I published a post earlier today about .XYZ registering over 18,000 domain names in its first day of General Availability based on ntldstats.com, which is what we rely on consistently for our registration numbers.
At the time we did point out that over 50% of all registrations were made at NetworkSolutions.com which was quite unusual, since that registrar has only 8% of the new gTLD market overall, including the 9K+ .XYZ registrations.
Obviously this seemed strange to me since NetSol’s rack rate on a .XYZ is $40 at least 2 1/2 times the rack rate of most registrars.
.XYZ registry has posted on its own blog that .XYZ registrations have passed 31,000 and included some tweets from end users who registered domains.
However, I pulled the zone file for .XYZ this AM and started to review it and came across some domains that I couldn’t believe would be registered especially on the 1st day of a new extension that had virgin territory.
I obviously started at the beginning of the file which are domain names that start with numbers
I found 157 new .XYZ registrations that made no sense to me:
00938625.xyz
01051-plus.xyz
023yks.xyz
027yi.xyz
0282ub.xyz
02pf.xyz
03304cjp64ubzd1.xyz
03fffff.xyz
0577fc.xyz
0707msc.xyz
0731jsq.xyz
0758l.xyz
0758rl.xyz
0797taxi.xyz
0bsf.xyz
0bt09a55wr.xyz
0orwykg35.xyz
0pxqm.xyz
0q1if.xyz
0uv8kbsg.xyz
0w86mb.xyz
0xs8vw.xyz
1-leg-up.xyz
100blackmen-atlanta.xyz
1010onlyroses.xyz
105riiy.xyz
1111arch.xyz
123ug.xyz
13jauz.xyz
16rq8.xyz
16z9y.xyz
17ft4vru.xyz
17mms.xyz
17swang.xyz
1b5n4c.xyz
1eighty.xyz
1kcn.xyz
1nfrf.xyz
1qds3xxp.xyz
1secureaudit.xyz
1sourcelogistics.xyz
23c565.xyz
23uoy.xyz
24monthlenderintx.xyz
2l2puv9.xyz
2nd8jc774.xyz
2qd5zy.xyz
2upop.xyz
2wn650twd.xyz
30thdemswa.xyz
320ranch.xyz
32h7c59z4.xyz
343er4.xyz
343sc.xyz
34t53.xyz
365betbyhwz.xyz
366thspsk-9.xyz
37iov.xyz
37mqjh.xyz
39xwodi.xyz
3cp99hm5.xyz
3cuv0k.xyz
3j-3pya.xyz
3l93b4.xyz
3vcm.xyz
404riskauditcd.xyz
430k5bj4j.xyz
43ppl.xyz
44cpq.xyz
451drafting.xyz
45bjh.xyz
45gy.xyz
45i72j.xyz
4asz.xyz
4freedoms4kids.xyz
4h0r8e.xyz
4i99ws.xyz
4ii2yav.xyz
51bianyaqi.xyz
51book8.xyz
51cydb.xyz
51gredk.xyz
51sulian.xyz
51tuomao.xyz
53rf2.xyz
54jh8.xyz
54kjh.xyz
550zl742.xyz
56r35c.xyz
5739xa5.xyz
58p078.xyz
5s26i.xyz
5upuf.xyz
678yulecheng12344.xyz
67n660.xyz
67zy5.xyz
69qipai.xyz
6alabat.xyz
6i8ql653.xyz
6o9l1.xyz
6tvey8.xyz
73rdbombwingassociation.xyz
758ag0lm.xyz
7ex9jpzpk.xyz
872007zrylc.xyz
872blfylc.xyz
88348107.xyz
888vipdarenxsylc.xyz
88xdtambjlwsdc.xyz
88yuelecheng88.xyz
8bocaitong.xyz
8ca92e1.xyz
8k6uc.xyz
8u13ij.xyz
951ylcylcb.xyz
9a0894f.xyz
9bet365kaihu.xyz
9eshiboyulecheng.xyz
9lkn2uh.xyz
a-jmediaservices.xyz
a-rmanagement.xyz
aacfo.xyz
aagtx.xyz
aaosymw.xyz
abk3g6kr.xyz
acky56.xyz
acwyulecheng.xyz
adafruir.xyz
adamgottschalk.xyz
adiniron.xyz
adioselcancer.xyz
adlhochcreative.xyz
admark360.xyz
adminet.xyz
adrenalineforce.xyz
adzro.xyz
aeccpl.xyz
aepex.xyz
aerchivist.xyz
aerieinc.xyz
afdfqna.xyz
aftylc.xyz
afxtg9.xyz
agapdx.xyz
ahehhb.xyz
aikidomochizuki.xyz
aimashiyulechengcom1646634613.xyz
aimeiguojiyulecheng263.xyz
ajoselowpc.xyz
akcdoublebgoldens.xyz
allouezparksidevillage.xyz
ams4og.xyz
aomenbocaishequ099.xyz
aomenduchanggl353.xyz
aomenpujingduchang197.xyz
