On Thursday Frank Schilling North Sound Names started to delete the registrations for the approximately 230,000 domain names it registered in Uniregistry new gTLD extensions.
Yesterday over 100,000 domain names owned by North Sound Names in Uniregistry strings were deleted.
About a month ago Uniregistry announced it would be releasing over 1,000,000 domain names it had reserved and registered through North Sound Names to made available in the registrar channel.
Starting on Thursday and continuing yesterday over 100,000 previously registered domain names under North Sound Names were deleted.
We confirmed with Frank Schilling that these deletions are the result of domain name being dropped by North Sound Names in preparation to hit the registrar channel.
Domains registered by North Sound Names were held to be sold for a one time premium price similar to .com domains on the aftermarket.
Uniregisty becomes the second registry to start deleting domain registrations to sell through the registrar market.
Earlier this week Minds + Machines started deleting some of the 17,000 domain names owned by Emerald Names which is owned by Minds + Machines.
Unlike Uniregistry, Minds + Machines did not give advance notice that they would be deleting domain registrations.
In any event with Rightside’s (NAME) release of 25,000 two charter domain names that is a lot of inventory hitting the market.
I think the massive release of new inventory has already effected the aftermarket for new gTLD’s.
The branded .club domain auction on Sedo produced less than $75,000 in sales for a bunch of very good two letter domains, including arguably best single letter domain, i.club.
Yesterday alone over 100,000 domain names owned by North Sound Names of Uniregistry strings were deleted.
Here are yesterday’s numbers of deletions:
.Property 26,440
.Flowers 14,672
.Audio 13,770
.Diet 12,978
.Link 12,261
.Help 10,900
.Christmas 10,576
.Hosting 9,163
.Blackfriday 7,020
.Hiphop 3,583
Frank throwing in the towel. 1200 new strings and counting, few demand at retail level, zero demand at premium priced level. That’s it for the nTLD program. Icann made a killing, everyone else didn’t. Go figure.
They tried to sell these premiums to greater fools and failed.
Now they discovered their feelings for the “domain investor community.”
A million names already expired or up for deletion plus the Emerald inventory and the .xyz renewal cycle hitting in the coming weeks and month. Grab your popcorn, this should be fun.
IMO, western domainers have no money enough to absorb an over-supply of new GTLDS. They are more interested in disposing of their head-aching inventories. Chinese domainers seem to have less enthusiam than before about domain investing. They are more interested in paintings nowadays.
When this happens on Wall St. the ‘pros’ do one of two things.
1. Buy on the way down.
2. get out of the way.
“Looking from the outside in”, over the past 15 yrs., Frank seems to do the best, most profitable action.
I wonder what the correct strategy would be here?
I think you’ve answered your own question. If his cost basis is zero, and he lets them go after holding them for a year or more, that should be plenty telling.
Is there a downloading list that can be searched offline?
I saw you dropping great domains like Fantasy.World, yet you keep registering more, do you think you have a problem, your in to deep to quit?
I asked yesterday
Did not get an answer yet
Let me guess…Frank is giving us an opportunity to register his dropped junk…no thanks!!!
We call this “pump and dump”.
Flowers.mobi $200K, then you bought at $10K, only to sell to the end user at $5K, I would say you are speaking from experience, this is what newbies don’t understand, most of these guys saying these things have been around the block, made money, lost money, but they live to speak about it
So the verdict is now in? new TLD’s are junk and unwanted? .com remains the king? The whole new TLD was a fiasco and now the consolidation of remnants begin?
Is that Frank Schilling or Frank SHILLing? Nice guy, yeah…
That’s rude. Providing DomainNameSales.com and now Uniregistry Market system for FREE to domain investors is AWESOME. The system is great and you don’t have to pay ANY commissions. What more would you like? Put down your crack pipe and back away from your computer.
UR is a good product but there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Of course they want you to buy and transfer your names to their system but yes you can use the system for no cost even if you don’t transfer your names over. You close your own sales and you pay no commissions. You are not forced to run ppc on your pages either, ad free landers are an option. Great free system that works. imo
The one thing I would like to see added to the “market” was the ability to customize the ad free lander. The current ppc free lander implies you will be getting a price quote from the domain owner. I never provide a price quote. If you want the name make an offer otherwise move along. Customizing the landers with some specific info about each name would be great as well.
