|
|
What is the Best Domain Name?
Which Domain Would You Buy?
Tale of Two Domains
.XYZ v. .CLICK
June 7, 2015
Introduction
What is the best new domain name to buy? The question is often asked, so
while this post covers two gTLDs and some of the pitfalls in place, hopefully it will assist someone.
Having been involved in talks with
TOP registry over the last several weeks concerning its generic top-level domain (gTLD) and outlook, the following
brief text of our recent exchange has been edited and posted below. TOP registry is the parent of gTLD .TOP, and Uniregistry
Corporation owns the string .CLICK. The excerpts from TOP are followed by my reply under CLICK.*
.TOP
From nic.top
.TOP is a TLD operated by a Chinese registry, so the market is well promoted
in China. And because of technical backend and time difference, it's not onboard the biggest registrars like Godaddy
and GMO -- yet.
Regarding the renewal price, top.domains have an advantage. Many TLDs
have the same renewal and registration fees for their premium domains, and an example is the recent sale, with annual
renewals, of a domain at $999. And that fee will need to be paid each year! But for .top, you only need to
pay the first year price for premium, and renew at standard price for only around 12 dollars. This is big attraction
to both investors and end users.
True, not many strings are positioned to overtake .top, and .click
is generic "enough" and it has a GA time similar to .top, but it's already listed with GMO and Godaddy. The latter, with
affiliates, has allowed .click some 2500 more registrations than .top in the U.S. Furthermore, people who run a website may
not care too much if the TLD is generic enough or not, otherwise, .com (company) wouldn't be so widely used.
| Best New Domain Name for Sale |
|
| Courtesy namestat.org |
.CLICK
Reply from the webmaster
While .CLICK domains sell for the lowest prices in the industry
at just $6, the majority of its registered domains have already converted to websites.
And at 24%, .CLICK enjoys one of the lowest park rates in the business -- and this is important for strong
renewals every year. No other registry can say that every single one of its domains can be bought every year for $6
and that its website conversion rate is continually at or above 76%. Only CLICK can make this claim. Click, it's what
brought you here. See also Why .CLICK.
Pricing
While it may be advantageous to have the $12 price range on each successive
year of the premium domain .Top, the fact that it is offering premiums to begin with is a huge problem. .Click, however,
offers across the board rates around $6 per year and they do not offer (thankfully) the expensive animal known as the "premium
domain." .Click believes in a level playing field for all -- and this means that individuals should be able to purchase the
same name as the investor, whose pockets run deep in cash.
Although the .Com has always had this approach on pricing, .Click is
the best new generic top-level domain that maintains the strategy of fair and affordable pricing for each and every user
of the Internet -- particularly the individual.
Whereas I purchased hundreds of .Click domains for $6 each, the greater
majority of the domains would have cost several thousands of dollars with practically every other string -- including
those gTLDs that are an annoying 20 characters long and make little sense to me. Think about toy.click and html.click,
just two domains that would have cost thousands with most other suffixes. .Site, for instance, which is
currently in preregistration phase, watched someone recently purchase toy.site for $12,999, the same price that must
be paid each year the domain is renewed! Now how is this fair to the individual who wants to start an online
store and has limited resources? We honestly know that it's not a level playing field and that the exuberant prices only favor
the investor and the rich. With annual renewals of just $6 each, toy.click, html.click, as well as garden.click and military.click, were
just some of the $6 domains that I have purchased. Will they be renewed, yes, absolutely.
Park Rate
The park rate for .Top is a staggering 64% while it is only 24% for .Click,
which is one of the lowest in the industry. Park rate, as we know, signifies domains that are parked and not in use. The higher
the park rate, the higher the speculation by those buying and sitting on the domain, hoping to sell for a profit at sometime.
When annual renewals hit en masse, historically, many speculators have the tendency to not renew -- buyers remorse as
we say -- triggering a massive selloff, which can be seen with the gTLD .Guru, for instance. It has been selling off for a
solid two months and counting. Give away gTLDs has only jacked up many of the strings, insomuch that .XYZ has a
whopping 70% park rate and, after figuring in new domains sold, it is still losing an average of 5,000 domains per day
as renewals simply fail to materialize. Expect the shakeout to continue until parking dramatically drops, but that is
going to take a very long time.
