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.Co to rev up premium domain model in September

by — Uncategorized 9 Comments

More .co domains will be sold at a premium through the domain name registrar channel.

Neustar, the company that operates the .Co domain name, is drastically expanding its premium domain name program starting September 1.

.Co launched premium domain name sales through the registrar channel back in August 2015 on a very limited basis. Three years later, it is going all in on the model. An expanded tiered pricing program will go into effect September 1, and tens of thousands of domains will be added to premium tiers for domains available directly from domain registrars.

The premium domain model has become popular with new top level domain names. As of a couple of years ago, new TLD seller donuts was generating $9 million in annual revenue from premium domains, representing 15% of sales. Another new TLD company, Radix, made 10% of its revenue last year just from the renewal of premium domains.

While companies like Donuts and Radix typically charge the premium fee each year, premium .co domain names renew at standard prices.

$2.8 million of premium .VIP domains sold in past ten days

by — Domain Sales 6 Comments

MMX reports strong premium sales.

New top level domain company MMX (Minds + Machines) released a statement today about sales of premium domain names in .VIP. According to the statement, the company sold $2.8 million of premium .VIP domains in the past ten days:

Minds + Machines Group Limited (AIM: MMX), one of the world’s leading owners and operators of Internet Top-Level Domains (“TLDs”), is pleased to announce that since the release of its 2017 premium inventory for China in late June 2017, premium sales in excess of $3.4million have been achieved in .vip, of which approximately $2.8million has closed in the last 10 days.

The company will release financial results for the first half of 2017 later this month, and I’m sure it will provide more detail about its .VIP sales.

.Club reports “topline” Q2 premium sales of $2.7 million

by — Domain Sales 7 Comments

Registry gets huge uptake on its five-year payment plan deal.

The .Club registry has released its quarterly report of premium domain name sales, including $2.7 million “topline value”.

“Topline value” is in quotes because $2.5 million of this represents sales made through five-year, no-interest payment plans. Many of these buyers will surely fail to stop making payments, so .Club won’t see all of this as revenue over the next five years. Some domain investors are looking at this deal as a sort of “call option” on domains that will allow them to lock them down and give them some time to try to sell them at full price.

.Club has been very open about its premium domain sales data, and it will be nice if it provides ongoing data about how many of these subscription domains are paid.

The $2.5 million represents 189 of the names sold in the quarter.

Buy-it-now sales totaled $205,000 for the quarter. 37 names were sold via two auctions.

.Club reports that pinyin names saw high demand during the quarter as Chinese registrars added the tiered premiums to their shelves following MIIT approval for .club domain names to be used in China.

.Build registry files patent app for dynamic premium pricing

by — Services 1 Comment

An idea for new top level domains might have relevance for popular TLDs.

Patent application covers dynamic pricing of domain names.

With the introduction of new top level domain names a few years ago came an explosion in the number of TLDs offering some of their domain names at premium prices.

I recall speaking to someone at a registrar before new TLDs came out and discussing these premium tiers. He mentioned that some registries wanted to offer dynamic pricing where the price of specific premium domain names changed based on current events. The registrar put the kibosh on that idea. Instead, registries have just priced their domains within a handful of tiers (or 700, as it may be.)

Back in 2015 Plan Bee LLC, the registry behind .build, filed a patent application (pdf) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Organization to patent this sort of dynamic pricing. The patent application was published today.

The application covers the idea of setting premium pricing to cut out domainers and domain aftermarkets. An initial premium price is set based on a number of factors (length, search results, etc.) and then the price dynamically changes based on current factors such as social media buzz for certain terms or registrations of similar domains (e.g. lots of shoe-related domains are registered so the registry increases prices on similar domains).

It turns out that the registrars were smart to avoid this dynamic pricing. It doesn’t make sense on a domain like .build that has fewer than 5,000 domains.

However, as I read the patent application, I wondered how you could apply this idea to the exact market Plan Bee wanted to usurp: the secondary domain name market.

One of the reasons domain investors don’t like to assign “buy now” prices to their .com domains is that the value can suddenly change. We’ve seen this with domains with the word “coin” or “bitcoin” in them. We also saw it happen to short domain names during the Chinese surge.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could price your domains but then have the prices dynamically increase if there’s a sudden demand for domains with similar terms or characteristics?

.Art’s 3.5 million premium domains…you won’t find them on GoDaddy

by — Domain Registrars 24 Comments

Crazy premium name strategy is too much for most consumers…and GoDaddy.

I first wrote about .Art’s premium name strategy, which includes 3.5 million premium domain names, a couple weeks ago. As I wrote then, I’m scratching my head about this strategy.

Yesterday, .Art launched in general availability. According to nTLDStats, 1,636 .art domains were added to the zone on the first partial day.

And now we can see what types of domain names are considered premium.

I started with a search for my last name, Allemann.art. That will set me back about $315 for the first year and $50 per year after that.

If I’m willing to settle for my full name, AndrewAllemann.art, I can get it at the standard registration fee of $15.

I’m not an artist. But if I were, here’s what my thought process would be:

I can get Allemann.art for $315 and $50 a year after that.

Or I can get AllemannArt.com for $10 and $10 a year after that.

In 2017, which one of these is the better domain? The .com is much more recognized, is universally accepted, and more likely to be remembered. It’s a no-brainer, especially when you consider the price.

Thankfully, my name isn’t that popular. If my name was John Doe (does anyone really have that name?) I would have to pay $1,380 to register my corresponding .art domain name.

Here are some other .Art domains and their premium prices at 101Domain: Click to continue reading…