Demand for new websites is decreasing, and so is the demand for domains.
There have been some big domain sales lately, but if you are on “domain Twitter,” you know all is not well in the domain name aftermarket.
Domain investors are complaining about unusually long sales droughts. After a couple of years of record-setting sales, they’re seeing sales slow down.
No, it’s not just you. I’ve talked to enough people on background to know that most people are experiencing a drop in aftermarket domain sales. And the reason is fairly obvious: demand for new websites is down.
Verisign reported a drop in both new domain registration and the total number of .com domains registered last quarter. Wix is laying off employees as demand wanes.
The reason is simple, and it’s not just about economic uncertainty: we’re returning to pre-Covid levels of demand.
Demand for domains took off the past couple of years as companies needed to go online to survive. Many businesses that might have been getting around to establishing a web presence this year have already done it. The world is reopening and things are slowly returning to normal.
At least at the low end of the aftermarket, demand mirrors the demand for “normal” domain registrations. People trying to establish a website search for domains. Most of them buy an unregistered domain, but a small percentage of those people buy an already-registered domain.
As the number of people searching for and registering unregistered domains decreases, so does the number of people opting to register a domain that’s listed for sale.
This isn’t the end of the world. Demand is merely reverting to pre-pandemic levels.
Sure, there are other factors at play. There’s nuance in this market. But at the simplest level, it makes sense that aftermarket domain sales have receded this year.
I’m leading a panel at NamesCon where we’ll dig into actual numbers and results that two domain investors have experienced this year. Join us for “Real Deals, Real Numbers” at 3:40 CDT on August 31.
Most domain investors on Twitter reported that they did not have any sales in July, according to a Twitter poll.
Meanwhile, GoDaddy and DropCatch auctions seem over exuberant. So it seems that there are still many end users, but they just want to cut out middle men. Note that some of those domains have no investment value but are valuable because of their domain rating and backlink profiles.
However, UDRP complaints filed in bad faith over premium and super premium domain names continue to increase. UDRP complaints should not be viewed as a domain upgrade “tool.” It seems that Complainants just want to cut out middle men and take the domain names that they want to use for themselves without paying for them using a quasi-legal process.
Don’t believe everything you hear.
If you own the RIGHT .COM domains, they sell. Trust me!
I would actually like to see data about the decrease of people creating websites only because I’ve seen so many amateurs getting into blogging. They don’t actually know about the domain name industry or the value of domains. If they see a domain that cost over $100 they’ll just register something else. I was reading the comments in the r/entrepreneur of reddit and many people feel paying thousands of dollars isn’t worth it. In fact users convince the OP of the post (who was ready to buy a domain name for around $20k) not to spend so much money on a domain name.
I am selling more domains than ever.
Going to be the best year.
No idea where you get the data and I always avoid pessimistic people.
will be great if you give us some examples for those domain and the price.
Time for another pandemic. 🙂
I’ve been buying/selling since 1996. For me, sales volume is down but income is at an all time high. Nearly my entire portfolio is location based exact match domains. Buyers got some bargains in 2020 and 2021, as locations closed, but I’m hoping as local businesses come back, we’ll see a boost in volume.
in my opinion there is two main reason for the decline.
1. Chines not buying domain due to government restrictions for citizen to use dollars. DN.com is out of business.
2. Domaintools.com does not show the email address for any domain buyers search to help godaddy and other registrar so you cannot buy directly from the owner of the domain it shows
Registrant Email: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY (DT)
that is how it show one of my domains check it yourself on any of your domains. go to
https://whois.domaintools.com/
If more domainers honestly talked about the reality of domaining – ie the dips, the waits, uncertainty of this business we would learn a lot more and progress a lot further.