People spent about $25,000 on .click domains on the first day.
Here’s a riddle: how many domains will domainers register on the first day of a new TLD launch for a semi-decent generic domain during Thanksgiving week with super low registration fees and basically no domains held back?
Answer: 3,800.
That’s about how many domain names were registered yesterday in Uniregistry’s .click, which launched along with 4 other Uniregistry domain names. Very few were registered in sunrise, so basically all of these were registered by domainers. Prices were less than $7 at each registrar I checked.
Is that good or bad?
For my part, I pre-ordered about 20 domains and only got one successfully. There certainly was demand for the very best terms. I then registered two more domains later on in the day.
I think the question on many minds: how much will a .click domain be worth, even a “good” one, when there are lots of other generic domains coming on the market over the next year? Even if the same sld is a premium in the other domains, we’re probably talking about a maximum upside of hundreds on a resale, not thousands.
By the way, although Frank Schilling didn’t register domains on his behalf before the launch, he did say they might register them post-launch. So if you’re interested in getting any, now is the time.
Anticareer.com says
Realistically, how many .click domains will sell in the aftermarket on average per day? Let’s say 1. That means that it will take 10+ years to clear out all those .click domains that were bought on the first day.
And I think 1 resale per day is a very generous average.
Frank Schilling says
Realistically it’s pretty good. .click is not a bad extension If you got a good one yesterday for $5.88 then you likely made money!~ Go you : )
Right now there are less than 5,000 registrations.. You could buy 1/5 of the namespace for $5000 there are going to be lots of folks who experiment in this one over time.
Not everyone can afford a .com name at $12 … Some parts of the developing world will be happy with $3 .click’s .. we may even do the space for free at some point. The very best will be gone by then though.
Domain Guru says
Frank,
As someone who has made the decision to invest wholeheartedly in .click (both in terms of strings and planned web development) I’d like to see Uniregistry start to promote .click even more, similar in a way to what XYZ has done. Please work with more registrars. even GoDaddy and NameCheap, to ensure we can continue to get the word out and that the momentum continues. Thank you
Frank Schilling says
There is a guy or girl out there right now who does not even know what a domain name is. He/She will be looking over uncle Andrew’s shoulder after pumpkin pie on thanksgiving thursday and learn about names for the first time. .click is for them.
Aron says
Not bad. Frank has GOT to get his names in the hands of people who really need and want to use them. Domain investors buying these buy the dozens helps with short term gains, but overall, he has to get adoption. He knows this, of course… I’m just floored by the masses of people buying hundreds of domains in new extensions, and then immediately trying to turn around and resell them for ignorant amounts. Just my observations.
chuck davidson says
Interestingly enough, of all the names I attempted all came back as “premium registered domain” so I doubt the validity that few were held back. I think this is just a ploy to get people to attempt to register this crap. I think the entire gtld game is a farce.
Frank Schilling says
“premium registered” at Uniregistry.com (the registrar) indicates the name has been registered and the registrant (you, somebody else) may re-sell the name at a premium price. You register an available name anywhere and then search for it at Uniregistry.com and you will see this label. The sudden availability of thousands of meaningful names at low prices is a sea-change Chuck, and you sir have a front-row seat. I’m going to pull a Marty McFly line here: “I guess you guys aren’t ready for this yet… But your kids are gonna love it.”
couponpages says
I think the first day registrations are a good way to read the heartbeat of a new TLD as compared to other new TLDs, but since most of the early registrations are from domain savvy buyers, we won’t see large scale numbers until the general public fully understands what they are. As I’ve said before, all it takes is one “Killer App” to make any new technology mainstream, so if even one big website becomes popular with a new TLD, it will immediately increase awareness for every TLD, and then we will truly see what “Clicks” with the public.
As for me, I like the sound of .Click, so I grabbed some. Since I’m more of a pseudo investor, I never buy domains with the specific intent to sell them. I’m more of a developer who buys domains that I may eventually want to develop, so I look for domains with a bit of a consumers eye.
So in a way, my domains are like buying land in a bunch of towns I may want to build in. I buy them knowing full well I lack the time to develop them right now, but knowing that if I miss the good ones, I may never get that opportunity later.
That said, I have over 750 domains right now and I’m paying a fortune each day for the flexibility to pick what I will develop next. Because of this realization that I may never get around to building most of them, I also like to keep the resale value in my mind, if nothing else, to know that some may at least be sold for a profit.
couponpages says
“I guess you guys aren’t ready for this yet… But your kids are gonna love it.”