aomenwangshangbaijiale804.xyz
aomenyulecheng35532.xyz
So I ran the matching .com domain names though the whois and found out of the 157 domain names, all but 4 were registered at Network Solutions plus 5 .com domain were no longer registered
Here those are:
023yks.com registered at enom
0577fc.com registered at ename.com
51tuomao.com registered at hichina
adamgottschalk.com registered at DomainPeople
These are not registered:
100blackmen-atlanta.com
16rq8.com
30thdemswa.com
9lkn2uh.com
agapdx.com
A reader on TheDomains.com blog commented:
“I recently got the email from Netsol offering me a complementary .xyz for my so-so .com free for 1 year. and in order to decline such an offer I had to visit a link and click decline, otherwise the domain would be mine automatically.”
Personally I haven’t received any such deals from NetworkSolutions.com although I do not have a lot of domains there (just domains won on Namejet.com and not transferred yet).
Reviewing the emails I have received in the last 30 days from NetworkSolutions.com on new gTLD’s none of them even mentioned .XYZ anywhere in the email.
So it all remains very strange.
I didn’t go through all 18,000 domain names that were in the Zone file this AM so this is just a small sample of registered domains.
I reached out to Daniel Negari CEO of .XYZ on this issue and he told me “The .XYZ registry has been paid for every registration”.
So did NetworkSolutions give away .XYZ domains?
Perceived feeding frenzy might fool a few people.
I reached out to Daniel Negari CEO of .XYZ on this issue and he told me “The .XYZ registry has been paid for every registration”.
so thats way too cryptic, means they were paid something… just maybe not full tilt? i think enom did this with infos years back, uggghh dont play with numbers xyz’ers, its a good enough story and its what you do in the months ahead that counts..no one will rember day one, but they might remeber fudging the numbers or an asterisk(*)…MB great work tracking down the free reg thing, exactly my thought process but i didnt have the energy to go thru each one. nice job MB
Many people had stated since the Namejet auctions this extension would be deemed, and marketed as a joke, this numbers game was already expected. This is just a dirty trick to pad the numbers, and make this extension looks like it has hope. Unless they are using .xyz for spam purposes those domains have negative values. They might have paid the ICANN fee, that is about it.
I saw a Sherpa interview with this guy, and I could read right into his answers when he went cold, it wasn’t kosher, nor is this activity, if this was SEC regulated this sort of behavior would have halted this nonsense extension.
He dug his own grave with this number padding, I don’t care for it.
With that domain data, there’s a way to get at the truth. Call up some of the domain name registrants (e.g. adrenalineforce.com or allouezparksidevillage.xyz owners), and ask why the registered the .xyz domain. If there was an “opt-out” email from NSI providing free domains, perhaps some of them didn’t delete that email yet.
If there was an “opt-out” email form NSI providing free domains, it would have been posted on a domain blog well before now.
