will attend seminars, auctions, conferences and monitor drop lists. They will be creative and, with a bit of determination, I am confident that they will find a .com name for themselves.
If you are going to try to sell worthless.garbage, I wish you the best of luck.
Boya says
GTLD = Good To Lose Dollars
Ethan says
I personally like new TLDs because they can make url shorter and clearer. For example, https://vacation.rentals/ looks better than https://vacationrentals.com/ in my opinion. So I would suggest websites which use new TLDs drop the unnecessary “www” so that their urls look more outstanding.
Snoopy says
If they drop the www. then vacation.rentals won’t look like a url at all.
Ethan says
What I meant is changing https://www.vacation.rentals/ to just https://vacation.rentals/, which still looks like a url.
James Kite says
On paper/tv the HTTP:// or www would be required.
Radio www
But online…
http://vacation.rentals
http://www.vacation.rentals
Or
Vacation.rentals
It depends on the platform/browser and whether it is treated as a URL
In the end better awareness would make it a non issue but that is reliant on usage.
Michael Kugler says
I can tell you firsthand adding the “www” before the URL was massive in getting more hits on our site.
It is true that people instinctively go for the dot com when they are typing in the address. A simple and incredibly quick fix is to tell them “w-w-w dot vacat…..” and it connects with them immediately.
January 7th, 2019 – first page of Google for 10 months in a row now. (And we just added 4 more listings today)
Yes, the site has been wonderful.
Ethan says
@Michael Kugler, You can of course tell people to go to “w-w-w dot vacat…..” But when they land on your website, you can then redirect them immediately to the url without the triple w. Wouldn’t that be good?
John says
Snoopy may get nasty, trollish and uncivilized, but he (or she?) is right about that. That is one of the biggest problems with new TLDs now. People are generally not going to have the slightest idea that Example.Example is even a domain they can visit unless an extra indicator appears. Not good.
Jose says
Agree with John above. The new G’s are painfully sucky, with or without the www in front. Doesn’t make a diff. Sending an email to a new gtld address just does not seem natural and makes my eyes want to scream. I’d prefer to simply take my business elsewhere.
John says
I like a few of them, but I’m also just being honest about how things are. If it were up to me, people would instantly recognize the ones I like as usable domains and like them too.
Steve says
Judith I admire your proactive and transparent approach but the reality is GTLDs are moribund and running on fumes. GTLDs solved no problems. Created the paradox of choice and offer zero value proposition.
John says
That’s gold, Steve! Gold! 😉
Agree with everything, except I would say there is some value in the best and most appealing, but the general public doesn’t care, doesn’t know, and the “money grab” business model is all wrong. Otherwise well said.
Victor says
this remined me with Beauty.cc when universaldomains.cc said they sold it for 1Million Dollars