That’s exactly why I plan to renew all my new TLDs. I’ve been buying domains for 18 years now. I never expected some of them to be worth anything. 5+ years from now, who knows what the next wave of buyers will be looking for.
Ben says
You’ll die with over 1000 domains that expire. Congrats.
John says
Amen to that.
.click is dead as are the rest of the new TLDs.
Regs don’t mean anything to the public, use does.
So far only loser sites like sites about someone’s cat or their family tree are using these in any real capacity.
@Domains says
“premium registered” at Uniregistry.com – Doesn’t this also mean that Uniregistry is holding back premium domains for themselves to resell on DNS? i.e. Uniregistry is the registrant of the domain being searched? For example, it looks like a lot of .property domains were held back, even for small towns.
Andrew Allemann says
.property domains were registered by the registry. Only .click was not held back.
William says
The low reg numbers in .click go to show that the global namespace for high quality names has not really been expanded all that much by the new g’s. I bought about 15 .click’s and passed on the rest because click is more of a left side word than right in my opinion.
Frank Schilling says
The biggest problem with this particular moment in time is that so much good stuff is available (and across so many extensions) that the seasoned professional who grew up in the old world, sees everything as worthless. Passing of time and increases in registrations my new people assures that everything good will get taken – and there will be a market for these new strings. It will be a different market from the .com/.net market and it will change the com/net market itself over time. You have to participate on all fronts. Congrats to those who got a great .click yesterday (or today) – and good luck to all.
Joseph Peterson says
Frank,
I like .CLICK — mainly for usage (dev / marketing) as opposed to short-term resale. But who knows how the market value will see .CLICK eventually? Nobody could have predicted the trend in .IO sales with any confidence until those started popping up. Already, I can foresee a limited aftermarket for .CLICK, based purely on $50 offers I might personally make on other people’s .CLICK domains. Any subjective sense of (even minor) desirability is, I think, a good sign.
That said, I haven’t registered a single .CLICK domain yet, in spite of having long lists of Uniregistry domains ready to go. Timing on the .CLICK release wasn’t great. I decided to buy .PROPERTY, .HOSTING, .DIET, and .HELP instead. (About half of what I would have bought under ideal circumstances.) If .CLICK hadn’t been competing against Uniregistry’s simultaneous offerings, it would have seen higher numbers.
Half the money I had allocated for Uniregistry releases will go instead to ICM Registry extortionate add-ons and/or legal fees. Hooray!
rob sequin says
I am thrilled to get Havana.click to go with my portfolio of 2500+ Cuba related domains and for less than $10 per year, I don’t see a lot of downside 🙂
Raymond says
I got the short names MIM.Click & Digi.Click
( MIM stands for Mobile Instant Messaging, as oppose to SMS mobile message device )
I am happy to own Quebec.Click . Not bad little collections, I think.
Jay says
The TLD with the most developed websites wins.
.com is the number 1 and will stay as number 1 for the next 20 years and beyond
.net is the number 2 and will stay as number 2 for the next 5 years
.org is specialized to non-profits
country codes compete with .com in their respective countries
Number 3 general use TLD is up for grabs in the next 2-3 years and the one who succeeds in becoming that will be the biggest winner of new TLDs and if they are really successful they might have a chance at exceeding .net in 5+ years.
So far .xyz that many seem to dislike because of their over-the-top promotional tactics and gimmicks is leading this race.
If Frank plays his cards right and really promotes .click he has a chance to exceed .xyz and become the leader of the new G’s.
.link is in my opinion even better general purpose TLD than .xyz or .click so I’m surprised Frank is not promoting that like crazy.
If I was Frank I would throw everything and the kitchen sink in promoting .click and .link because if there is not enough developed websites and positive self-reinforcing spiral at .link , .click or .xyz when .web comes out then .web will win the race to be the number 3 TLD and have chance at unseating .net in 5+ years.
There is about 1 year of time before .web comes out and if these general TLD’s have not spread wide enough by then it means .web will crush them.
10 million registered TLD’s at 5 dollars wholesale cost is 50 million dollars of profits per year.
I have about 5-10 ideas how I would setup marketing campaigns to win the general purpose TLD war for 3th place and if either Frank or the xyz dude want to contact me to discuss I give Andrew Allemann the permission to give my email to Frank and the xyz dude.
Joseph Peterson says
@Jay,
To be fair, those of us who dislike .XYZ aren’t bothered by “over-the-top promotional tactics and gimmicks”.
