Useful life of a domain

[olebean]

What is the useful life of a domain name?

 

[aqls]

directly related to the energy put into it.

And a domain is only just a domain until it becomes a site.

Useful lifetime of a site? Ask beenz and the other millions of others that tried a bit too hard.

beenz.com domain for sale $300,000 at afternic

-aqls-

 

[olebean]

Ok rephrased as domain name rather than a site

 

[charlie]

as a generic, as long as the product or service still exists surely the domain name has a use and therefore a value?

though as a site you need to stay ahead of the competition so continual development is nearly always a must to fulfill potential

 

[olebean]

Cheers Charlie,

So the useful life of sex.com is?

 

[aqls]

Looking at the long term threats:

The date is now April 1st 2012.

Costs of .uk domains have hit a long term high of £20,000 per annum payable to Networth Solutions. There are no new domains available to register except using the .networth.solutions.uk ending.

travelanyw-here24-7-365-360.networth.solutions.uk sold for a moderate £50,000 yesterday showing the market is still on the up and up.

All other domain slds were cancelled on a no refund basis early in 2007 when Numbnuts, the original protector of the nations internet assets was removed from their responsibility after a hacking competition through the back door was won by some black hat hackers from russania.

This competition started as an innocent and presumably fair way to distribute dropping domains, but it was policed weakly and with £millions to be gained from being able to crack the system, it was not long into 2007 when the now infamous DACDroppies actually won the "competition" and reregistered all known domain names into their names.

The backups were trashed and there was nothing but a huge pile of paper that would take 3 years to sort out as a record of the ownership of the domains. Numbnuts' last words were "it was not our fault, it was a mathematical error"

Networth Solutions won the contract to run the registry which, it was decided, would be run on a more "commercial" basis with fewer people deciding the prices and future of the renewals.

They decided to do away with every extension except for networth.solutions.uk citing that by not employing anyone with a computing degree they could save costs, the easiest way being to just have the one companySLD ending.

-aqls-

Disclaimer:
This is a JOKE. No genuine offence intended to anyone.

 

[retired_member27]

Very good.

 

[Brian]

Like mentioned before, a domain name is nothing untill it becomes a web site. Look at names like ebay.co.uk, and google.co.uk, they will have many years shelf life, but it is because of the site, and not of the name.

 

[olebean]

Like mentioned before, a domain name is nothing untill it becomes a web site. Look at names like ebay.co.uk, and google.co.uk, they will have many years shelf life, but it is because of the site, and not of the name.

Hi Brian

As said before, it is not the worth of a domain, but, how long could a domain last.

Will the domain industry be here in say 20 years?

 

[charlie]

Hi Brian

As said before, it is not the worth of a domain, but, how long could a domain last.

Will the domain industry be here in say 20 years?

So are you trying to ask if the URL going to be replaced by something more clever and is the general architecture of the internet going to change?

 

[olebean]

Charlie

If domains are surpassed or become no longer used, they no longer have a usful life.

 

[Lucky Luke]

Telephone numbers are still used many years after their introduction, but they have been through a few changes...dropping the ABC area code dialling (Whitehall 442 kind of thing), then all the expansion problems, eg, London going from 01 to 0171 & 0181 then to 0207 & 0208 (what a farce!), etc

My view is that domain names will be around for ages.

Risks include the dilution of .co.uk by new series of xxx.uk that really work and with restrictions to ownership that make them work more reliably for the users. (like .net.uk)

Another risk is of browsers or other software agents that pick up on typos and shepherd the user to the expected domain rather than the typed domain. (This may be a default setting on a browser than can be switched off but most people won't.)

 

[retired_member27]

Will the domain industry be here in say 20 years?

Imagine this scenario, a company developes a new browser but not just another browser, this one includes a new operating system, a dynamic firewall, spamwall and anti-virus engine that never needs def updates, never crashes and can replace Windows, Linux and all other OS's in one stroke, and it's free.

This browser is so popular that within two years it is the de-facto OS on 99% of the worlds computers.

The company now setup hundred's of servers around the world and this becomes a new internet (Internet2). They then design a new means to search the internet2 not by domain names but by keywords, for example:

Every website, server, mobile phone, fridge, car, vibrator or any other device that accesses the internet will have an IP address, you will then register that IP address with the internet2 and you can choose a number of keywords that relates exactly to that IP address.

So when a user puts in a keyword or any combination of keywords in the browsers keyword bar (old term used to be called url bar in the dark old days of domain names), the closest matches will be shown, i.e. if the user was to input the keywords "domain name, forum, uk" then hopefully Acorndomains will then be in the results, except it won't be "http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/index.php" it will be something like "98.99.100.101/index.php" instead.

And as the browser is standard on every computer people will get used to inputting keywords instead domain names and so a point will be reached where the old internet and domain names are rarely used.

Of course what this means is that domain names will become obsolete and the already established search engines (google, yahoo, msn) will go bankrupt, however one company will then own the Internet which could then present some problems.

As for your question will domains be around in 20 years time, my own view is that they won't be, because with new emerging technology and the fact that every country doesn't want the US to have sole control of the internet means that a rival internet will be created at some point and with the ability to navigate without the use of domain names.

In terms of the history of the internet, it will be seen that domain names were only in use for about 30 years (1985 - 2015), BTW symbolics.com was the first ever domain name registered on 15-Mar-1985.

 

[Lucky Luke]

Question for apd... how will hyperlinks work then?

 

[texidriver]

//////////////////////////////////////

 

[olebean]

apd

I find that scenario extremely odd. Why would any business allow themslves to be dictated to... ie the Dutch sytem.... For sure in theory it would be like moving back 2-300 years to the days of landlords etc..... Sorry guys I can't see it being commercially viable or supported.

 

[charlie]

So when a user puts in a keyword or any combination of keywords in the browsers keyword bar (old term used to be called url bar in the dark old days of domain names), the closest matches will be shown, i.e. if the user was to input the keywords "domain name, forum, uk" then hopefully Acorndomains will then be in the results, except it won't be "http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/index.php" it will be something like "98.99.100.101/index.php" instead.

if you've noticed this happens already

dont type http: etc in the url bar and just type "acorn domains" - the browser reverts to msn search and finds the closest match.

(didn't try with mozzila - i doubt it goes to msn search )

 

[Lucky Luke]

Domain names can be (i) typed in at the address bar or (ii) clicked on as hyperlinks in text, etc. Sure, browsers can start to eliminate the need for the former but how are you going to get around the latter, especially when so many hyperlinks are used everywhere and can be quite long and specific (ie, deep-linking)?

 

[olebean]

hmmm Charlie

I tried that, it doesn't work!

 

[willbon]

Here's a theory for you....
With all entertainment and communication to go online... wouldn't it be a good idea that when you turn on your TV, you'll go to a URL for your TV channel?.. hence web domain names once established are for ever... or until we get a global EMP!