What Daniel should do at this point, instead of having these questions linger, is just go ahead and address them completely. This can be done today. If not, then these kind of things take on a life of their own and would just lead to more suspicions. I have a few .coms at Netsol from auctions but couldn’t find that email some are talking about either.
Articles like this one should earn Michael Berkens some respect from people who mistake him for an nTLD cheer leader. That he clearly ain’t.
Personally, I don’t think .XYZ is necessarily hopeless as a brand. But the tone of its spokesman yesterday was a big turnoff — imperious nudism, I’d call it (to reference Hans Christian Andersen). Numerical shenanigans don’t help him win the hearts and minds.
Check Daniel’s video at https://ceo.xyz/success/ and you understand that this guy Is crazy.
…and his middle name is Fail.
Guys
Just to be clear we are in the domain business and the new gTLD’s are domains, so we cover them and chat about them.
Its a huge topic with over 700 “generic” tlds coming. You really can’t say you love or hate them all, so no one can say they hate or love new gTLD’s in their entirety.
So I’m an investor like you except for clients that have hired RightoftheDot.com to consult with. As we sit today although I have been very clear on this the only client we have that has launched is .Club.
All of our other clients are in contention and may win or lose, we will see but you guys will know.
Of course we do accept advertising like most blogs but that has nothing to do with what we chat about
Still calling stuff as we see it
That’s the way to respond — clearly and at once.
Moniker and .XYZ could both learn from that.
you seem to be going all in with the new gtlds. you must have new gtlds that are going to cost 30-50k in renewals next year. fact is 99% of domainers can’t afford to play in the arena you live in. i bought 5… i can’t risk tens of thousands on something that may or may not pan out. if it does an pan out, the cash rich .com domainers are now the cash rich gtld domainers. either way, the average domainer loses.
@cmac,
Everybody risks money domaining — whether their budget is big or small.
If someone like Michael Berkens spends $50k on nTLDs, then he may do well or he may not. It’s no different in principle compared to a budget of $5k for established extensions. Also, $50k spent on nTLDs is $50k less competition for whatever else you might want to buy.
In this industry, a careful hard-working person can profit with $10 or lose with $100,000. It’s very unpredictable. And that’s true for wealthy investors also.
“The .XYZ registry has been paid for every registration”.
on what terms???)))
Hey Howe !!!
How is the water now? 🙂
Hey guys I have spent some money on new gTLD but I’m very far from being “all in”.
It costs our company more $600K to renew the domains we have the vast majority of which are .com domains, before we even get to new gTLD’s.
So $50K (which I’m not yet at ) would be a less than 10% increase certainly far from “all in”
Actually if the ICA (YUP the ICA again) didn’t get the Verisign rate increase knocked out of the current contract my annual fees on .com renewals would have rose 7% a year which is more than its costing me to play in the new gTLD game.
So I’m actually in the new gTLD for free on Verisign lost money
))::
I still try to get 10-20 .com’s on the drop everyday so I’m still acquiring more .com’s a month than new gTLD’s
Let me say this again for those that didn’t hear me the 1st 100 times.
I do not recommend anyone go all in on new gTLD.
Not from the registry side, the registrar side and certainly not from the registrant side.
I wouldn’t advise you and go all in on .com domains or go all in on the housing market or go all in on gold or ion shares of Apple.
One more thing on this statement:
“” 99% of domainers can’t afford to play in the arena you live in. i bought 5… i can’t risk tens of thousands on something that may or may not pan out”
Well of course 99% of domainer can’t afford to play like I do
I understand that and appreciate that.
Really I do.
I assume you come here because you think I’m some what intelligent, so of course I understand.
And like you can’t play in my “arena” well I can’t afford to play in Schillings Arena or Donuts or most applicants “Arena”
So?
Every year thousands and thousands of people travel to hear Warren Buffet speak at the annual meeting of Berkshire.
99.999999& of those people can’t afford to play in Warren’s “Arena”
They can’t afford to buy 100 much less 1,000 shares of stock and probably not even 1 share of every company he invests in, but they still come to hear Warren, learn from the guy and hopefully improve their financial situation, although Warren like every other human being on the planet doesn’t always invest in a winner.