Free, ha ha they have your data, they have access to follow up on your old Leeds, mandatory now, no opt out, they know your sales, and traffic data.
They can sell your old leads a name from their portfolio, or a gtld if your price is to high.
Plus if you forget to renew they will snap up your name in the expiry cycle if at uni.
Clear and simple they got the data, leads are not coming in, everyone is trying to sell before the shit hits the fan.
Taryn keeps bidding on namejet more than ever, and for guess what .com and .net
Rick was right, you been Dicked, and Schilled
Every parking company has your parking data and can use it how they like. All the big search engines do the same. If you are unable to close a sale then too bad. I don’t think they are actively reaching out to customers failed leads to sell them one of their own names. I am sure they are busy enough answering inbound inquiries for their own names.
As for new gtld’s, some will work and most won’t. Hard to break a 30 year .com habit as we are seeing with new gtld non-renewals.
As for shit hitting the fan, yes this fake global economy will implode at some point and the only thing worth owning will be bullets and chickens but that’s a whole other discussion.
Steve, people were selling out thousands of dollars for .ws domains. There was bloggers giving their thumbs up, and web space to try and influence such registries to get the word out that this was actually a good investment.
The Chinese ran the gambit, they had no clue what they were doing, the western investors had no idea what they were thinking, many smart guys took the chance to unload JQFZ kind of crap domains for $2-2.5K in late 2015. The guys who had owned those kind of domains, and new the lead history took the lottery ticket, and checked out sure enough that market has taken a 50% haircut straight off the top.
The issue with GTLD’s is there is no uniformity, there are 100 different companies, with 100 different sets of rule, all trying to get that same price of the pie.
With .com you have 1 real renewal price for the most part, $10 let’s say, and the market sets the price for the keywords around it.
Sex.com has the same renewal as rruhruirfhui30303.com one is worth tens of millions, one is worth nothing based on the marketplace.
Now if I want rruhruirfhui30303.auto it is $3,000 per year to renew, it has $0 market value, sex.auto is available for the same price also, both sit unregistered so it is safe to say the market feels their market value is both minimal. As hundreds of other EXTENSIONS make better sense.
This is the issue you will face, the investor will say why should i pay you $xxx-xxxx for a GTLD when I can just go register a similar .store .shop .market .whatever, if you want to hold all 4 and attempt to create a supply, and demand marketplace you will go broke quickly.
Agreed.
I just took offense to someone suggesting Frank was ripping people off. Of course some of his ventures may not be as successful as others but at least he tries and gives it a better effort than anyone I can see.
Of course he wants to make money but who doesn’t. From my view he has been one of the most honest players in the industry. Just my 2c.
Free price quote is a major headache, I had so many angry conversations when I did not reply with a price quote, they said we were promised a free price quote.
We have since moved on to Efty, and some other options, DNS/Uni just got to intertwined, which is fine, we know they want to make money, but trying to trick every lead to signup for a uniregistry account is leading to alot of bounced silent inquiries.
You have to manage how far you can push the potential consumer, dump to much on them, and they turn, and run.
Afternic has been a blessing, they are choosing this channel, rather than go thru with the DNS channel, and not just random end user, Mark Monitor prefers this method also.
no such thing as ‘free’ lunch….suggest you look at the economic model of google for gmail.and facebook..’free’ @cost of your privacy …divide number of us fb members by revenues, and you get at $ /user value to FB stockholders
com remains the king
If the right and left of the dot are complimentary then the new gTLD is worth acquiring. There is traffic to be had, don’t you know.
Majority of the gTLD Registries are going to be failed ventures.
Majority of the gTLD Domains you won’t be able to give away for free.
Majority of the domainers investing in gTLD’s have no idea what they’re doing.
A few select gTLD Registries are going to succeed.
A few gTLD extensions have the attributes needed to gain wide use and visibility traction and will turn into highly valued domains.
