Disappearing Dotcoms

The rush to secure good dotcom domains continues seemingly unabated by the belief that most of the best ones have already gone.

In a typical scenario, the owner of a business who decides to have a website presence finds that all mainstream names connected to their industry and products has been snapped up.

That is why; as you work around a busy business district you see domain names attached to corporate signs and advertising media which were obviously the second or third choice. “I know the name that they probably wanted” you say to yourself.

So why are dotcom domains disappearing? The reasons are probably twofold. Firstly a chuck is being used in a orderly fashion, that is, a business is using a name which relates to its business and was purchased for that reason.

The other portions are registrations which were bought on a speculative basis, as an investment by people who believe that they could be worth something someday.

Within this category you might find an individual with over 2,000 dotcoms in their stable whilst they use a fraction of them to house productive websites.

The growth of websites which offer bidding services for domains prove the latter point as this type of business would typically be expected to grow in line with the volume of excess dotcoms.

The price which might be paid in a bidding scenario would depend on several factors including the age, name and number of searches performed which related to the domain. As always, the value of something is limited by what a buyer would be willing to pay and so the general rules only provide a guidance price.

The focus on dotcoms, the oldest and most well known domain extension is perhaps unreasonably as a ditbz or doteu extension with a good name could have stronger appeal than an old name with a dotcom suffix.

Part of the attraction is the fact that very few good dotcom extensions exist and so find one is a real catch.

Whilst dotcom names will never run out (unless a restrictive cap is placed on their length), the lengths that people are willing to go to in order to obtain one may make the advertising signs even more bizarre.