Which new gTLDs (if any) do you rate?

[Siusaidh]

So, I am quite sceptical about the proliferation of new gTLDs, but I wondered - with the domain experience here on this forum - which ones (if any) people here actually rate. For example, if you had to single out a top 3 or top 5 new gTLDs that you think stand out and make widespread sense for people to buy and develop, which would you choose?

Conversely, are there any that you have had bad experiences with, or suspect will fail and close down?

I had a bad experience with .bible - when it was launched they registered all the books of the bible to be retained by the registry, but they missed one book out, which I registered as it was one of my favourites. They contacted me and said they were cancelling the registration, and took the name off me. So that did not impress me.

At the present time, the only new gTLD I am willing to register is .scot and even with that there is the question about whether it would be supplanted by a 2-letter country domain if/when Scotland goes independent.

I guess, apart from the long-term viability of the TLD, there are also issues such as sometimes exorbitant price, and also the basic question: 'Will my product/website gain any more visibility than if I used .uk or .com?'

So... have any of you registered new gTLDs?

 

[WalkinDude]

.club .xxx but since so few buy them for their intended purpose its a disaster. Idea for them fundementally flawed. To buy one and develop it to rational purpose vs joe and jenny bloggs simply opening up a completely "free" insta, twitter, fb, snap account and be in business within seconds is what did for them.

Country gtlds are a seperate matter. I dont see it ever happenning again like that. It was one giant money grab with anything of obvious value witheld and scraps the masses told to pay 30 or even 2k a year for per domain vs 5 bucks for a dotcom of likely no lower appeal.

I see future success where proper investment goes in that competes with the social networks for how quickly you can get up and running. Humans will always prefer to own rather than rent or lease i.e. free signups which you pay for with your personal data.

We need king/queen of your own castle domain services. Buy the domain, be up and running the same day, thats ecommerce, networking, marketing click click click, own all that you do. That which you do, you can later sell, or pass onto loved ones which is currently not even feasible on the giant tech platforms which for me points to where their valuations come from.

 

[DaveP]

The ones where the left of the dot flows really well with the right of the dot, irrespective of the TLD.

save/money
my/world
game/shop
wine/club

and so on..

 

[cav]

None. The only benefit is that they inadvertently strengthen the credibility (and value) of the traditional extentions .com .org .co.uk .de etc

 

[BG]

I always like having a play with words / domains - So below are a list of various ones I've registered over the years; and believe it or not they 'all' get traffic too..

L e t t i n g . A g e n c y
U K . B i n g o
H o l i d a y s . C h e a p
T r a v e l . c i t y
H o l i d a y . C h e a p
A i . D o m a i n s
C h o c o l a t e s . D i r e c t
B r e a k s . C h e a p
N u m b e r P l a t e s . c c
O f f i c i a l . c o
C l a i m s . D i r e c t
T e e t h W h i t e n i n g . c l i n i c
H o l i d a y s . D i s c o u n t
C r i s i s . F u n d
A p p r e n t i c e s h i p s . e u
A i r p o r t . D i r e c t
C o t t a g e s . m e
I n d e x . M e d i a
G a m b l . e s
U c i . c o
U k s . c o
O n d . c o
O n c . c o
O a e . c o
W o t . m e
R i m . a c
L a d . m e
H o t . H o l i d a y
C o r i p p o . s e
T o k e n s . C h e a p
W i r e . C l o u d
S u p e r c a r . F i n a n c e
I g n i t e . C l o u d
C a r R e n t a l s . w s
O a k F u r n i t u r e . S t o r e
A i r p o r t s . D i r e c t
N u m b e r p l a t e s . C l u b
O f f i c e . M o n s t e r
M e d i c a l C l a i m s . e u
C a r b o n . e n g i n e e r i n g
N u m b e r p l a t e . C l u b
2 0 2 0 . C l o u d
A r t i f i c i a l i n t e l l i g e n c e . G r o u p
I n s t a . C l o u d
R e g i s t r a t i o n P l a t e s . e u
E t h e r . b i z
T h e L i g h t n i n g . N e t w o r k
C r y p t o s . w s
H a s h c h a i n . T e c h n o l o g y
D o r . i s
V o u c h e r c o d e s . w s
T o k e n . 移动
A r t i f i c i a l i n t e l l i g e n c e . M e d i a
C h i l d c a r e . w s
D o d g e . m e
C a r R e n t a l . R e n t a l s
P r e s t i g e . w s
C h o c o l a t i e r s . c o
P r e s t i g e W a t c h e s . c o
C a n n a b i d i o l . c l u b
C a p i t a l g r o w t h . x y z
M y H o s t i n g . C l o u d
L a k e C o m o . c o
E - C i . g s
T o k e n P a y . c o
G l o b a l D a t i n g . N e t w o r k
L o g i n . M o n s t e r
F r e e b i e . w s
O f f i c i a l . W a l e s
C r y p t o A s s e t s . G r o u p
C o - L i v i n g . i n
A u t o m a t i c . w s
S m a r t L e d g e r . c o
O u t d o o r s . w s

Note : For me .com will always be king.