A handful of gTLD domain investors know what they’re doing and have the other business skillsets and resources necessary to make it happen and they’re going to make a fortune.
ICANN knew this could have been a failure, but they didn’t care as long as they made the money upfront. The registries probably went into it thinking they would make lots of money from the hype marketing. Way too much supply and very little demand. Hype can only carry you so far and then eventually simple economics kicks in.
I can only think of a handful of transactions where an end-user bought one of these new gtlds. Most of the buying was done by domain investors/resellers.
There’s no way that all the new gTLDs can survive in such a saturated market. It’s really no surprise to see domain dumps like this. Survival of the fittest, just like anything else in life. The weak extensions will get weeded out and the strong ones will continue on.
“The weak extensions will get weeded out and the strong ones will continue on.”
This process will be beneficial in the long run. The market was not ready for the plethora of new choices. Just too many. The picture is still not clear because some of the supposed “popular” tld’s don’t actually have a user base – their registration numbers artificially inflated. This effect will wear off, and after several years the better tld’s that offer a strong identity will become a permanenet fixture at the registrars and continue to grow. There is development happening in some of the descriptive, business oriented tld’s
How much did Frank actually lose from registering and dropping these 230,000 gtld domains? Just ICANN fees? It’s the left hand paying the right. It was worth the gamble for him. About equal to the average person throwing $20 at the lottery.
Spot on
Credibilty, these guys cried to ICANN that GTLDs were needed as .coms were to pricey for domainers, then they go and reserve all the names.
When they don’t sell they start dumping them, and pumping the dream.
Take a reality check, the suckers that keep paying up in EAP, and premium renewals, are gonna get foreclosed on
the problem with the new gtld’s is that with every new gtld there are a few really good extremely valuable highly sought after domain names but wether its actually worth spending the vast sums currently being spent to secure the right to own the complete new gtld? i’m not so sure
and some new gtld domain names are really good and worth quite a few $’s etc but nowhere near the prices currently being asked depending on the specific domain
plus the registrars have to factor in that that not all domain name investors are multimillionaires etc many are usually working full time and just curious about the domain name industry and may only have $20 a month they want to spend on trying to find a good quality .com etc
but there is another side to the coin that i found out the hard way recently
i like to buy legal domain names and although newish to domain names not at all new to database search engines and the mindset required to find words in a search engine etc
so i found what i knew was a really good legal domain name which was a new gtld and i paid approx $40 ish for this quality legal domain name {which to me is expensive lol} i prefer paying nearer $10 for a good quality .com {of which i have a few} but having bought this good quality new gtld legal domain name thought i could sell it quite quickly and thought i knew the perfect buyer etc etc but that was not the case
as it turned out i got the yearly renewal etc and thought i’ll renew it later etc but never got round to renewing it later and then the registrar extended it thus allowing me the option to renew it for up to two months after it had expired but at a much higher price {well much higher than the $10 i like to buy domains for} lol
so on the sunday of this particular week etc about a month or so ago finally found that the new gtld legal domain i had bought allowed to expire and did not want t pay extra for was finally available to buy at the original price i paid for it so i said great i’ll buy it that friday {i should be so lucky} lol
it was snapped up that tuesday by one of the 30 biggest legal firms in the world {FOR REG FEE}
not impressed lol
suffice to say that they only own it because i chose to delay renewing it
SOME new gtld’s are worth a fortune {but not all}
These firms were not willing to pay you, but they were willing to pay reg fee, which is what the new gtlds are all about.
It was proving afforadable registration solutions outside the .com, in 2016 we have not seen many affordable choices, as far as I am concerned, ICANN should have put clauses in to keep these guys from warehousing millions of names, for large premium profits.
Now they have figured out a way to cut ICANN out of it’s 25 cents charge, by assigning a huge premium renewal to the domain on the ask, they might start questioning things.
suggest watching the ‘who is’ reports from your registrar listing your domain names, like gd provides in domain manager
that way you may see any ‘uptick’ in whois lookups for any about to expire domains, from folks just waiting to snap it up for reg or registrar’s in-house auction fee
the extension .com is already a brand, company’s love having .com next to their name, is generic and easily to pronounce and remember in any language, most of gTLD’s are english word, some will survive but .com will be a unique neighborhood..
this proves again .com is the mother and father of all domains and will rise in value!
