Over 120,000 domain names ending in the domain extension .Pro got deleted yesterday according to RegistrarStats.com
.Pro which opened itself up in November 2015, lifting the previous restrictions which were in place since it’s inception, saw some nice organic growth up to 175,000 domain names, until February of 2016 when the main domain registrar for .pro domain name Encirca.com, started running a $3 promotion on new registrations.
Now a year many of these domains which were registered under the $3 promotional rate came up for renewal and the registrations numbers for .pro fell off the cliff (as you can see from the chart).
Encirca is charging $12 for a .pro registration at the moment.
According to RegistrarStats.com, .Pro never hit 150,000 registrations when it was restricted but before the promotion a year ago.Pro domain registration sat at around 175K domains.
Today .pro has 250,000 registrations, even after the 123,000 domain name loss yesterday, but there maybe more losses ahead as the domains registered under the promotion continue to come up for renewal.
The emperor is naked…
Without promotional rates there would be hardly 5 million domains across all new strings.
I can’t say that I’m surprised by the drop at all. I kind of expected it with some of the slightly older gTLD’s when the new wave of gTLD’s hit providing more options to businesses.
This will continue to happen, 99.9% of these names have no buyers outside speculative domainers who think they are going to strike it rich with some man made .crap.
Sorry for being blunt, but it’s the truth, you can make .abc set it for 1 cent, and will get many registrations, and then drops, it is just a endless cycle.
Chinese Bubble registrations dropping. There’s also a Chinese Bubble exposure in other legacy gTLDs and new gTLDs. Though some might think it was restricted to .COM and .NET, it also hit other legacy gTLDs and new gTLDs after the main Chinese registrations saturated .COM in 2015.
the exodus begins
and this is a legacy extension (right?) short amazingly intuitive…
Any clearer?
Hey Frank:
when are you going to correct this Bull Crap?
“Frank Schilling Live From London: “.Com Will Become Like AM Radio”
September 2013
soon March 2017
1/3 of the route in they are nothing but tumbleweed extensions by the hundreds soon over 1000′
Raymond: keep an eye on .xyz renewals (and other extensions) shenanigans might be going on or not inside the registry with slick willie in command…
Read: Guru George’s comments and prediction in dnjournal.com dead on
here comes the M& A, the Liquidations/Distressed sales
This is a preview of the future when it comes to .XYZ and other garbage extensions that have been offered for virtually free. That is unless they want to lose millions of dollars again to artificially inflate registrations for another year.
Brad
With enough of these promotions it will get to the point where the drop rate becomes so high that the initial cost will swamp any revenues from renewals, it is a business model that will eventually break as registrants tire of it.
I purchased a super premium .pro over 10 years ago. It’s the only .pro domain I own.
I’ve never received one offer.
The key word has sold for $millions in .com and very high prices in at least 12 extensions. & I when I acquired it, you had submit all kinds of documentation.
I believe this extension had potential, but never crossed the chasm to critical mass. The fact that it never gained much traction was one of the main reasons for my reluctance to invest in the GTLDS (I do have some, but very few)
By contrast, I receive offers every day for .com domains. At least 5 x per week for .ai domains. & a few times per week per .me domains.
C’mon Steve. We are domainers. We are not stupid. Please do not insult our intelligence by saying that your .ai cctlds get “at least 5 (offers) per week”. That sort of volume is reserved exclusively for .com’s. No way in heck that your statement can be even close to the truth. You come across as illegitimate as the gtld cheerleaders.
@Brad: Spot on. Lots of inflation taking place.
@Domo: I agree with you completely. The new G’s are .crapolla. As Richard said, the Emporer is naked. I give them maybe 6 more months.
Take a look at .REN as well. Big drops coming there, and in most of the top ten, where Chinese money laundered into promotional deals won’t survive the renewal anniversary.
The exodus is already happening.
We’ve had 3 years of PUMP, PUMP, PUMP. 2017 will be remembered as the year of DUMP, DUMP, DUMP.
Millions of domain names were given away for FREE or for a penny creating the false illusion of success suckering in more gullibles in this tulipmania frenzy.
The reality is that a domain name given away for free or for a penny isn’t valued, yet people still registered them in vast numbers. Why wouldn’t they, they were free or just a penny. In a fool’s paradise world, many did so in the belief that they could sell them for huge profits. It didn’t happen. The Chinese in particular, newbies to all this, filled their boots. Many are now faced with real renewal costs that aren’t free or a penny. They should have heeded Rick Schwartz’s predictions in his blog.
