Google Did .APP Differently; Gets just Over 500 Registration On Day 5 Of EAP: Here’s Our Take

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Google launched the new gTLD .App into the Early Access Program (EAP) this week and the results I believe are unlike any previous major new gTLD launch.

 .App went into day 1 of the Early Access Program (EAP) on Tuesday allowing early registration of domains for a one time extra fee.  Fees as always vary by registrar but day 1 pricing was around $12,000 for the EAP fee plus the cost of the domain.
On Day 1 of EAP  there were 92 registrations the EAP fee was around $12K retail

On Day 2 of EAP there were 266 registrations. The EAP fee was over $3,000 retail

On Day 3 of EAP Google got over 700 domain registrations where the EAP was around $1,100 retain.

On Day 4 of EAP there were over 1,300 domain registrations at around $650 retail

On Day 5 of EAP there were just over 500 domain registrations at around $150 retail.

In all cases for premium domains the registration fee was in addition to the EAP fee.

It’s highly unusual if not unprecedented for the number of domain registrations in EAP 5 to be less, well less than EAP and EAP 4

There were 2,000 registrations on day 3 and 4 of EAP and only 500 on day 5.

Like I said highly unusual if not unprecedented.

Google’s launch of .APP varied greatly from all previous new gTLD launches in my opinion in 2 ways:

1. Google reserved very few domains. Outside of domains Google wanted for its own brands and products almost every domain that was not taken in Sunrise  by Trademark holders were available in EAP.  All single letter/number domains;  double letter/number domains, all super premium domains like Travel.app; Weather.App, Music.App; were all available.

2. Premium pricing was not crazy. The registration/renewal prices for those single letter/number domains; those super premium domain were priced around $2K per year. Personally I didn’t see any domains priced over that amount. I Didn’t see 5 figure or 6 figure  registration and renewal fee domains.

Between the pricing of premium and super premium domains, and making almost all domains available, led a lot of people to step up early and pay the higher EAP fees in days 1-4.

General Availability where domain names can be registered on a 1st come 1st served basis begins on May 8th 2018.

 

 

 

 

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

    • Ben McIlwain says

      Most registrars aren’t using auctions at all; if you pay the EAP fee for the current tier that domain becomes yours immediately.

  2. Aaron Strong says

    Those of us that invested in .App will learn a lot about our investments when Google breaks it to the hundreds of thousands of techies this coming week….Its the “fastest week in .app”….Boom or bust? Next week is BIG.

    • Ryan says

      This is not an investment grade extension? Didn’t you learn your lesson on dot x whatever you registered back in the day

      • Aaron Strong says

        I have sold several new g’s. I have also dropped some. I have sold .com and also dropped some. I tend to hedge all my investments, in domaining and outside of…….Regarding .app, this one is different. It has technical advantages right out of the gate. It seems to be a good fit with the newest technologies in web development, hence my excitement….Time will tell, but I did not want to sit on the sidelines with this one. Best to you Ryan.

        • Snoopy says

          It is as exciting as .mobi was, with very similar sales pitches. It has no technical advantages and who wants to be pigeon hole as only an “app”. The market for [keyword]app.com is small and this is a small % of that. Defensive registrations will be the main market, just like .mobi.

          • Ryan says

            Ha ha .mobi when sedo great auction crashed mobi.music was going to put forth a lawsuit lol $500k was chump change in that auction! Fast forward 11 years later 99 percent price reduction

          • Aaron Strong says

            All websites will be “apps”. I believe that’s what most are not understanding.

            developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/

          • Snoopy says

            Aaron, even if you turn out to be right what does it matter, if all websites were “apps” why would people would people want a .app? People used to say the same thing about .mobi, “most visitors will use mobile devices in the future therefore [insert blah blah blah] .mobi”.

          • Richard says

            ”if all websites were “apps” why would people would people want a .app? People used to say the same thing about .mobi, “most visitors will use mobile devices in the future therefore [insert blah blah blah] .mobi”.

            Spot on, that is exactly the point. People are no longer downloading apps, they use regular websites that are optimised to be a mobile web application. You don’t need an .app fot that, in fact it doesn‘t even make sense to use one because technically it isn‘t an application. Same with .mobi indeed. All websites are mobile first today but they still run on .com.