What we object to is outright deceit.
serg says
Ok fair enough, what i do not understand though, is the fact that many .clicks were available during pre-reg timeframe on some registries/resellers ( uniteddomains, 101, namecheap, name ) but on Uniregistry ( which is also the registrar, per my understanding ) they would show up as not available, i pre-registred a bunch via them, paying their price [ otherwise i would have registered ’em all via UnifiedR, obviously ] and as soon as ld/ga started, those thad i had pre-registered with the citeds above, actually came through successfully registered ( about 80% to be almost precise ] and some others, that i didnt pre-register ( that includes .help too btw ), that had shown as not available at UniR, but available on the same citeds, all of sudden became available at UniR as well, …. is there some sort of rule, on having better pricing during pre-reg being, not ok ? Icann ? ( dumping, undercutting ? ), given the better price, i would have pre-registered them all via UniF as many more names would have fitted my budget for .click … Which i personally think is a great gtld, ( seconding .link, which, imho is a great one too, if one is thinking 3rd domain, liason gtlds like those, are great…. as per the developing countries logic, it is good to know, that there are awareness of lack of purchasing power, but coming from a developing country myself ( .br ), the way i see, is that, in this corner of the world, if one can afford at $3, then $12 or even $20, makes no difference, reason being: huge gap/disparity between “classes”, because to be able to afford at $3 around here, it means that: the person has a computer, internet connection, somewhat educated in English … hence, likely able to spend lots and lots, … lots of poor, lots of riches, but not so many as “Middle Class” … the idea of free is the way to go, if that is the niche sought after, but free is not enough, free+ISP discount and even free computers, or tablet, would be the ocean-change if aiming that demographic… congrats on the 5k+ ….
Andrew Allemann says
Uniregistry (the registrar) doesn’t do pre-reg
Sheldon Ray says
I love the sound of .click it’s inviting and user friendly. I believe it should be a very successful extension in the future and highly valuable for resale.
Jim says
All you guys are nuts. Seasoned old pro here, since 1995.
I guess I am blind to the fact that this is a some kind of naming revolution.
Take 100 great keywords and 100 mid-tier keywords and then see how many are registered in the alternative extensions. Now, type in all those alternative extension domains with the keywords and see how many have been developed. Lots and lots are registered.
What you will find is a literal sea of undeveloped, parked, direct sales, or crappy home page sites. There is nothing there to visit. That is the fate of these new TLDs.
The same will happen with these new TLDs. The the registrars and registries will make a killing but you as the domain investor are just flushing your money down the toilet. There will the a small handful of examples of people that hit a few big sales but the rest will have to eat dirt and like it.
Let’s see how the psychology plays out after 3 to 5 years when you keep having to renew these non-selling domains that make 0 income parked. A double psychological whammy that will have you r mind bent over a barrel.
This has already playing out before with got .mobi, .travel, .jobs, etc. Why have the kids not regged them all up and developed them yet since they are adults now and grew up with these extensions being available?
Don’t be a fool ! 🙂
Serg says
@Andrew, ok, that was my initial thought, but as I said, there were .click domain avail to register, PRE launch .. that is why im having a hard time to understand the actual flow…. to be specific, shown as ‘taken’ but available for inquiry, and that is not consistent on ” zero held back ” nor ” UniR doesnt do pre-reg, .. sorry to be a pain, but if that was not meant to happen, then the statement should be, to the very least ” if that happened, then it was a glitch” ….
Serg says
@Jim Pro, except you are underestimating IDN and meaning, new gtlds are seen, from many developing countries, as a bridge .. To oversimplify and quote a comment above “That kid that doesnt even know what a domain is ….. well, their keyboard have “funny characters” that were not really compatible with the Internet ….. and gtlds supporting IDNs have a huge advantage over “Pros” refusing to see so. … ex .club held idn registrations at first ( check their RFC, they were ready, but held it back for a while, their first “allowed” idn was futbol.club ( u with an accent ), … .Berlin is a hit, for many reasons you guys already mentioned, but im really surprised no one pointed out, the idn-ability allowed from day zero, as a factor. dont understimate 3 billion “developing countries nouveau riches” – but, as you said, you are the pro …
Jim says
Hey Serg. Fair enough….you made a very good point.
I actually was shortsighted in making that statement because I simply forgot about the IDN angle. btw….I own a good number of IDN’s so I’m not IDN ignorant, and I do know about the keyboard issue many people around the world have to deal with, being forced to use Latin characters and a toggle switch to jump back to their native language.
That said, I did see an opportunity within the Asian market however to be totally honest with you I simply did not think about the Brazilian, German, etc. angle. To that end you made a very good point that was overlooked by me and was something I never considered.
