The long term future of domains

[pugyrob]

Speaking to another member here yesterday, i was discussing providing long term family security by buying valuable domains and sites with a view to never sell. Something that would always be worth money.

He then brought to my attention that there is no such thing as guaranteed long term security as no one knows which way the internet will go in 10>20 >50>100 years and how it will affect domain names and how we use them

This was something i had not given a lot of thought as i always assumed that if you have a top generic .com or co.uk, it will be worth a lot forever. This however may well not be the case and so i wondered 2 things:-

1) how secure does everyone feel, that their domain/site assets are not going to be superceeded or devalued drastically in the future? (Albeit long term future).

2) What are the potential things that could hugely devalue domains and sites in years to come?

Things i could think of were

new TLD's are allowed or become more popular than the existing
the internet as we know it becomes old fashioned and is surpassed
the way we use domain names is revolutionised

That is as far as i got lol but i would love to hear what any other members think and if anyone has given the above a lot of thought. With a lot of people's livelihoods in domains it is a relevant question imo, if maybe a touch paranoid?

 

[dragon]

Another question would be how to reduce risk so we don't feel as insecure in our businesses losing value.. I think spreading the risk by developing other websites which lose reliance on google/seo, for example forums.

 

[disruptive]

I have spent sometime thinking about it. I feel technology is the biggest threat...

Right now we sit inbetween the past and future. The past was a manual trawl through the web - clicking random links, visiting branded or unknown weblinks and URLs.

The future is location of a product or service regardless of the brand or location through an engine - that could be google or some other engine. Consider how we search for insurance now...do we care about the brand or the cheapest deal? Do we trawl individual websites? No. Expect that way of thinking to continue and apply to all services and products.

So what does it mean? You have to consider the likes of ebay Vs Google. I.e. selling through different engines and the competition between those engines and the costs involved. We have seen companies moving out of ebay and online with shop front due to spiralling costs. Look also at direct line insurance...now they don't do brokers...I'm not discussing the economics here - but its easy to see why.

Then of course there is the actual technology? An iPad - will we consume in the same way as before? Will we ever get to type in a query or URL? We could all be in for a fundamental shift.

Some of these issues are discussed on my blog:

The value of a brand…ebay vs google Profit from domains
Will apple ipad signal end of domains Profit from domains

Enjoy.

 

[fraser]

Great discussion

I think one of the things that would hit the value of many undeveloped domains is if Google just dropped the ranking boost that it gives to exact match domains. It's something I'm concerned about anyway which is why I think you need to get sites developed, established and paying for themselves rather than just assuming the domain alone will hold it's value.

 

[tifosi]

One thing not considered is what will happen once everyone has switched over to ipv6. At the moment with ipv4 we have a fixed dns system associated with domains & their linked reverse DNS.

What will happen with ipv6? Not sure yet but the appearance of billions of new IPs will hapen over the next 10-20 years... even your fridge will have one!

S

 

[disruptive]

I'm not sure how the IP standards will change the domain market. But another aspect to consider is the increased dominance of one or two large sites on the net. It almost is as if companies such as FB and Google are attempting to close the web...i.e. AOL circa 1992 where for some AOL *WAS* the internet.

Again some more articles on my website about this:

Beginning to worry about large corporates on the net. Profit from domains

and

Are we heading back to a closed internet? Profit from domains

 

[lethal0r]

this is why I held off buying exact match domains until 2008 - I never thought they would be so successful and for so long. but I guess thats because of how relevant they are to the query, so logically it makes sense. i missed all the good ones

but I think in the medium-term future (< 50 years), there wont be any TLDs. you will just have joestaxis in the url and you will get pointed to the right site by geo-location and whatever else is invented by then. I recall reading how tim berners-lee said there didnt need to be the double backslash in a url and he regrets designing it in such a way. so I think eventually all the extraneous characters will be gone - you dont REALLY need a tld for a website anyway. think of all the confusion it adds for big companies - they need to buy the .com, then the country specific ones, then redirect from one to another and so on... its so clumsy.

 

[tifosi]

but I think in the medium-term future (< 50 years), there wont be any TLDs. you will just have joestaxis in the url and you will get pointed to the right site by geo-location and whatever else is invented by then.

Remember, a browser is only a bit of client software. It still only does so much... to know where it needs to get things it uses your ISP's DNS servers which then get the information.

So, unless the whole DNS system is reinvented... and in many ways that is harder now than reinventing the wheel then we'll still be using the same methods in 50yrs.

BUT... and there will be a but, there will be changes. Just don't know what. How geo-location will work relies on some massive AI advances. DNS servers are pretty simple things really. Just glorified routers.

