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Are domainers creating a dotORGdotUK bubble?

Discussion in 'Domain Research' started by cav, Oct 3, 2010.

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  1. cav United Kingdom

    cav Active Member

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    Observing the very recent prices obtained for dotORGdotUK, I am just wondering whether domain traders/speculators are creating an artificial bubble in this particular field.

    I maybe wrong, and please correct me if I am, but are not all the high prices obtained for dotORGdotUK (creditcards,homeinsurance,onlinecasino,games,toys,blackjack) purely domainer to domainer?

    These kind of prices, now £xx,xxx, seem artificially high compared to prices you could achieve with end users which rarely exceed low £x,xxx.

    Can such prices be maintained with the average net user becoming more savvy as each year goes by with their increasing ability to spot an affiliate linking website?

    Is this kind of variation apparent in dotCOdotUK? I'm relatively new to domaining so I'm not sure whether an equivilant dotCOdotUK bubble has come and gone.
     
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  2. Domain Forum

    Acorn Domains Elite Member

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  3. Pred United Kingdom

    Pred Well-Known Member

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    no
    in one simple word. i own quite a few .org.uk as i saw potential long time ago and still do
    however you can still see one word .org.uk available on this forum for xx range and even free to reg

    equivalent .co.uk are x,xxx high, xx,xxx range
    'if' possible to buy

    there are opportunities everywhere. tbh i see .co.uk sales on here where i think people will struggle to ever get an enduser to pay that money, bu most domainers have a few domains where they are the enduser anyway, its what you do with it as they say :cool:

    one example, and not just pitching one of my domains, ok i am :cool:

    domains dot co uk is 'leasing' litigationcouk for £2.5k - £5k per month! or trying to

    i have the org uk and is a good example of orguk being every bit as good as the couk IMHO and for far, far less

    plus search engines may treat mine better and be better received on that extension by endusers , and legal world possibly

    some of recent sales, obviously creditcards is one of the best ones, but not the best and will always attract high prices, these sort of keyword domains

    i think the pricing has been out for far too long for orguk
    i know a lot of companies who see value in say owning brandfurniture.co.uk and being able to buy up keyword appropriate other extensions as satellite sites to bolster main site
    they'd need to rob a bank to do in .co.uk, 'if' they were available

    you could argue the value of .org.uk is on its way to being appreciated a bit more, as i have said for years, many .co.uk and .com owners have priced themselves out wanting crazy money and will take their domains to their graves with them, when they are unneeded some time in future, if this happens. or just will never sell
    plus many of the top .co.uk are never possible to own, owned by top domainers or huge brands, who simply will not sell

    i am a huge fan of .co.uk and .com, and particularly com so don't misuderstand me

    if i wanted to launch a product in uk and spend money on advertising and have all natural benefits it would be com or co.uk. fact
    however there are exceptions to that rule anyway, like i'd consider law.org.uk or something and be happy to promote that

    but lets say you owned the brand furniture domain i mentioned earlier as domainer or nondomainer and you had chance to buy furniture.org.uk for £3k or furniture.co.uk for £150 k just as a booster site, what you gonna do?
    sure you can launch furniture.co.uk as a brand in own right, but how often will that happen to you?

    .co.uk will continue to command huge prices for the very best, just that it's little brother is starting to get a small slice of action, and not without reason imho

    nb: creditcards.org.uk wasn't sold to a domainer, was it? sold on sedo and is developed
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2010
  4. stender United Kingdom

    stender Well-Known Member

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    I'm not a org uk fan myself, I only own one and thats for my local area which I thought of setting up a community forum type site on.
    I think their only value is their ranking ability. Your wont see large companies using that extension, and I think they are purely a domainer use, other than what they are supposed to be used for.
     
  5. cav United Kingdom

    cav Active Member

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    No large corporations would not use them but they are good for small UK businesses and naturally non-corporate organisations. As Pred said, they are the most affordable alternative for a small business seeking a keyword domain name.

    This variance between domainer & end user prices does seem high compared to dotCOdotUK but if creditcards is an end user then I guess I am wrong.
     
  6. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    They're probably of most value for pure web plays e.g. sites designed to produce CPA leads. Financial/insurance .org.uk domains fit the bill perfectly for that sort of thing.
     
  7. bensd United Kingdom

    bensd Well-Known Member

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    I think Edwin has hit the nail on the head. No large organisations are going to touch .org.uk because of the amount of offline advertising they do. And as .org.uk is still relatively unknown the UK public they would be wasting massive advertising budgets by leaking tons of traffic.
     
  8. anthony United Kingdom

    anthony Well-Known Member

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    They certainly own them though, even use or re-direct them:

    bbc.org.uk British Broadcasting Corporation - (own)
    hmv.org.uk HMV (IP) Ltd - (redirect)
    mtv.org.uk Viacom International Inc. – (own)
    qvc.org.uk QVC Inc – (redirect)
    tso.org.uk The Stationery Office Ltd – (use)
     
  9. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    None of those examples are generic words or phrases (yes, some are 3 letter acronyms, but they're not words). It's obvious that if your company is some TLA or made up name, why not scoop up the .org.uk to go with your main .co.uk?
     