    • Snoopy says

      It will soon be dustbinned by Google just like .sot and what ever other ntlds that Google have launched which nobody has ever heard of.

  3. Ben McIlwain says

    Hey Michael, love the reporting that you’re doing on the .app launch. Just some quick updates/corrections for you.

    As I’m sure you know, not all registered domains go into into zone files immediately (or even ever), so the figures you’re showing are a bit less than the actual number of registrations. Also, it looks like the zone file data you’re using doesn’t incorporate most of day 5, as the actual number of domains registered on day 5 was over 7,500 (greater than all previous EAP days and sunrise combined). There’s still almost two full days of EAP left, including tomorrow which is the only weekday in the lowest price tier and thus most likely to see corporate registrations. I’m excited to see what the final EAP tally will look like, but as you can probably already tell, it’s going to be big.

    • Raymond Hackney says

      Thanks for posting Ben.

      Anyone got questions Ben is from Google so he can probably help.

      • Aaron Strong says

        Yes, I am aware of Ben….Thanks for posting Ben. Clearly I am fond of your work and successes.
        Aaron

        • Aaron Strong says

          Question for Ben….Can you better explain the correlation between Progressive Web Apps and the launch of your extension .app?…I can hardly wait until Tuesday!..Thanks!

  4. Massmio says

    There is no technical advantage to .app The world in short time will evolve past .com .app .* We are moving towards the days of voice and VR. The need to type an extension will go away, with the exception of the mega-cap keeping .com as posterity (think amazon.com). Of course this is my opinion as a mobile first, full stack developer and native iOS/Android.

  6. Michael Berkens says

    Ben

    Sorry for the late response I downloaded the zone file at noon yesterday and there were only 515 extra domains.

    I checked it against https://namestat.org/app record and they had the same number

    I know there needs to be a NS to get into the zone but that is always the same.

    Congrats on a huge launch.

    I only found a few domains generic that were held back like game and games

    I would assume somewhere around 25K registrations on the low side in GA

    Best

  7. Bill Kara says

    One of the more interesting things from a developer stand point is how this will play out in ranking and serps… some people believe the spam/malware/trust rating of a domain extensions is one of the levers in SERPS. I believe dot app will have an extremely high trust factor as a gtld due to the price/cert requirements. So depending on how much weight is placed on gtld trust value ( if any ) it could help in that regard.

    • Aaron Strong says

      They could go a step further and boost any extension preloaded with HSTS. Right now there is only one (.app)…BTW – Ben is the lead engineer behind this breakthrough…

  8. Michel says

    Great site,

    Can anyone explain me why , after registering a generic word, canadians.app, Godaddy emailed me with “Acknowledge Trademark Claim “?

    Thanks in advance.

    Michel

  10. Bruce Garrison says

    @Michael- Because so many generic words were allowed to be registered in the Trademark Database.

    @Ben – Why is it that on name.com, I was able to get pricing for the few two-letter domains, but on Google Domains, they are telling me that .app requires at least three letters/numbers in the second level? Clearly that is not the case as almost all of them were actually registered?

  11. Manu says

    I managed to buy Responsive.app
    Huge potential if developed as a site like themeforest to develop and sell responsive apps and templates.
    I am sure google will promote it’s own .app extension in the search engine and very less SEO efforts needed for .app extension.
    Opinions welcome?

    • Michel says

      Good one, Manu.

      I got RN.app, which would be fantastic for the medical field.

      Best of luck with yours.

  12. Have a good weekend says

    Thanks for this amazing report.

    I wonder, will the IDNs be released now or later ?

  13. JZP says

    Hey Michael, what do you think of these?

    K2.app
    FIG.app
    FAB.app
    Nanotech.app

    Volcano.app
    Greenhouse.app
    Rainforest.app
    Wildlife.app
    Tropical.app

    Barn.app
    Alligator.app
    Dragonfly.app
    Watermelon.app

    Loud.app
    South.app
    Hacks.app

    Aries.app
    Aquarius.app
    Capricorn.app
    Hippy.app
    Spiritual.app

    Menthol.app
    Sisterhood.app
    Microbrew.app
    Silverware.app

    DogSitting.app
    HouseSitting.app
    DontSmoke.app
    WinterPark.app
    TalentAgency.app
    ArtSchool.app
    TopSelling.app