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There
are many different
business models among the hundreds
of new gTLD registries that
have launched over the last three
years but few have put a lot of
effort into courting domain
investors. It's true that many
veteran investors simply don't
believe a viable new gTLD aftermarket
is going to develop. Others are turned
off by the high registration and
renewal prices
typically charged for the most
attractive new gTLD domains. With the
future direction of the market still
uncertain, high carrying costs make
holding names such names too
risky for most.
Still,
there are some investors who believe
the new gTLDs will steadily build an
audience in the years ahead. That
group would buy and hold more
domains if registries gave
them a better chance of making a
return on their investments. The .GLOBAL
registry has recently taken some
major steps in their direction that
CEO Rolf Larsen showed me
when we met up at last month's NamesCon
conference in Las Vegas.
The
clearest signal .GLOBAL is sending
investors is a new program in beta
that allows third parties to
list their .GLOBAL domains for sale
on a registry-operated website - Domains.global
- free of charge.
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Rolf
Larsen
CEO, .GLOBAL Registry
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While
you are at Domains.global checking
out the third party sales service,
you will find many more new
features geared to domain
investors. Those include lists
of both keyword and
3-letter domains that can be
registered for the first year at the
standard prices
in effect at a variety of
.GLOBAL registrars. The names of
those registrars and the prices they
currently charge are all shown when
you click the buy now button, with
those offering special
promotional pricing listed at
the top of the list. When we checked today Name.com
had the best price at $7.99.
Among others, there are also lists
of dropping and deleted domains at
standard pricing. Many
registries charge high
premium prices for the same keyword
or acronym in their extensions.
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However, there is still
one big hurdle investors
will have to decide if it is
worth trying to get over.
Like many new gTLDs, .GLOBAL
often offers promotional pricing
for year one but higher
standard (non-promotional) pricing
for renewals. That full
standard rate at most of the
registrars offering .GLOBAL
is $69 or more. So, you have
to balance how much you save
with the low first year
price against how long you would
be willing to hold the
domain when much higher
renewal costs come into
play. I would
guess that a number of
investors who believe in new
gTLDs will test the
waters by registering
some of the best available
terms at the low initial
price, then list them for
sale for a year on the
.GLOBAL site (and other
venues) to see what kind of
response they get. They
can then decide if they want
to stay at the table for
year two. |
Image
from Bigstock |
We've
already seen many changes in strategy
and pricing across the new gTLD
space and that will no doubt
continue. I'm surprised that more
registries haven't put greater
effort into engaging domain
investors but if .GLOBAL's overtures
(and those from some similarly proactive
registries) bear fruit more will
follow suit. Eventually we may
see renewal prices
that remain the same as initial low
registration prices, even for the
higher quality domains - an
environment a lot more investors
would find to their liking.
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