Quite honestly, a little bit of jealousy of how well you’ve done for yourself mixed with resentment for the new gtlds. I am just a nothing but i’ve poured everything i got into domains (and some i don’t) trying to make a living at it the past 5 years or so. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but i manage to get by but now these new gtlds come around and could have potential to make everything i’ve worked for, for nothing. as someone with so many .com’s im sure you can relate to some degree. of course all industries change, evolve and some people get knocked out and some people win but i only wish i did well enough to be able to hedge my bets like you are. i suppose if someone were to get a few of each release, they might do ok if they do take off but between renewals, new .com’s and just living, something has to give and all i can really do is really hope they don’t pan out as if they do i’ll of missed out. life would be much easier if new gtlds just didn’t exist for all domainers i think. the fear about impacting .com values aside i really dislike the premium pricing and holding back and whatever other shady things registries are pulling.
Resist that temptation to “hedge your bets” with the new glut of TLD nonsense and stay with what the world has come to trust and rely on. I’ve played in this arena for 15 years and with mixed results just like yourself. Investing in these new faux names is like tossing cash into the wind.
Just my guess. Chinese buyers may be involved. IMO.
Understood
I don’t like the premium pricing either.
I’m also worried about the effect the new gTLD’s will have on valuation of existing domains, have been for years and writing about it so you knew it was coming.
On the jealous issue its also human nature, as an older guy I can tell you no good comes from it.
No matter who you are there are always a lot of people much better off than you and a lot of people worse off than you.
Same for me
Same for almost everyone on earth, unless your stuck in Haiti, or many parts of Africa in which case that is pretty much worse.
I wish I could have afforded to apply for 50 new gTLD strings like Frank did to hedge my portfolio too, I also wish I was 27 years younger than Daniel so I would have the energy to start up a huge operation, I wish I looked like Merlin
I wish
Skee Lo
Go get it from iTunes
Thanks for calling the shots as they are, Michael. And thanks for noting ICA’s role in freezing .com pricing through 2018.
I’m reserving judgment until the facts are in. But IMHO involuntary opt out registrations would not indicate true market demand.
Mike, I appreciate the stand up posts and the words of wisdom. By the way, did the .xyz guys make it to 31k or 18k regs on day 1?
@cmac, I get it, but you are here, so you must have something going for you. There are lots of people that probably wish they were where you were in their domain portfolio. Like Mike said there are people better off and worse off than you. As far as the new G’s; just let them take their course. I see them as a big DISTRACTION and it’s providing a window of opportunity to pick up some good dot com’s! I just think people are missing out, in general, on opportunities to create new businesses as a result of the new tech booms emerging now..
“At the time we did point out that over 50% of all registrations were made at NetworkSolutions.com which was quite unusual,”
If 50% is quite unusual, what’s 72%? ntldstats just updated, with over 38,000 regs, with 72%+ at Network Solutions.
http://ntldstats.com/tld/xyz
Did someone pass out the stupid pills today?
Every new gTLD registration requires a record of affirmative contact validation, acknowledgment of any TMCH notice, and an auditable record of the registrant’s affirmative consent.
1. A registrar cannot just give you a new gTLD name. Not without being massively non-compliant. (and things are different from the “free .info” days)
2. Has anyone checked the registrar distribution among the .xyz-registered names? Are they all from one registrar, or does the distribution look like other new gTLDs?
3. You guys with a zillion domain names – did any of you get this supposed “opt-out” email? No. Just the one anonymous commenter on another blog.
This is not rocket science to prove or disprove. But color me skeptical in the extreme, given the consequences of a registrar not having auditably satisfied the several 2013 RAA compliance requirements to register a new gTLD name. Right…. somebody said, “Hey, let’s register a couple thousand names for which we have no record of consent to the terms, and see how our next ICANN audit goes!”
Hello John,
Namesol did in fact give free domains away.