And how many new TLDs are pending?
I believe the folks who run .club have done a stellar job — marketing, promotions, and operations. I also like the .club string — fits a niche.
But when premium .club domains can’t even fetch decent prices, I’d be a bit worried.
i.club, 21.club, uk.club, la.club didn’t have decent sales via a recent Sedo auction.
ICANN made $millions. Some registries did well with the payoffs to bail out of auctions.
Will any GTLDs survive? I would think so.
.App – I believe this one will do well, after Google indexes most of the content on apps (but I believe .app is way way back on the Google burner — in fact, the Company may just keep it locked up in the basement)
.Web — looks like a winner,
.Club — I still like this one
.Shop & .Bank — they look like winners. Haven’t 60% of banks acquired .bank domain?
But I don’t know.
These are “Nice to Have” products — not “Must Have” .
I don’t even think these guys are covering their marketing budget, and overhead to date. They said they would be at 1 million reg’s very quickly, and 2-3 million thereafter.
The Chinese hype machine helped them, but they are going to lose some of those registrations, investors will start dropping after a few years of non activity, will not be like .com with follow thru drop catching. They will just go away, and lose that revenue.
I think the rumor number to acquire .club was $5M, but it could be higher, so they are in the red, and need to grow to make money, if not they are probably going to start losing registrations year after year, as many registries will be sub $1, as there is just to much supply out there in non mandatory extensions.
They will tell you otherwise, well because their livelyhood depends on it.
Upcoming Deletes: 839,474 (3.48%)
(pending status or redemption)
from ntldstats dot com
The Curve has recently inverted let’s see if it finds support…
and according to central nic the expected renewal on .xyz is 10% that implies
there out of 6.5 MM 90% will drop and that is over 5 Million (Conservatively).
( 34% market share as a backend provider or 8.2 m domains)
Now the e recent stock price drop makes more sense…
The Pink Kool Aid “the Londoner” is becoming vinegar.
“.Com will become like AM radio”
My Arse!
I believe many of the GTLDs string/extensions will crash — and fairly soon.
But I still believe these have legs, as they fit a niche with a big market share
1) .App
2) .Web
3) .Shop
4) .Club
5) .Blog
I like .bank & .insurance, but these extensions required criteria for registration
As far as .top, .vip, maybe they’ll achieve market share in China if sites are developed.
Let’s see how it all plays out.
1) .App – A pointless extension. Apps don’t need websites. The store is where they do their business.
2) .Web – What’s wrong with .Net? Same meaning, plenty of domains available, and the aftermarket is cheap, yet demand is very low.
3) .Shop – Because .Biz was so successful? This will be home of the phishers.
4) .Club – The market is small and underfunded. Might get a small amount of traction, but it won’t even dent the public’s consciousness.
5) .Blog – The home of teenage angst and never-finished projects. No money in it either.
Excellent assessment.
Agreed, all non commercial uses, plenty of options thru secondary sites online that provide many of such services for free in one single applications, who needs to manage a domain, and hosting, these are not end users. This is the 1 cent to $1 target market.
If Frank Schilling is disposing of his own premiums when his renewal costs are negligible, then the writing is on the wall. The new gTLDs are circling the u-bend, and there’s no point throwing good money after bad. Too much choice, nobody cares. The folks who peddling this junk should hang their heads in shame.
He might want you to think they are valuable he wants your $4 a year, he wants to sell
You the gtld dream.. Of private jets, and tropical islands… Guess what that’s for him, not you, but you can help pay for it
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – some extensions make good sense and can add significant value if they are impacting, right of the dot.
1200 (!) new strings and yet they have less registrations than the 2 most popular country codes .cn and .de combined.
I wish I would have lost one or two of the string auctions though. That was actually where money was made.
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” Babe Ruth.