In 2014.berlin gave away FREE domain names.
http://domainnamewire.com/2014/06/16/free-dot-berlin-domain-names/
From a peak of 160K registrations in October 2014, one year later almost 80k were dumped. Again because registering a free domain name requires no financial commitment and many are dumped at the first sign of having to pay an actual renewal fee.
The Results of My Dot Berlin Case Study http://domainingtips.com/the-results-of-my-dot-berlin-case-study.html
More than 3 million .XYZ domains were registered in June, 2016, when an ongoing “penny” promotion allowed anyone to register .XYZ domains for $0.01. http://domaingang.com/domain-news/xyz-june-2016-growth-the-result-of-penny-promo-at-a-7-figure-loss/
The whole industry is waiting for June 2017 the anniversary of the .xyz penny promotion to see how many or rather how few renew.
Initial signs aren’t looking so good.
Ali Zandi drops 1500 domain names – guess the TLD! http://domaingang.com/domain-news/ali-zandi-drops-1500-domain-names-guess-the-tld/
As with all bubbles deluded hopefuls invariably use the phrase “It’ll be different this time”. It so often isn’t. There is now a rush for the exit.
@withheld
I have not sold one .ai domain.
However, I receive at least 5 offers per week. End-users —
You obviously are NOT following the AI explosion. Check the whois of the current .AI domains. The combined net-worth and market cap of these owners is in the $Trillions – Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, Baidu, etc.
I’ve received offers from NASA, Alibaba, etc
There is even a company in Silicon Valley that acquired a portfolio of .AI domains that to sell to startups in the AI arena, and/or companies that are now .AI-centric companies
I’m the CTO of a well-funded AI company — I can assure you AI core competencies (especially high level from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Montreal, Toronto, Cal-Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge) will get funding with any IP (patents, proprietary platforms)
So @withheld, withhold your assumptions and conclusions until you have the data to verify it.
.ai:
bull crap
these bursts are short-lived
Today’s flavor
the is the next big thing
Even the allegedly already successful (right) new/other gtlds are for the most part one hit wonders…
eg: .club
(exception; .io and .co I believe they do good with startups but for the most part are vanity hand regs)
Premiums in the hands of domainers are the kiss of death for any new extension… no intention of development just hoarding
Also variable pricing affected extensions doing it, it’s is a failed pricing model (no lesson learned from the .tv’s) Schilling went against his word on this…
Posters who make outlandish claims about high volumes of offers are usually lying. I strongly and emphatically believe that you are doing so and I am hereby calling you out on it asking you to please support your bold statement by providing us with the names of the .ai domains that generate 5 offers a week. Non response or any backpeddling on this will be interpreted as an admission of lying.
BTW —
as a follow-up, I own 45 .AI domains.
the whois provides an email address of the admin associated with registry.
However, my name and company are listed, as well as my address in California. Organizations have gone to some lengths to locate my email address, or as many cases, I receive offers via SMS.
In the last hour, I’ve received a low 5 figure offer for a very good premium word, but not amazing, from a party in Hong Kong.
I have zero interest in selling it, unless the offer is too high to refuse — I most likely won’t even counter offer
@withheld, if you think the people who are registering or buying .AI domains are from Anguilla, check again — in fact, I do not think anyone or any company from Anguilla owns a n.AI domain. Most are companies from Silicon Valley, Boston, NYC, Asia, the UK, Canada, Russia
I did see one prominent VC (with a net worth of over $1 Billion) who owns some super .AI domains (at least 20). I made an offer of 6 figures for one, but he informed me he has no intention of selling any — all are reserved for company names or products of companies within his firm’s portfolio.
So-called CHIPs were dropped… and mainly by Chinese registrar West.
EnCirca more than year already is out of the game completely, you may forget about it. A very small percentage of .PRO is under their management.
Regarding incoming .PRO offers from potential endusers…
I receive a few monthly…
p.s.
.PRO was launched in June’2004 only for a few countries and professions…
Relaunched in Sep’2008 for all self-certified pros in all countries (absolutely formal restrictions in a few clicks)…
In Jan’2012 was purchased by Afilias…
And all these formal restrictions were finally deprecated in Nov’2015.