Here’s what Mike Mann thinks regarding fresh TLDs

He has an opinion on everything. Here’s what he thinks regarding fresh TLDs.

The prior week I published comments from a number of domain industry professionals regarding what they think fresh top level domains will mean for domainers.

I think I forgot to tell Mike Mann to keep his comments to 100 words. So he came back with a smidge more, warranting this separate post.

Mann founded BuyDomains, later selling it to NameMedia. His firm built up one of the largest portfolios of .com’s in the world. He has since started DomainMarket.

Here’s what he thinks regarding fresh TLDs:

DomainMarket.com will not apply for any fresh TLDs since buying those fresh assets is too risky, given practically unlimited decent possibilities for .com investing still. Why would someone take additional risks ahead of they have exhausted the obvious low hanging fruit in premium .com domain values? Not to mention the related ability to consistently, competitively improve their google rankings and site conversions? And eliminate branding confusion; ride the coming flight to .com quality tide?

I am glad the players will be promoting domains in general and it will encourage more overall domain sales whether or not any ALT TLD sites get serious traction, which will be a modest percentage compared to the corresponding .com match, that I may own.

The .com will get more traffic and brand recognition and go up in value irrespective of whether the inferiorly named competing brand succeeds or fails ultimately. I think the .coms that are truly premium are by now worth much more than they sell for on average, and can only go up with the growth of the internet and “competing” TLDs, further reinforcing the need to fly to quality and control the best .coms at the expense of the confused masses who will eventually come around.

This article from Microsoft Labs helps clarify some of the many reasons why premium .com domains rule the Internet, “Domain Bias in Web Search”.

Also if we account for the fact one could use the .coms for years and they would only go up in value, it’s clearly a slam dunk to stay focused on the best lowest cost .coms until they are exhausted, ahead of you take additional ALT TLD risks. Fleshing out the system could take years and we will probably find most ALT investors not appreciating their spoils, and finding they are and were confused.

I do own a robust portfolio of .co domains from Colombia and the best .org collection on earth and a lot of .net. But just the very best of those. Further down the quality line and confusion line you go, the greater the risk of your investment. So why increase risk?

.Co is a fantastic extension that even makes more sense than .com in many respects; shorter and stands for Corporation or Firm, is universally recognizable, etc. But even that extension has to work hard to make a good living. I expect the vast majority of fresh entrants to dwarf .co in registration volume for those reasons. And people in general being oversaturated, confused, broke, and without time to study the deals.

.Coms will stand the test of time. If somebody builds something on .TV, then someone else builds it on .co.uk and .net, the value of the .com could skyrocket. .Com is king and will remain king, at least until the metric system is adopted by Americans. I’ll take 2 cents and a few million please, www.makemillions.com.