Sedo.com just released a list of what it considers to be the top 10 new gTLD strings.
According to a statistical analysis by Sedo, the top 10 most valuable domains being sought are:
| 1 | SHOP | ||||
| 2 | WEB | ||||
| 3 | SITE | ||||
| 4 | MUSIC | ||||
| 5 | HOTEL | ||||
| 6 | ONE | ||||
| 7 | BLOG | ||||
| 8 | ECO | ||||
| 9 | SPORT | ||||
| 10 | LOVE |
“The analysis was calculated by economist, researcher and domain pricing expert, Thies Lindenthal. the creator of IDNX, the first scientific-grade domain price index.”
“Many factors make domains unique and difficult to compare side by side, but analyzing hundreds of thousands of domain transactions on Sedo’s marketplace – and applying real estate pricing methodologies – has provided significant insight into the factors that determine domain value,” said Lindenthal. “New gTLDs are actually not that new, they’re really just traditional domain names on steroids. We should evaluate their fundamental strengths in a similar way to how we traditionally price domain names.”
Cost Versus Value
“Considering the substantial cost associated with applying for and managing a new TLD, this research can help companies justify their potential investment by identifying extensions with the best chance of success. T”
“The cost involved in the new TLD process includes an $185,000 application fee, on top of a $25,000 annual fee and any operational costs that will be assumed by whoever is awarded the registry. In addition, gTLDs that have multiple organizations applying for them could go to auction, driving the cost up even more.”
“In addition to providing insight for companies competing to manage new TLDs, this ranking also gives end users a better idea of the domains in which they should invest their time and marketing budgets once the new extensions are launched.”
Research Methodology
“The ranking to predict new gTLD effectiveness is derived from a formula of five criteria that typically affect a domain’s value. Those criteria are:
- Number of applicants for the new gTLD
- Number of Google searches for keywords or terms within the new gTLD
- Expected Cost-per-Click of online advertisements that include the gTLD as a keyword
- Number of registered .COM domains that include the gTLD at the end of the keyword (e.g. MyShop.com as compared with My.Shop)
- Number of preregistrations according to UnitedDomains.com
“The first indication of which factor matters the most comes simply from counting the number of applications for each gTLD.”
“If there are a lot of investors trying to secure a particular keyword, it’s a strong indication that the word will be a valuable top level domain.”
“For example, thirteen applicants paid at least $185,000 trying to win .APP, indicating a high valuation.”
“For others extensions, competition is not as strong.”
“Only Google and Microsoft stepped into the ring to acquire .DOCS, for example. ”
“The fact that most companies expected these heavyweights to vie for this TLD will have deterred their own application, suggesting that an exclusive look at total applications will be a misleading factor. However, statistical analysis overcomes this difficulty.”
“Exploratory research helped derive weights for each of the five factors by means of a regression analysis. ”
“Technically, the number of applicants per domain is explained by the TLDs’ scores along the other four dimensions.”
“Using these weights, each new gTLD was ranked according to its fundamental strength. Using these estimates and the data collected in each category, a ranking of the intrinsic quality of each new extension is created.”
For more details on this study please click here
As for some notes its interesting to see the .APP is not on the list even through it had the most applications and the author of the study says the number of applications is the number one factor.
Also interesting to see .Eco make the list and .green did not.
3 of the 10 are very general TLD, .site, .web and .one while the other 7 are more of a vertical or concentrated on a topic.
Web, Site, One, & Eco are next to worthless. Music, Travel, Hotel, Vacation, and Geo’s will get alot of reg’s.
Did their janitor put this list together?
.APP with maximum (13) applications is not even in the list…
And the number of applications is the number 1 factor according to the study
.Hotel’s ranking of #5 given how .travel has flopped pretty much says it all about this list. Kudos to Thies for trying but I don’t agree with this list at all and I doubt many others would.
He fell into the trap of thinking numbers tell the whole story. As we all know from how inaccurate automated appraisals are, there’s no formula for evaluation of domains – or TLDs.