  10. anthony United Kingdom

    anthony Well-Known Member

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    Do you mean like these ones?

    camping.org.uk - British Holiday & Home Parks Association
    gap.org.uk - GAP Year Travelling
    lighting.org.uk - Display Lighting Ltd
    pregnancy.org.uk - Care Confidential
    wiggle.org.uk - Dance
    cats.org.uk - The Cats Protection League
    diabetes.org.uk - British Diabetic Association
    earth.org.uk - ExNet Ltd
    flowers.org.uk - Flowers & Plants Association
    jewellery.org.uk - The British Jewellers' Association
    laser.org.uk - UKLA
    massage.org.uk - Academy of Natural Health
    music.org.uk - Music Festival Information
     
  11. Ashton Canada

    Ashton Well-Known Member

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  12. Pred United Kingdom

    Pred Well-Known Member

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    all true

    top corporations are top of pyramid though
    majority of country is small to medium business and they can't/won't pay above a certain amount for a domain

    they are far more likely to see value in a high ranking website, not just domain
    = opportunity, for both sides

    there are far too few to count companies using .org.uk as main website in commercial sector

    BUT

    these same companies mentioned, small to medium registered something like

    atsltd.co.uk or atspartnersengineering.co.uk for example

    as much use as smith and jones in todays web

    what many are waking up to is seo, and only 1 can own say their actual servce or product in .co.uk
    and theres only 1 in .org.uk too!
    so i'm seeing lots of companies nailing their service in .org.uk, + other extensions and developing

    the most savvy ones and with budget are buying their service in com or .co.uk, but again like i said 'IF ' you 'can' buy and afford
    also because so many .com and .co.uk are parked, and always will, it spells more opprtunity for both sides

    it may be 2010 but so many companies still aren#t even using the domain they regged with bt 10 years ago lol
    or using @aol.com or @btconnect.com emails, on their vehicles lol

    LONG way to go. still early days in many ways

    for the most part there will remain a large gap between .org.uk and .co.uk
    that will forever be the case
     
  13. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Associations will naturally gravitate towards .org.uk as that's one of the primary purposes for the extension!
     
  14. cav United Kingdom

    cav Active Member

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    KBS is a good example of a small corporate UK business making use of the dotORGdotUK extension
     
  15. aZooZa

    aZooZa Well-Known Member

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    I have to agree with Pred on all this. From a catcher's perspective I know that bookings for org.uk are on the rise constantly, and made by clients looking to make commercial sites. At current prices, and the large open window of availability, .org.uk makes sense to me. And Google doesn't seem to mind them at all. No brainer really.
     
  16. JMOT

    JMOT Active Member

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    A bubble is such a negative way of viewing them. How about maturing?
     
  17. accelerator United Kingdom

    accelerator Well-Known Member

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    I would love to see a .org.uk bubble, as I have a few I'm looking to sell!

    Rgds
     
  18. golddiggerguy United Kingdom

    golddiggerguy Well-Known Member

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    No bubble or Fad, it will be a steady growth of interest and value towards .org.uk's without question.

    Generic Domains in general are becoming less and less accessable in .co.uk .com compared to .org.uk
    Many SME's would, if they could buy a generic at a fraction of the price or/and actually have the generic domain.

    I've sold quite a few for £xxx to endusers, resellers and also companies with the co.uk who wanted the .org.uk extention.

    Classic example for me at the moment is my JokeShop (that needs a design overhaul), if I owned a shop or online store selling jokes, I'd see that as a "must have domain" if say I wanted a generic but the .co.uk was £20k or not for sale and .org.uk was £3k but was for sale.

    enough waffle ;)
     
  19. namealot United Kingdom

    namealot Well-Known Member

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    Its nice too see the odd descent sale of them but that’s all you will ever see… Even the top generic terms are only worth a fraction of the higher cctld and don’t come into it with tld’s..? If they stopped churning out new tld’s and cctlds every year then maybe they would increase in value… That’s not going to happen…

    You have a limited uk market that it’s often hard to convince to purchase the generic term in the first place (Just look at higher ones registered that the end-user are not interested in..?)

    Buy the time most have figured out there business would benefit from even the tld, cctld? The way search engines search will probably place little importance on the generic term, The lower have little chance resale wise ..

    They list well and make revenue and that’s what you should do develop them... But buying to sell on and make a living think you would have more chance of finding a meteorite and selling that …?

    If you add up the sales of all of them since they started probably wouldn’t be enough to buy just one half descent TLD…
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2010
  20. websaway United Kingdom

    websaway Well-Known Member

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    The volume and values give no reason to suspect any kind of bubble, it's just market forces. A bubble would only be created if borrowing to fund name purchases were readily available, in which case volume and values would be obviously inflated. The one thing that could happen though is for people to derive a false sense of security in some domain values, but, given the rising trend of domain values it may turn out not to be false.
     
  21. Bailey United Kingdom

    Bailey Well-Known Member

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    A well thought out and posed question - given the number and amount of .org.uk both sold and offered for sale.

    My thoughts are there is a little bit of bubble at play, but that's standard in all markets, This much exposure is either going to kill-it or promote-it and my belief is the latter. It still requires investing in terms that lend themselves to .org.uk but watching the general .org market (TLD) and comparing it to .org.uk the stats would show a disproportionate growth and price ratio - which you would normally expect to exist at around 10:1 for GTLD/CCTLD

    Pred has taken the time to give a pretty comprehensive answer that doesn't seem to be swayed by .org.uk ownership
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2010
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