See even email proof:
http://www.thedomains.com/wp-content/NS_Loyal_Customer_Email_24th_May.png
So whether or not what they did is legit, they sure did it.
“So whether or not what they did is legit…”
I’d love to hear how they think it is.
I think the premium pricing is great, in one respect. With it, I believe ICANN has, for the first time, approved the selling of domain names for huge amounts of money over and above the actual cost of issuing them. In trying to take a cut out of the secondary marketplace pie, they have legitimized the entire domain investor business model which many people (including UDRP panelists) have, up until now, simply viewed as cybersquatting.
The latest Zone file has XYZ at 36,335, for day 2. An increase of 21,000 from yesterday.
jay@ i get it now!
So they sold more domains in the second day then in the first day…make sense if you think about it.
The extension got to be known for their fast grown popularity.
Wow…this is to funny.
Desperate move out of the gate…
Not surprising at all.
Only a weak minded person will believe this XYZ BS marketing ploy….
The writing is in the wall…
Just as the “dot link” linkgate registry calling “domainers lack of interest” as the reason to hoard tens of thousands this just 24 hours after launched ….
The Big Disconnect:
The New gTLD aftermarket is nowhere to be Found
Premium Registrations and Auctioned results called “Sales” …
Mike from your other comment “ub way off”
they will need to average around 250 domain registrations every day for the rest of the 364 days to hit the 1 Million mark.
OFF TOP OF MY HEAD 250 X 364 ? DOES NOT HIT A MILLION TRY 91,000
I HAVE HAD MANY YEARS MAKING over 250 A DAY BUT NEVER HIT A MILLION IN A YEAR
OTHER THAN INC REAL ESTATE DEALS
2500 A DAY = 910,000 10X MORE STILL NO MILLION BUCKS
2,690 a day is the right number based on the 18K first day, its 1,000,000 domains not 1,000,000 dollars of course they are over 37K domains now so the number is under 2,500 now however its much easier to hit 1M registrations if 72% of them are given away for free
and what is the significance of these metrics ?
yesterday 5,402 dot info were registered….
Today there is 5,755,668 Dot Info domains registered.
I remember when they gave away as many Dot Info’s as you wanted…
yes FREE…
10 per account
While that helped the registry… End User acceptance is Non-Exsistent and the secondary market is terrible..
And “The Big Disconnect” continues…
Your wish is my command: http://bit.ly/berkens_xyz
Scott
))::
Wrong Merlin
Obviously, Michael … which revives the old maxim, “Be careful what you wish for.” 😉
This probably doesn’t matter anymore. But I’ll state it for the record, in case it saves anybody else an hour of redundant work:
Pretty much as soon as this article was posted a few days ago, I did comparison Whois lookups for all of those suspicious 157 .XYZ domains above as well as the corresponding .COM domains (or, in a few cases where the .COM and .NET weren’t registered, a matching .ORG).
I was looking for some evidence of … whatever. At the time, some people were insinuating that the reader’s story of a Network Solutions email giving away free .XYZ domains was just a lie. (Didn’t I see someone say derisively, “There is no email”?) So I wanted to see (1) if the registrants matched or (2) if the registrants were fictitious or random individuals cobbled together by scraping the web.
As you’d expect in light of the Network Solutions giveaway, the Whois records between .COM and .XYZ shared the same registrant.
Once the .XYZ email turned up and was published, all those Whois checks of mine were less relevant. But just in case somebody else is looking for that information, don’t bother. I’ve already got it.
A few spot checks did turn up some interesting things, though:
(1) A guy who “registered” a .XYZ domain for a company he’d left in 2011.
(2) A notorious hedge fund manager, Scott Skagg, who (after a host of legal troubles, if not actual prison time) ended up with 3vcm.xyz:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2012/01/13/manager-of-formerly-550-million-hedge-fund-firm-threatened-with-jail-after-being-held-in-contempt/
(3) Lots of ugly orphan .COMs without a website but with an .XYZ.
In retrospect, what you’d expect.