Regarding the Brazilian market I have found that even Brazilians don’t surf very often to .com IDNs in Portuguese, no matter how good the keyword, so I just am not convinced the new TLDs will do so great in Brazil if .com IDNs can’t even make it. Also, Brazilians seem to be okay with just using regular Latin characters and forgetting about accents or unique letters from what I have seen.
Brazilians are even pulling away from regular keyword.com and moving very strongly to .com.br. I speak Portuguese also. 🙂 Small world, huh? I have seen the transformation of a society over the last 10 years move away from .com to .com.br. I don’t think there is anything that can stop it now, even new TLD IDNs. Germany? I have no idea but I like the way you think.
Are you in Brazil now? Every time I go there I find it harder to find .com domains on billboards, magazines, etc. They are disappearing.
Honestly, the IDN argument might be the very best argument anybody has ever made regarding the viability of the new TLD’s, even if there are still some holes in the concept. I’m glad you brought it up and checked me on it. 🙂
Chad W. says
Thanks to Frank for making this fun. I haven’t had this much fun trying to catch domains in over a decade.
This game was all about beating others out to securing pre-reg’s at as many registrars as possible. I had my ducks lined up pretty well but a couple sleeper registrars I never dealt with came in and snatched up some of the top keywords (dang!).
It will be interesting watching the future unfold over the next few years. It is true that the current supply of good new domains exceeds the demand (especially the ‘development demand’) but that will change in time.
While .click is not the best new extension out it is a fun one to work with and obviously very affordable. I believe I could easily flip the names I picked up for thousands in profit if I wanted. I plan to hang on to them for awhile though and hopefully build several out. In fact, I have been making offers on some I missed and like.
Got.click?
Sridhar Raj says
Frank,
Congrats on a new launch, have invested heavily in this one (disclaimer)
a) Google has “blacklisted” the .CLICK extension per my parking provider and we do not know when they will clear it, off on long weekend holidays too.
b) We checked and rechecked zone files and I patiently waited for nTLD stats to update on their site for 72 hours I think that it has been – still around 5K registrations only – well wait where did I see and re-post the correction of 10K+ on day one?
c) This is a ranging debate on nTLDs versus the incumbents: I have never seen a more passionate and polarized tech related discourse on both sides, the party has just started anticipate the fun will follow, however no revolution is without blood spilled and this is one is just getting interesting
d) I have only invested in .CLUB(50+) and .CLICK (200+) extensions so far and my logic and investment framework was “low entry/low recurring costs) for what I would consider premium “left of the dot terms”, most of which “flow” or “string” a phrase together making sense with the “right of the dot” extension – like MyHoliday.Club
I also did some tests and using multiple ISPs and may have stumbled upon an issue with known or unknown to the experts (similar to point a) above) – where some Resolvers and/or ISP Nameservers are not recognizing these nTLDs at all – scary for adoption/growth…
I dont want to get into the handshake protocols, thin name severs, “root servers access”, ipV4 vs ipV6 debate etc…but something is wrong and not good here in my view…where does Google with its own ROTD launches fit into all this? What does the dominant Chrome browsers URL treatment mean – lots of questions, I need a sanity check someone…Vin Cerf please call me 🙂
Jim says
@ Sridhar Raj
Quote: c) This is a ranging debate on nTLDs versus the incumbents: I have never seen a more passionate and polarized tech related discourse on both sides, the party has just started anticipate the fun will follow, however no revolution is without blood spilled and this is one is just getting interesting
Go read about .MOBI on NamePros and see how spitting angry people got whether .MOBI would make it or not. I think that was 2006.
Those debates are legendary in the domain industry.
Where is .MOBI now? A failure for registrants.
Sridhar Raj says
Maybe, Jim. However this tsunami and the one in 2016 will be much larger/wider. I skipped engagement in the industry for a few years back then, do not know what and why, to critic or comment.
Also based on my investment framework I am very selective and clear on why and what I invest in, during this “gold rush”. So far into only “.CLUB” and “.CLICK”, possibly will look at the upcoming “.WEB” and “.SHOP” if they provide a very reasonable, low cost high return opportunity (GARP on Wall Street). With a vision to develop quite a few of these into global moniker/properties.
Now which @#%@@#%@ thought of “.desi”, “.ninja”, “.gripe”,”yoga”, “vodka” and “wtf” ? Yeah WTF indeed! There is going to be a mammoth graveyard in a few years (perhaps that was why someone with foresight called it gTLD – where g could mean graveyard?) or then again one other applicant came with “dot RIP” how appropriate…maybe that’s what we could use “domains.rip” for a list of these also-ran(s) – in a pink sheet line penny sale!