I did think this was a strategy to overcome hoarding by domainers. Is the Registry prevented by ICANN to hold back large numbers and release them slowly over time? e.g. to replicate a slow uptake by real users.
New gTLDs are crap…
Beware of Pied Pipers…hocking their useless digital wares.
Beware of all generalisations – including this one.
In 2015 I bought a .com for $7k, Rightside is releasing the same keyword with the dot in the middle from their platinum registry, I asked, and they wanted $70k for the gtld
These guys are dillusional
If your .com is a two word domain and the new gTLD is the same but with only a dot in the middle (therefore no superfluous element) there is a good chance the new gTLD gets more traffic. For example, Healthy.Recipes will get more type-in traffic than HealthyRecipes.com from what I have seen – not saying it’s enough to warrant more money, just want to bring this factor to people’s attention.
There is no way Healthy.Recipes is getting more typin traffic that HealthyRecipes.com. Most people do not even know .recipes exists. No one will be typing that in except maybe the registry owners. Ay stats to confirm???
I agree Steve, because I tried this strategy with many other matching gtld’s I bought in 2014 that match my better .com’s. 2014 you could score some cheap keywords non premium, or low premium.
The traffic is just a few hits a month, which is usually bot traffic. There is no way the dot in the middle traffic is beating .com traffic. Doesn’t mean they won’t try to sell you on the DOT dream.
These guys are doing their job, they are salesman, everywhere you go in a retail setting someone is getting you to test drive a car, try their pretzel, use their hand lotion etc… GTLD’s are no different, if you have $1 in your pocket, there are 10 guys lined up to take it.
GTLD’s could work down the road, but from a DOMAIN INVESTOR prospective you can’t possibly make money buying in high EAP, or paying premium renewals, the business model will not allow for that with carrying costs against a strong diverse portfolio.
I understand the people who bought now feel the need to pump, and brainwash themselves into thinking otherwise, you can continue to do that, or you can take a reality check.
“but from a DOMAIN INVESTOR prospective you can’t possibly make money buying in high EAP, or paying premium renewals, ”
Exactly, when I saw the high “premiums” and outrageous renewals most new gtld’s appeared doomed from mass adoption. As someone mentioned previously one of the big “excuses” for new gtlds’ was lack of “affordable” .com’s. When the new pricing started rolling out everyone saw that excuse was a joke.
I assume no more GTLD strings will be released?
Who made money besides ICANN, attorneys, branding/marketing/domain consultants?
Who took a beating besides new domain investors? Which registries?
Definitely a cautionary tale for the Domain Industry.
There is a large demand for the next round, partly to do with the money made in losing auctions, which is where the real hidden profit center was.
Imagine losing a $25 million dollar auction bid, and getting to split the proceeds with the losers from a $185K application fee.
If a professional drops them, for an amateur to pick it up would be really stupid.
This post reminds me of a one-sided discussion between four gtld’ers
and Rick Schwartz, at a domain conference in south Florida, about three
years ago. They banged Rick left and right, and he stood his ground. One of
Rick’s main debaters said that the next generation would care less for dot com?
I thought at the time, why would an established extension with over 150,000,000
domains, fall to dot xyz, dot club, dot site? Rick sure didn’t think so! IMO, If more domain
investors would have believed in Rick Schwartz, they would be money ahead today!
Attention new-gtld proponents – time to pack up your bags and go home. Show is over. The fat lady just sang. The new G’s are now the dead G’s.
Harry
We are planning actually have a post written about that showdown on the 3rd anniversary
Good catch
Let’s remember who the real Domain King is, and always has been: Mr. Rick Schwartz
There will be lots of candidates for Emperor of Domains Without Clothes
1) One claimed .com would fade away, that it was for “old people”, that his string would be for the new generation
2) Another claimed his strings would be FM, while .com would be AM
3) Another claimed .com would be obsolete within 5-10 years
I should go to abc.xyz and abx.xyz it to find out. Whoops, I mean Google.com and Google it
Get the forks out for GTLDS — they about “done”
Will make great reading in a future Harvard Business School Case Study — No demand, No Business