Yuppers! I noticed that I now have an xyz domain name that I did not register myself. And it’s a private registration too. By giving away a year for free, I guess they figure that I will go ahead and renew it next year…. Now if they were to give me xyz.xyz for free, that would be cool.
xyz4me
Can you do me a favor and go into your Netsol account and confirm that the .xyz domain is NOT set to auto renew?
Yes, lot of junk you can also found in Google search using “site:*.xyz” (remove “)
So now, a year later, having never registered for a .XYZ domain (or paid for one), I am receiving emails from Network Solutions that mydomin.xyz will expire on Aug 01 2015 and don’t I want to renew?
Clever/deceptive marketing?
I have been getting e-mails from Network Solutions – alarmist e-mails along the lines Motley Fool sends – telling me that my XYZ domain name (that I never registered for) is going to expire. This has been going on for a year now, and until I read your posting, I could not figure out why.
I guess they automatically signed everyone up for a “free” year of XYZ domain name. Why anyone would want this, is beyond me. Web traffic is something I want to avoid – it just brings clients, and then I have to work.
Anyway, the e-mails are confusing (by design?) and I think a lot of people think “XYZ” is just a fill-in for any domain extension, and then, not knowing, they renew this unnecessary registration and Network Solutions makes more money.
In a way it is sort of like invoicing fraud. I have clients who get vaguely threatening letters that their “trademark protection” will expire unless they pay a fee to some company in Hong Kong or Estonia. If you read the fine print and decipher the intentionally vague wording, you realize that the people sending these letters are not affiliated with any government agency, and are just offering to “publish” your trademark *on their website* for the low low fee of $5000.
Network Solutions isn’t that ballsy, but they way they run their business is getting to be more and more like a carnival barker.
When my domain name expires, I will be retired. I will not renew it.
Thanks for the posting explaining what is going on. Below is (hopefully) the last e-mail from Network Solutions on the XYZ thing:
Service Expiration – Renew Now
Dear Robert Platt Bell,
In an effort to serve you better, we wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that the registration period for the service(s) listed below has expired:
Order Information
Order Number: *******
Ordered By:
User ID: ROBERTPLATTBELL
User Name: Robert platt Bell
Account Number: xxxxxxxx
Account Holder: Robert Platt Bell
Primary Contact: Robert Platt Bell (ROBERTPLATTBELL)
Order Summary
Service Description Qty
domain .XYZ
ROBERTPLATTBELL.XYZ 1
To help you avoid losing the service(s) listed above, they will continue to be registered to you for a limited time, but have been disabled.
Please Note: For nsWebAddress™ names only, unless you renew immediately upon receipt of this notification, the nsWebAddress™ name(s) listed above will be deleted from your account and we may, in accordance with our service agreement, attempt to renew and transfer the domain name(s) listed above to a third party on your behalf.
This notice has been sent to both the Primary Contact and Billing Contact assigned for these services. To re-instate your services, please go to http://networksolutionsreinstate.com, login to your account, and confirm that your service(s) has not already been renewed. If your service(s) has not been renewed, please make your payment immediately.
Some of the services you have with us may have other products/services, like emailboxes or other Website services, associated to them. If you do not renew these services immediately, all of those associated products/services will also be deleted.
If you forgot your password, go to: https://www.networksolutions.com/manage-it/forget-login.jsp. If you believe this message has been sent in error, please visit the Customer Service Center at http://www.networksolutions.com/help/index.jsp
Please disregard this notice if you have already made payment and accept our apologies for any inconvenience.
Network Solutions is committed to providing you with the solutions, services, and support to help you succeed online. We hope to continue serving you in the future.
Sincerely,
Network Solutions® Customer Support
http://www.networksolutions.com/help/index.jsp
By the way, garbage like this is why I did NOT set my domain names to auto-renew, and why I never set ANYTHING to “negative option” or auto-renew.
Shame on Network Solutions. I suspect a lot of useless XYZ domains are auto-renewing and people are getting dinged on their credit cards.