After the developments this week we are ready to make an early prediction on which company is going to make the most off the new extensions.
By a mile its going to be Godaddy.
Godaddy announced this week that the have a market share of 50% of every new domain registration.
That’s huge.
Think about Google and search.
What is your perception?
Google owns the market, right?
Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com are just also ran’s.
What is Google’s actual market search share?
Around 67%.
Google has three main competitors.
How many domain registrars are there?
Hundreds.
Once you hit that 50% mark (and growing) in any space or industry you become to be the one company that no one can ignore.
Not only can’t you ignore a company with that type of dominant market share, you must do business with them.
At all costs.
Otherwise you give up 50% of the market right off the bat.
If your going to start a registry and go after one of these new gTLD’s, or even launch a new ccTLD (.co is next) one of your first concerns must be, how do we get Godaddy.com to accept our registry on their site.
Godaddy does not have to agree to sell every TLD or every ccTLD. Like any registrar they can choice which ones they sell and at what price.
If your a registry, your not only going to have to consider, how do we Godaddy to sell our extension, but how are we going to get a major presence on Godaddy.
How are we going to noticed on Godaddy when there are hundreds of new extension vying for the same space?
Checkout Godaddy.com “Start your domain search here” drop down box on their main page.
That is real estate.
Very, very valuable real estate if your a registry trying get people to register domains.
That’s Time Square. 5th avenue and Park Place all tied up into one.
The drop down extension box is defaulted to .com.
The next extensions listed are .info, .net, .org, .me, .mobi, .us, .biz, .mx, .ca, in that order.
The drop down box only contains 60 extensions in all including many varations of the same ccTLD (6 for .in variations alone).
With a 50% market share of all new registration, if you want to start a registry and sell a new extensions, you better get on Godaddy.com drop down menu and Godaddy knows it.
This put Godaddy in a unique position of demanding higher commission from registries for inclusion on their site and even higher commission or compensation for inclusion of their extension in the drop down box.
It only makes sense.
You want a higher placement in the drop down box, you will have to pay more.
Pay for inclusion, Pay for position, you can demand and get this when you own 50% of the market.
Remember the Business 2.0 story from a few years ago entitled:
“The man that owns the Internet”
Its not Kevin Ham.
Its Bob Parsons.
Can’t disagree with your logic, Mike.
“Its Bob Parsons.”
but only until the day when Google won’t decide to enter the domains’ market with its GooDaddy company… 🙁
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Outside of (mostly) the early few who mined most of the gold, the major profit takers – in most industries – are usually those that sell the tools & services for latecomers still chasing the remaining morsels of nuggets from the “gold rush”.
To whit: Godaddy, Sedo, Domainsponsor, Registries, Expired drop shops (Namejet, Snapnames)…
So that the registry pricing seem legitimate and legal, they offer advertising allowances or quantity rebates which is 100% structured for the top registrars.
(hypothetical) If the registrar generates 10K new registrations per month, they receive a $ 4. rebate per domain.
Or, if they agree to ACTIVELY promote the gtld and commit to sell ?? domains, they get a percentage quarterly rebate or a price per domain.
Why do you think Godaddy could offer .info domains for $ 0.99 and the other registrars were not?
I also heard that .mobi did that a couple years ago.
Small
I think registries can offer discounts and different deals to registrars and registrars are free to sell the products which they decide to sell
Mr.Bob Parson is the Marketing GURU!!!!!
We all owe it to him. He should be the CEO of ICCAn
Surprise: Advertising works. So does controversy. Combine the two as Bob did, and you hit it out of the park every time.
Ironic that on the boards we mocked Super Bowl commercials thinking that domains were smarter. Who’s outsmarting whom now? How to make money on domain investing without ever paying for a single domain, reg and renewal fees, flipper courses or auction fees.
“He should be the CEO of ICANN”
yes, but I hope he go there to CUT the number of TLDs and stop its multiplication
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That’s a great point. Actually several great points that I think many people seem to forget. Godaddy is definitely the gorilla of registrars. And Bob got them there. Its amazing wha tyou can do with hot chick selling your company!
Thanks Mike!
No way to argue with this analysis. And I love a good debate. 😉
Good analysis.
Bob gets my vote for marketing guru of the net. I met him in 2004 and could see a bundle of energy launching from inside his head. “Go Daddy” is a war cry to register a name and get going. Way to go Bob.
Being a former Marine, hopefully Parsons still remembers & honors the oath he took to defend the country, constitution, & bill of rights from all enemies both foreign and domestic.
If this were the case, domainers would have a registrar that would protect their rights and interests and become a default advocate for them.
However, if I remember correctly, I believe that GoDaddy was all too eager to comply with the state of Kentucky when they very 1st started messing with gambling domains.
I seriously believe that a Domain Name Owners Bill of Rights needs to be created for ANYONE that owns a domain name. When I buy a domain name I want to click the box that explicitly states what rights I have and cannot be infringed upon for any reason whatsoever.
What are some concrete inalienable rights that domain owners currently have? Right now I can only think of the right to renew the lease for another year or five or whatever is available.
Miss Spelling Line 4
“the” should be “they”
Anyway, personally I used to love using Godaddy and I thought they were the best and most reputable and all but there is one thing I despise a bit which is their control panel. Its so difficult to reach the end. I ended up using Name.com and Dynadot instead.
Yup, already pushing .CO in a big way: http://www.godaddy.com/tlds/co-domain.aspx
Bob Parsons is a genius 🙂
Deserves a lot more credit than he usually gets.
He was filthy rich even before GoDaddy became so popular in recent years… Before founding GoDaddy in 1999, he sold his previous start-up for a cool $60+ million in 1994.
His motivation has always been to continue to climb to the top. Great success story!! 😉
I think the most valuable real estate on GoDaddy are the extensions listed on the bulk registration page [ http://www.godaddy.com/domains/searchbulk.aspx ]
Those are the ones they actively promote to domain investors and these tell a tale in themselves.
These are the TLDs they list there:
.com* .info*
.net* .org*
.me .mobi*
.us .biz*
.mx .ca
.ws .com.co
.net.co .nom.co
.asia* .bz
.in .nl