Fresh TLD proprietors ought to not rely on domainers for much revenue

Sorry fresh TLD operators, but domainers don’t have much money to give you.

Launching a fresh TLD? I hope you don’t have a big line item for revenue you’ll make from domainers registering your domains.

I’ve written regarding this ahead of, but want to stress it again: there’s not enough money to go around.

Yes, domainers have been there to prop up launches such as .eu and .mobi in the past.

But a couple things are different this time around:

1. Domainers don’t have as much cash to plow in to registrations as they did pre-2008 (when the PPC market burst)

2. You’ll have a whole lot of competition

For illustrative purposes only, let’s say domainers tend to invest $10 million in registrations during landrush and initial general availability for a “fresh” TLD. A fresh TLD typically comes around once a year or so historically.

Now let’s say we’re looking at 100 non .brand TLDs coming out in a span of a few months.

For domainers to have the same impact across this many TLDs, they’d need to invest $1 billion. That money doesn’t exist. (Even if you assume domainers only invest $5 million, the same ridiculous math holds true).

Sure, they’ll spend more than the $10 million in aggregate, but there’s a limit to their collective pocketbook.

The net result is you ought to expect a depressed number of registrations from domainers and lower prices for “premium” sales.