how come .com base growing?

paradox for holiday meditation

[pds123]

so heres a paradox that struck me while on vacation: everyone says how hard it is to find new .com names, yet the number of .com domains is growing like crazy (45m to 60m this year alone). how can this be? what are all these new domains? just speculation (people hoping to get lucky on ppc or resale)?

Note: (1) it isnt due to tasting because NET new registrations is growing (2) i thought of this while reading dan warners (excellent) paper on aftermarket domains (see his 11/19 post) where section 10.2.1.6 says: "almost all the good domain names are gone" then a few lines later: "net change in [go daddy 9/05 to 9/06] registrations was 5 million domains" - thats a 50%+ growth!

[rocker]

how can this be?

I think it is because of all the small business owners that are registering domain names that reflect their business. Such as "Janets Custom Drapes" and "Bill And Bobs Hardware"

Dan was probably refering to all the good generic domain names are gone. When you think about all the small business names worldwide the numbers can be staggering.

[pds123]

hmm, thats a good thought - small bus must be some of it, but i read there are only 10-15m small bus in the US - even if double to take into account rest of world and assume 10% registered domains this year, thats only <3m of 15m net new registrations...

[edited by: pds123 at 2:54 am (utc) on Dec. 29, 2006]

[Webwork]

Multi-word search has been growing in popularity. The same might be argued for domains. Long URLs work.

There are many versions of domain geotargeting that are still being realized: City+Service.tld.

As businesses wake up to search ranking issues and PPC costs a growing number of businesses will likely launch multiple websites.

Lots going on, including the sorry fact that for any website that gains popularity there are 10, 20, 50 versions of typo domains that are getting registered.

[pds123]

thx, these are interesting thoughts - some (uninformed) reactions:
(1)long domains: wldnt long domains get less type-in traffic?
(2)geo targeting: is this then the best way to find new domains - id have thought most of them have gone (big geos) or wouldnt get much traffic (small geos)
(3) can u say a bit more about "search ranking and ppc issues" not sure i understand
(4)are there that many more poplular sites that the typos could really drive massive new traffic - again id have thought some, but not million and millions of new domains
i was thinking might be nonenlishlanguageword.com sites perhaps? (but dont know if some guy in berlin is really gonna type in bratwurst.com as opposed to bratwurst.de)

[maximillianos]

Geo targeting seems like a good reason to me. Everyone and their grandparents are registering "localized" domains.

[commanderW]

Okay - maybe i'm a good example. I'm totally new at it all. 1st computer 4yrs ago. Now i'm in deep. I bought my 1st domains this year. 7. Only one was the original name choice ( & it was so offbeat i really would've been surprised if it was taken. ).
Of the other 6, i only wanted 2 originally. The 1st i tried to register became a very unsatisfactory on the spot substitute. Prompting me to register a 2nd only slightly more satisfactory domain ( thus turning one domain into 2 registered.).
Then, the 2nd was taken in all possible variations, & likewise replaced by an even more unsatisfactory substitute. so much so that when i registered a better one, i got the .com & the .info. so that one turned into 3 domains. The next day i even bought a 4th substitute i thought of in bed.
So of the 2 domains i wanted which were taken in all good variations, I wound up w/ 6 substitutes. Not only that, they are long-tailed &/or hyphenated, & 2 of them have 'localized' elements which were only tacked on because the general terms were also already gone.

All told i bought 7 instead of 3 domains. I'm still not satisfied & will wind up buying even more!

[pds123]

what are you using them for? if not monetising, will you keep paying $$ forever just to hold on to them? seems like lots of people are buying in hope of reselling/getting ad revenue - as im sure a lot wont succeed, is this growth just a bubble?

[commanderW]

Well, i had 3 different specific sites & names in mind when i started ( Ad revenue will be nice, of course. ). the point here is that when i went to buy the domains, they were already taken. I wound up buying more than one substitute for each one because i wasn't happy w/ the ones i came up with on the spot ( instead of the ones i wanted.). Then i thought of better substitute names later & bought more. I would still like 3 better names than what i'm stuck with.
Therefore, the fact that 'all the good domains are taken' has actually spurred me to buy even more domains than if i had gotten the 3 i wanted to begin with.
In other words, just because i can't get the name i want hasn't stopped me. On the contrary, it's turning me into a 'squatter'!( Of course, I'll only use 3 & probably let the other 4 expire.)