“.APP with maximum (13) applications is not even in the list…”
====
.APP is in another category and is being handled by experts, just like .BOX
With FREE** registrations, some might claim .APP and .BOX have no “value”, like .TK
** FREE may still require .APP Currency but that is “FREE” for those in the know
When technology focuses on the past and ‘builds what we expect’ we don’t innovate. Transistors, which are in almost every single thing we use, began their path, just about everyone in the business & engineering space thought the only purpose for transistors was to be in transportation. It takes innovative forward thinking people to change the creative trajectory and understand what could be.
The best two extensions (if you can say any of them are good ideas in the way they are being handled/doled out) are not listed here. That’s because SEDO doesn’t think. It is using data that is barely helpful in discerning what a good TLD might be and why. It’s the business behind the idea and in the case of TLDs, the access to the idea, that would make a winner or not.
Most of the TLDs (including the best two which aren’t listed by the SEDO “analysis”) will be used in a proprietary innovative-squashing manner and hence do nothing to further the domain space. The fact is dotcoms are available in masses – both in the aftermarket and never purchased before. Language is a fascinating space and most people don’t have a grasp on it near well enough to calculate the possibilities. But we do know dotcoms is what everyone thinks about whether they are conscious of it or not.
And by the way, I know you know this MHB (thanks for keeping the interesting articles coming) novel search terms crop up to the tune of 16% per day. That’s because language and ideas evolve at break-neck speed and things around the corner are not hatched yet – including never before registered (or great aftermarket) dotcoms, the undisputed king of the Internet.
I’ve never commented on your blog before but all this TLD talk made me break the pattern. What gets passed off as “analysis” by SEDO and others in this space is quite interesting.
Best of luck to you and thank you.
BTW…the BIG 4 are:
.INC .WEB .ONLINE .NET
That ranking is based on demand. The 12-12-12 Flag.Day will be important for .NET “owners”. The other 3 are expected to ride that .WAVE.
.loan
.credit
.mortgage
.insurance
Follow the money
and .blog will be the most registered
The 12-12-12 Flag.Day will be important for .NET “owners”.
Translation: The plan is to pull the old .NET out and replace it with Peer-2-Peer before the same thing is done to .COM
.INC .WEB and .ONLINE might as well come along for the .RIDE 🙂
“.blog will be the most registered”
NB: .BLOG currently has big problems looming with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The mainstream press lobby wants .BLOG to be heavily regulated. The FTC has been constructing all sorts of rules about compensation
for posting to a .BLOG.
No promotional fee was paid for the above comments.
Nice list, will rank in order of potential. Long on top ones, short on bottom ones:
WEB
SHOP
BLOG
LOVE
MUSIC
SITE
HOTEL
ONE
ECO
SPORT
Here are the rest of my thoughts on this subject: http://domainnamewire.com/2012/06/11/heres-what-mike-mann-thinks-about-new-tlds/
Can anyone explain to me the domainer infatuation with .web?
Yes, I realize Schwarzenegger said it in a movie before the internet existed and Frank Schilling gave it his blessing but aside from just mindlessly following that, I’m just totally not seeing it- at least not anything that sets it apart from the stampede that’s presently rumbling over the horizon.
Anon
So .com is short for commerce which a lot of .com don’t engage in.
.Web the thought is, is more meaningful in the current state of the online world and has the best chance of actually competing with .com
I’m not saying I’m agreeing just relating the argument for it
Out of all them above I like .Hotel the best, how many has applied for .Hotels?
All these people wanting to pay well over $185,000 + $25,000 per year reg fee per year for .eco when eco.com is sitting there not in use.
Anyone want EcoReport.com for six figures then a mere $10 per year? 😉
.ketchup is going to be the absolute hands-down TLD of the future.
In the very early days of computing it was envisioned that engineering would someday advance to the achievement of (a) artificial intelligence, and (b) a secure hierarchical trusted namespace to access information about HJ Heinz ketchup worldwide.
