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A new TLD update with Sandeep Ramchandani – DNW Podcast #248

by — Podcasts 7 Comments

Sandeep Ramchandani returns to the program to discuss the top level domain market.

dnw-podcastRadix CEO Sandeep Ramchandani discusses the current state of new top level domain names from his perspective. We discuss how much premium domains should cost, if domains under management is the right metric, switching costs of domains, and much more. It’s an interesting discussion.

Also: Tucows, GoDaddy expired domains, PIR’s hire, EFF fights .org contract, 8chan and more.

This week’s sponsor: NameSilo. Use coupon code DNWPod for $1 off your next domain.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:56 — 26.4MB) | Embed

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Radix: $1.36M premium revenue in first half of 2019

by — Domain Sales 1 Comment

Company’s premium revenue stays on track in 2019.

Pie chart showing registrar market share for Radix premium domain sales. GoDaddy is number 1 at 41.6%, Google is 11.3% and Namecheap is 10.2%.

GoDaddy generates over 40% of Radix’s premium domain revenue.

Domain name registry Radix pulled in $1.36 million in premium revenue during the first half of 2019, almost the exact same amount it generated in the second half of last year.

$0.52 million of that was from the registration of 619 new premium domains and the rest was renewal revenue.

More than half of the new registration revenue came from .online and .tech. Looking at renewals, .store and .online are the top revenue producers.

GoDaddy leads the way for premium domains of Radix domains, but I’m a bit surprised that Google is #2. Namecheap, which is the second largest registrar for new TLD registrations overall, comes in at #3.

The average premium revenue per domain is about $1,000, but new premium registrations this year have a lower average than renewals.

54% of premium domains that came up for their first renewal this year were renewed and 78% of second-year or later premiums were renewed.

Radix operates nine new top level domain names plus the .pw namespace. I just recorded a podcast with Radix CEO Sandeep Ramchandani that will air within the next couple of weeks.

.Inc domain tops 500 registrations

by — Uncategorized 5 Comments

Expensive domain finds buyers.

.Inc top level domain logo

The .Inc top level domain name has crossed 500 registrations after getting 237 registrations in the first hour of general availability today.

While this wouldn’t be noteworthy for most top level domain launches, .Inc domains have a wholesale price of $2,000.

Over 270 domains were registered during the trademark sunrise and five additional names were picked up at a higher price during Early Access.

Among the dictionary word registrations so far are sex.inc, marijuana.inc, bitcoin.inc, offshore.inc alarm.inc, pets.inc and b.inc.

Some trademark holders appear to have waited until general availability to get their names.

To learn more about .Inc’s unique model, listen to DNW Podcast #232 with Shayan Rostam.

Donuts to increase domain prices in October

by — Uncategorized 12 Comments

Most of Donuts’ domains will be more costly soon.

Domain name registry Donuts is raising prices October 1.

On average, prices for standard domain registrations will increase 7%. Premium domain prices will remain unchanged.

Of Donuts’ 241 top level domains, 16 will remain unchanged and 220 will increase by 6% to 9%.

One domain name will be reduced. .Group’s wholesale price will be slashed 35% to compete with similar domain names in the market.

Customers can renew their domain names before October 1 for up to 10 years at today’s prices.

In practice, first-year registrants likely won’t notice the increase because Donuts heavily discounts first-year registrations.

New TLDs, five years in

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Picture of birthday cake with five candles

 

It was five years ago this month that the first domains under the new top level domain (nTLD) program started rolling out to consumers. The first Latin script general availability domains came out in early February 2014.

Remember .guru? .Plumbing? Yeah, that was a long time ago.

Here’s how I’d sum up the first five years of new top level domains.

Demand and artificial demand

Registration numbers for new TLDs have not met expectations for just about anyone who put money into it. That includes the many registries that spent millions acquiring strings as well as ICANN.

I thought new TLD applicants were very bullish, but even I was surprised when the first sunrises got only a couple hundred registrations.

Applicants should have understood the market size better. People were looking at registrations in .com and predicting market size for new TLD strings but many applicants expected some magic demand to come out of nowhere. The reality is that there are only so many people creating a website at a given time. They’re going to look for a .com or ccTLD name. If they don’t get that then they might consider a new TLD. So new TLD demand for people creating websites is a subset of total site creator demand. Without a catalyst for more people to create websites, demand won’t shoot up. Click here to continue reading…