Again very selective very limited relative to what can be developed or re-sold, mobi, biz, etc. are hurting for sure, making COM even more valuable every day, I personally have seen traffic volumes spike on COMS with the “suffix word” of club or click in them….more later..
Andrew – kindly update the edit I emailed you yesterday, on my previous post – embarrassed about the typos and grammar.
Serg says
@Jim …. yes, well said, … small world indeed. im happy you do understand my point, for instance, .club held back the IDN release ( even though they had the ability implemented, but they made a big mistake on only including spanish characters, from their RFC, it is easy to see so [and later, touching the water on releasing a ‘premium IDN, which is listed as top premium right now at sedo as ‘registry exclusive … ] .. and the consequence i$snt good, for example, excluding ç means excluding Portuguese and French, not including è: excludes Italian, and not bothering the ã and Ü excludes German and pt too ( as in Über .. ) ….. you are right on the .com.br, but, the ability of writing são paulo without crashing the browser, IS the difference of grabbing the attention of an entire generation ( you are right, the younger, got so used on not using the accents over the internet, that they tend not to bother at all with a pen as well ) … but for us, the older folks, the ability of writing é, as you know, means a lot, … .club wont be crossing the atlantic as powerful as .link and .click, … naturally, a gtld, under the IDN argument, by not including ç, excluded half of south america and latin Europe [+Quebec!!!!!] ! another example, “Bayern München” is different than “Bayern Munchen” ! hence, München.Bayern is extremely valuable ! [ think: super bowl half time ad$, Football ( soccer ) generates more than 3 NHL leagues together worldwide … ] …. I will be a bit bold too, and maybe not correct, but I firmly think, if the .quebec “gTLD” was “.québec ( with the accent ), Quebec govt would have sustained its initial plan on migrating to it…..( I am Brz-Canadian ) but no one will state so publicly, ….. I wish not to comment on Asian, Nordic languages, as I do not have have such knowledge, but I have friends and family all over, and the idn “thingie” makes a difference …. as for search engines, why is everybody so obsessed with google indexing ? google, imho, is nothing but yellow pages, … i do understand appraisals and domain flipping are heavily tied to that, but the meaning and type-in url ability with so many lex/language options now, over time is and will reduce the importance of indexing, google ( i stopped using google long time ago ) needs to adhere – it should not be the other way around, the way I see, gTLDs owners or domain investors shouldn’t be trying to place content on new gTLDs having google’s algorithm in mind, by all means ( and please do ) place and publish content, but dont worry about the middle entities, 5-6 years from now .. I think, in my limited vision, kids will be typing directly into the url “whatupfriday.today etc etc ” rather than opening the yellow pages .. very much like us, we dont memorize numbers anymore, it is in the cell phone’s agenda ! …… i like this discussion, PM me if you wish and I will share my perception, on the penetration rate around here … 🙂 ………. excuse my ignorance on the other topics, im a retired engineer, and very new to “domaining” … 🙂 have a great weekend, all.
Sridhar Raj says
Will Frank respond to my queries above and/or explain the deathly pace of just 8300 CLICK registrations till date? What is the plan going forward? A giveaway period sooner than planned? Other strategies? It does not look like it will even make it as far as dot LINK did without help..Unless both these extensions are given a value boost..soon expect them to got lost in the shuffle of the upcoming potentially popular web and shop etc.
PS: Google removed the “fail listing” status finally and I am seeing good amount of type in traffic on these extensions…
Gary TEDESCHI says
I bought 4 .Clicks, just for the heck of it. I will extend out the reistration time as long as I can and hold them. I am now young, so I will have my son open up a registar and eventually hand them down to him. Here are the names I regged!
RocknRoll.click -Estbot value $890
Floss.click – Estibot value $1,100
Financials.click – Estibot value – $900
Wagering.Click – $0
Adam says
Those are worthless, Gary.
You actually put weight behind Estibot for those? I would not get too excited if I were you.
You can do much better, even in the new TLD arena.
John says
How’s that going for you now, Gary. 🙂
One dropped, three parked with a miserable Sedo page?
GeneC says
Well, I am fairly new to this and never thought I’d have an interest in much beyond .com because most of the new TLDs don’t seem to offer any advantage other than being able to get names that have already been taken.
That said, .CLICK has been growing on me. While TLDs like .web and .site are broadly descriptive, .CLICK is a verb… and a command, and I actually think it could increase clickthrough rates when used in ads. Would love to see some research on this. I’d bet EmergencyPlumber.click gets more clicks in a PPC ad than EmergencyPlumber.xyz… and that would give the name intrinsic value
John says
.click is dead ; long live .click