Imagine… Someday you may be stranded in the deepest wilderness and taken captive by an uncontacted, primitive and hostile tribe. As they prepare to sacrifice you to their gods, you pull out your satellite connected smartphone and show them the power you have to summon .ketchup on the screen. Awestruck by this event, they will surrender all their lands to you for cattle farming, so that their grandchildren may someday partake of this fabulous and powerful condiment.
I don’t see the attraction with .web either (Puzzled head here)
ughhh. When are people going to realize that .COM’s value is in the fact that even though it means commercial technically, no one actually thinks of that. When the average person hears dot com, NOTHING pops into your head. No secondary meaning. That is its value and universal appeal. .WEB already has meaning. The internet, technologies, online, etc. Web technologies. Plus “internet” and “online” is used just as often. That is NO GOOD for universal appeal.
The only gTLD that will every come close to .COM is the one that tries to REPLICATE it for this exact reason- via a word or letters that have no meaning. I really think everyone is missing the obvious here.
And I have yet to hear of any .gTLD that plans to do this.
/my 2 cents
“The only gTLD that will every come close to .COM is the one that tries to REPLICATE it for this exact reason”
——————————-
YEP, and the plan will be to REPLICATE most of the .COM name-space that wants to move to Peer-2-Peer.
ICANN has decided to REPLICATE a tiny subset of .COM for $25,000 per year
.SUN .ORACLE .POLO etc took that deal – good luck getting those resolved for free.
Obviously, people with 100,000 .COM domains do not want to pay $25,000 per name per year, or even $100 per domain.
The Internet is currently like the land called .JAPAN, everything is shifting and floating and people seem to ignore the reality.
I see the first three in order being .web, .blog, and .shop, though of those three the .shop has the most limitations for subject matter.
The rest on the list will have marginal appeal at best, and having to type in a four or five letter extension is a drag.
.sport will get typo’d as .sports , and the same with .hotel(s)
All this discussion after the gtld applications were released just shows how much confusion there will be when they are released for the public, the majority of who aren’t even aware this is happening yet.
“just shows how much confusion there will be…”
If you want to see “confusion” check out the ISOC announcements and movements to IPv6 a few weeks ago. That was timed along with the Big.Reveal.
People now “think” IPv6 is new with new gTLDs – and ISOC IETF said IPv6 is available .NOW – People want to see the gTLDs now, not in 2 years.
Sell to the market – ICANN and ISOC/IETF has no plan to deliver anything soon
.Web the thought is, is more meaningful in the current state of the online world and has the best chance of actually competing with .com
—–
Interesting argument.
I don’t think it holds up, but interesting to see if it goes or not.
I think it’s a huge mistake to make the academic argument for these extensions. The only thing that matters is whats practical, since practicality is what’s going to generate the revenue, not theories. Peple disregarding practical reality in favor of academia and theorizing is what brought us .mobi and .tel.
Practically speaking, we already have .info and .net to satiate the “not .com” need. Perhaps the .web registry is beautifully profitable (from a registry standpoint), but outside that golden 200 or so keywords, I don’t see how it will be relevant to domain speculating.
Who knows, though. I won’t be involving myself with any of it, but will be very interesting to see how it plays out over the next 2, 5, 10, 20 years.
This reminds me of the recent LDS research findings on prefixes and suffixes:
http://links2.me/~IHS2$bh
.COM That’s it
.STROKE
.STROKE
.STROKE
.RINSE
.REPEAT
Sedo has become a dinosaur in this industry, outdated, and extinct, once useful, now they can’t seem to get anything right, sorry, had to be said.
I still don’t get .web. Why not .domain then?
And .site seems limiting. There is more to the web than sites.
I’d rather have .com than .web
SurfaceTablet.shop will be better than the .com
Many .coms will be too vague, as the new GTLDs will isolate a particular genre.
This is the new school of domains, but I only believe a few of the new gTLDS will be worth speculating.
As a speculator and not accepting this is not evolving to the change.
Furthermore, speculator’s with 1000’s of .coms for sale may well feel threatened by this change.
.web, .one, .site and .blog have some chance but nothing for .shop, .music and others in top 10. if i am musician why i will register myname.music when i can get myname.com or myname.net or myname.lol or myname.site