Domain .XYZ reminds me of .Top. Both have nearly identical numbers across the board, with
.Top weighted at 84% and .XYZ at 71% in China, respectively, and their appeal remains dismal in English
speaking countries. Each offers expensive premium names while their entry and renewals
are priced the same, but XYZ just hit its first year anniversary and now is deleting and showing an average loss of 5,000
domains per day. The trend is expected to continue as it punishes speculators who have placed crutches under the string
and its current 68% park rate.
The extension .Website, in an attempt to bolster its less than stellar sales, recently resorted
to giving away thousands of domains for under a buck, but while this has served only to inflate the park rate of the
two-syllable suffix, expect a major selloff when the buyers are slapped with an annual renewal fee of $15 and up. .Site,
which also offers high cost premiums, must be making the longer string .Website quite nervous with its general
availability just weeks away in July 2015..
Site or .Website. Both have lofty premiums and almost identical annual renewal
fees, but smart money is on .Site and it is just one reason for lagging sales over at .Website. But .Click is king.
No premiums, No gimmicks, No nonsense, just a flat rate of $6. annually.
Renewal Price
Another problem facing .Top is that it, like many, offers only the
first year promotion at giveaway prices at places such as Hexonet $1.94, 101domain $1.99, Espace2001 $2.10, and
Dynadot $2.99, but for renewals each demands above $12. So while it appears to be an advantage, the low registration prices
only benefit the registrar the first year, but the greater the disparity between these two prices has historically been
met by large selloffs at time of renewal.
.CLICK is universally recognized and has strong sales in several languages,
including English, and it maintains the lowest registration rates in the industry, has fixed initial registration and renewal
pricing, and enjoys a rather low park rate. The suffix also works well with any singular or plural word -- which
makes it the true alternative to .Com. While html.click and military.click each cost me $6, both will cost
you thousands to register on most other strings -- because they are premium domains. Wheras military.website will cost
you $3,299 each year that you own it, recipe.site will set you back $6499 per year, and html.site a staggering $12,999
annually!
Best Generic gTLD
While .Top has a certain meaning in English, it is not as recognized and universally accepted
as the term click. .Top is just not an all-around generic gTLD because the word top
can not and does not go well with many words. Think about disease.top or war.top, which are just a few combinations that sound
wrong, but disease.click and war.click actually make sense. Limited usage means limited sales, and that is reason enough to
avoid .Top.
Click is what brought you here. .Click is the strong generic TLD that
truly goes great with any word, including singular and plural. Click is a term that is recognized around the world
and found in many languages on the Internet. On any given site, click here or click to buy, are just a few common examples.
It is active extension in the sense that it instructs and inspires us to click, and what other gTLD does that -- the words
top and com don't. Always just $6, .Click is the best choice, and for everyone who missed that .Com, then go .Click.
NOTES
*Besides being webmaster of this site, I currently own 10% of the .CLICK names registered
in the United States.
CLICK is owned by Uniregistry Corp, an ICANN accredited registrar, and maintained at Uniregistry.com. With .Click its
second most successful gTLD to date, Uniregistry continues to grow while owning more than two dozen strings. Uniregistry
provides a full spectrum of Brand Services. It offers backend registry services to brands, ccTLDs, and other generic top-level
domain (gTLD) applicants. Uniregistry allows you to directly offer registrations to your customers as your own registrar using
its in-house registrar and reseller services. Its domain name and IP management services, coupled with its state of the art
analytics, keep brands ahead of the competition. Uniregistry sells names directly to users and, as an integrated retail store,
sells its own and well as classic domain names. As a registry, it maintains and operates new naming extensions and continues
a strong relationship with registrar partners to sell Uniregistry's domain names. Uniregistry maintains a full-service
model that allows the company to provide customers with an easier, more exciting experience. Uniregistry affirms that "Our
registrar’s affiliate program makes it easy to offer domain name registration services to your customers and earn the
most competitive commissions in the domain name industry. We offer simple integration and easy payment solutions for you to
provide all of the best domain names and services to your customers or audience." You may learn more about .CLICK at nic.click.
TOP is a new generic
top-level domain (gTLD) accredited by ICANN and was officially delegated in ICANN's New gTLD Program on August 4, 2014. .TOP
domain is managed and operated by the .top registry, online at nic.top, which is affiliated with Jiangsu Bangning Group in
Nanjing, China. Approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China (known as
MIIT), .top
has been approved as one of only four gTLDs by the People's Republic of China. See also nic.xyz.
Credits: GMO Internet Group located online gmo.jp/en; godaddy.com;
statistics for best selling domains courtesy namestats.org; nic.xyz; uniregistry.com; nic.click.
|
|
|