 

[websaway]

nothing is forever, but changes can have a beneficial effect aswell as an adverse effect. So far, changes such as new TLD's new search facilities etc. etc. which spelled doom and gloom have in reality probably not had an adverse impact, but I think that's a lot to do with such an expanding market.The fear of change is numbing, successful companies and entrepreneurs meet change with change and that is the key to security.

 

[khalid]

Fraser you raise a good point.

I think exact matches will always retain their value even if Google doesn't add extra weight onto them as they are appealing offline too, easy to remember and such.

I often wonder what will happen to the webmaster who has 1000 mini sites he never updates earning $1 a day. I think, regardless of the name, you need to think long term.

Even if your "life insurance" or "mp3 players" name has been sitting on the front page for months or years it will not hurt to continually add new content, capture long tail and always add to it.

Just my two cents.

 

[rob]

Its all doomed and built on sand.

As I am such a benevolent chap, please PM or email your domain lists and I will give you a quid for them all.

 

[retired_member12]

All electrical items will have a programmable IP RF chip the size of a full stop and costing pennies to make, they'll log in to a secure controller protocol manager via wireless lans hooked up to ftth networks, and the whole internet will be geared towards a subscriber push/pull system. Domain names will lose their hold and bots will manage everything we do!

 

[denchomsky]

Broadband connections will get slower and slower as more and people and electronic items start to use them, this will render the internet useless, and we will all go back to magazins, books, yellow pages and talking to people on the phone or god forbid face to face.

Domain names will be as redundant as cassette tape head cleaners.

 

[GreyWing]

When the new extensions are released Google will evaluate the worth of each ext by the number of cybersquatting there is.

It's got to happen where Google will look at each ext. As long as Nominet run the DRS correctly and sensibly then Google will always value .uk's very highly.

Like I said when I was running for Non Exec, I got the feeling most people are not really bothered about the Gov taking over. But you tell them google are going to change the search result patterns to penalise exact domain names and there will be emails flying to google.

In my view if Nominet runs the network safely, the value will grow and grow.

 

[pugyrob]

Great discussion

I think one of the things that would hit the value of many undeveloped domains is if Google just dropped the ranking boost that it gives to exact match domains. It's something I'm concerned about anyway which is why I think you need to get sites developed, established and paying for themselves rather than just assuming the domain alone will hold it's value.

Huge good point that. I will tend to pay a lot more for names that are exact matches, solely for Google ranking benefits, otherwise i would happily go for the brandables.

 

[namealot]

Keep them until you can maximise your profit yes... but keeping and never selling them is not a great a business plan? Generics yes they work with organic traffic many search engines give weight to keyword-centric domains, because usability tests have shown people find them useful and prefer them..?

Algorithms etc currently used google specifically, but many search engines also shows staggering favouritism to keywords in domain, elevating them above sites with more depth of content, better architecture and more inbound links… but with more and more tld, cctld watering them down and ever changing technology how long will that be the case
E.g. keyboard com great now but whose to say in the future google might not prefer keyboard. whatever will we still have them in the future or will it be just voice recognition ? So keeping the domain a bad business decision ?
I have found that googles Local business results has had an effect my own directories with regard to still being first page but often below there local search results.. A few years ago they did,nt even exist

 

[retired_member21]

Why would Google be messing with it's exact match ranking technique? I don't think this is going to change any time soon as would basically mean all urls are equal hence altering it's entire ranking system with regards to serps/anchor text processing etc

 

[digitalquill]

Slightly off topic but non the less related. I am doing is a new Will (just married etc.) as part of that I am documenting all my online business activities including domain names, where they are, access/passwords etc, so that if I go off this mortal coil then my wife/family can still benefit from any value there.

Just a thought...

Matt

 

[pugyrob]

Slightly off topic but non the less related. I am doing is a new Will (just married etc.) as part of that I am documenting all my online business activities including domain names, where they are, access/passwords etc, so that if I go off this mortal coil then my wife/family can still benefit from any value there.

Just a thought...

Matt

ive been meaning to do this for about 2 years.......

 

[namealot]

Why would Google be messing with it's exact match ranking technique? I don't think this is going to change any time soon as would basically mean all urls are equal hence altering it's entire ranking system with regards to serps/anchor text processing etc

Google doesn’t care at all about generics etc ..? its why dmoz and alike were used much more in the start..As yet it has not found a good equivlent to human editing.. Content is more important to user than generic term ?... If it could achieve people searching for information and finding it without coming up with totally irrelevant information keeping its cost down allowing it to make more profit keeping the person using it happy it would drop generic/keywords in a flash..
There algorithms etc are years old and not really written to include the weeding out irrelevant sites ?