Best,
BG

 

[Siusaidh]

at Wot.Me ?!

It's nice to have fun with domain names if you can make it pay overall.

I've got Boris.me.uk and I know I should be able to get up to mischief, but as always it's down to time, to generate the content.

.com is queen, btw.

content is king.

 

[WalkinDude]

I supported the idea but kudos to those who said at the time it would go nowhere. Even if you own Golf.club which to me is a superstar domain name it's still a bit gimmicky. Whoever owns GolfClub.com isn't going to swap domains with you. Dotcom, dot.co.uk and the established tlds are about as much as most normal people wish to understand. It is implausible consumers are going to trust 1500 tlds, all of which can theoretically be translated into nearly 200 major languages so that's 30,000 suffixes plus the geos, the major company brands. With dotcom at the top of the pyramid the odds of significant value the further you go out diminish in with hindsight a predictable way.

I regged Guaranteed.Today then other day I regged GuaranteedToday.com with intention to develop. Now I read .today was for news outlets so what was the idea that thousands and tens of thousands of .today online news services were going to spring up because at the time the idea was launched it was concluded the world didn't have enough media outlets?

How this all got off the ground with no idea, plan, effort. no investment, to overhaul how domains fundamentally work and how it was all meant to compete with the tech titans signup and away you go in 60 seconds alternative options is something I find infuriating.

word.word is a logical failure except in all but the most spectacular examples which there isn't enough of, and of which most are withheld by the registrars. there is no unifying underlying concept and one can't be created after the fact. .com, co.uk, .org etc state this is what we do, what we are, or say what we believe in [for profit, non profit],

.donut states this is a donut.

word.brand, word.concept, word.geo, word.sphere word.laws, word.'fortnite', has a future but word.word is gonna struggle against current and forthcoming competition.

 

[jmcc]

I've another view of new gTLDs from just being a domainer. I also work with domain name stats and mapping. Even wrote a book about the legacy and new gTLDs. Some of the new gTLDs are not English language dominant gTLDs due to the geography of their registrations. Some of the larger new gTLDs like .XYZ/TOP/CLUB etc have used discounting offers in the Chinese market to inflate their zone files. This means that they are not really good TLDs for English language keyword sales and their renewal rates (some have really low renewal rates) are not good.

This is a snapshot of the top new gTLDs from December 2018 domain names versus the December 2019 zones. The domain names in the December 2018 zones were checked to see if they were still in the December 2019 zones. The results are, in some cases, quite horrific.

gTLD - Dec-18 - Retained - Deleted - Retained % - Deleted %
top - 3,514,579 - 615,317 - 2,899,262 - 17.51 - 82.49
loan - 2,196,438 - 21,540 - 2,174,898 - 0.98 - 99.02
xyz - 2,035,492 - 683,612 - 1,351,880 - 33.58 - 66.42
club - 1,140,507 - 367,484 - 773,023 - 32.22 - 67.78
online - 955,912 - 404,426 - 551,486 - 42.31 - 57.69
vip - 736,195 - 533,848 - 202,347 - 72.51 - 27.49
site - 712,393 - 268,649 - 443,744 - 37.71 - 62.29
ltd - 550,503 - 194,087 - 356,416 - 35.26 - 64.74
work - 477,829 - 139,610 - 338,219 - 29.22 - 70.78
shop 474,285 - 188,186 - 286,099 - 39.68 - 60.32

That said, some of the geoTLDs are doing OK.

Regards...jmcc

 

[3gmedia]

Dot club is one of my favourite tlds which has had quite a few succesfull sales in the past.
I do own Curry.club which i feel suits the dot club extension.

I did have a few nice .xxx and made a few $$$$

Made plenty of $$$$$ with dot co over the years.

I did dabble in dot wine and regged NonAlciholic.wine I had an offer on this for $4k 2 months ago but had let it drop about 4 months ago.
So missed that sale.

Biggest investment for me is .wales

I do love .uk and prefer it over co.uk but that's controversial.

Onwards and upwards.

 

[jmcc]

.XXX is a very sticky gTLD as regards retention.
Dec 2018 doms still in Dec 2019 zone.
XXX - 92,352 - 90,335 - 2,017 - 97.82% - 2.18%

Regards...jmcc

 

[jmcc]

The geography of the registrations in the new gTLDs definitely affects the value. Some of the NGTs have strong US/CA/EU/UK/AU registrations but the discounted ones are highly problematic. Some of the ex-Famous Four Media NGTs had massive problems with discounting and at one stage, .LOAN had over a million iffy Chinese porn sites and only a few hundred actually developed websites. Discounting in a TLD leads to all sorts of webspam and e-mail spam and it seems to destroy resale values too. The .CLUB is a good TLD but its reliance on discounting is affecting it. The number of US registrations by country of registrar was down to around 42% in June. The other main countries in the gTLD were China and Japan.

Regards...jmcc

 

[sunny04]

I see (dot) Online (dot) club and (dot) guide making serious impact and might probably be taking the center stages in the near future. For example

Trade.Online
Wine.Club
Fitness.Guide