5 Reasons Why we are Experiencing a Domain Market Recession
- Filed under: Domaining
- Date: Jun 18,2009
Domain values certainly are not skyrocketing at the moment. When you look at Top Level Domains (.net, .com, .org) the numerical growth is still good at 12% for since Q1 of 2008. In regards to Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) things are even better with an increase of registrations of 18% (to 74 Mill).
So the internet is getting bigger right? Well, maybe…
1. Domain Parking Saturation
It could just be a lot of domainers sitting on one page ad pages. These guys simply buy domains, put up ads and sit back trying to get PPC revenue. (I went through a phase where I became a domaining addict)
It doesn’t really make the Internet bigger or better - it simply means people have many more ways of clicking through links to get to their destination (albeit an advertised destination). Is the internet better for this? No, not really IMHO.
There is a saturation of these ‘parked’ domains with people simply stumbling upon these ad front pages and thinking ‘OMG not another’ then click back on their browser. The worlds internet users are becoming more intelligent to ad pages and the reality is on the other end of ad links is something you ain’t interested in.
Generating traffic to these parked pages will get harder and harder because no-one likes not finding what they want on the internet.
2. Potential Buyers Go Bust
Money isn’t where it used to be. Jobs are being cut, property markets are low, the majority of the world’s attitude to money has become that of frugality. They ask themselves, ‘Do I really need this domain?’ as they consider if buying a smaller engine car would help their financial circumstance. Domains are financially a low priority in these times.
Of course there are buyers out there, just not as many pre global recessions days.
3. Why Type When You Can Search
Google Chrome comes to mind. Type in blog monies in the ‘URL’/'Search’ bar and you’ll hit my site. I could have bought blogmonies.biz if blogmonies.com was being parked and due to my outstanding SEO skills came up top result. On that, drop-down suggestions both in URL bar and search boxes are becoming more intelligent auto-completing what you are typing.
4. Why Type at All?
Portals. Stumbleupon.com, Twitter, Facebook, Boing Boing… A massive popularity contest calculation is executed and the top 10 suggested viewings are spat out at you as you open your browser’s homepage. No domain typing involved with this kind of surfer.
5. Top Level Domains are Expanding Every Month
Why buy a dot com when there are over 250 other two-letter ccTLDs (au, in, cn, us, uk…)
How about gTLDs - asia, .cat, .jobs, .mobi, .tel and .travel
I am counting roughly 270 different domains (check the forums)
Highest value is .com, then .net, then… yeah whatever…
The Solution to This Domaining Mess?
Domain Development. Choose a good name, put a blog on it, write good content, get traffic and link backs. Punch it into Website Outlook and get a rough idea of the value YOU have brought to your domain. Yes you can be a domainer and sit on domains but the reality is you won’t make squat unless you develop them domain names then sell.
Related Links
- Read more about domain registrations on the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief or just hit the verisign logo and see the PDF.
- Check out all the domains I have counted up
