.XXX Domains: The Not So Hot Numbers...

[ppcwiz]

.XXX domains, The Hard Numbers @ DNN.com

DNN recently analyzed the top 1,000,000 most heavily trafficked and popular websites in the world, according to Alexa, and the results were shocking when we specifically looked at the now 1 year old active dot XXX extension. Our research revealed that only 61 developed websites that are using the .XXX extension placed inside the top 1 million of the most visited sites in the world. Many would expect these adult-oriented websites to be pulling in massive amounts of traffic and interest soon after launching, but apparently that isn?t the case so far ...

Read the rest at http://www.domainnamenews.com/editor...-numbers/10425

[Failed]

Unbiased and fair reporting

[JFK]

they took in 25 mill in the last quarter ?

[Tom_PM]

Many would expect them to be pulling in numbers? Who are these many?

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

they took in 25 mill in the last quarter?

ADG

[alextokyo]

they took in 25 mill in the last quarter ?

Yeah. You guys sure showed that nalem guy.

[pornmasta]

ADG

omg where can i buy it !

[Sly]

Think of every conversation you have about websites with common, everyday people.

How many of them are about a website that is not a .com?

[ottopottomouse]

Think of every conversation you have about websites with common, everyday people.

How many of them are about a website that is not a .com?

split between .com and .co.uk but only because that's local

[ppcwiz]

I am sure the fellas at MANWIN are very pleased to hear about these numbers, eh.

[u-Bob]

Wait a couple of months until all those wannabe domainers find out they can't afford to renew those crappy .xxx domains no one is interested in.

[Freaky_Akula]

Fuck dotxxx!!!

[MrCain]

[AdultKing]

I suspect the most telling figures will be around the end of the year at renewal time.

[Freaky_Akula]

All major registrars are offering big discounts on dotxxx registrations. It is an obvious sign dotxxx has failed.

[tonyparra]

All major registrars are offering big discounts on dotxxx registrations. It is an obvious sign dotxxx has failed.

Its still early for them. But they really shot themselves in the foot by dogging the people who actually build the adult internet. They had some interesting ideas but their execution was terrible, they business model was pure extortion, then when the qoing got tough they withdrew from the biggest adult board. They should have only sold the domains to adult webmasters who could prove they were actually had revenue generating website first , but at reasonable cost, then opened it to the general public at the high price. It might have had more steam by now cus then im sure there would be some big tgps or tubes with the extension by now.

[brentbacardi]

Fuck .XXX!

[AdultKing]

I'm looking forward for the end of year numbers.

[V_RocKs]

.xxx is for people with too much money in their pockets.

[Paul Markham]

they took in 25 mill in the last quarter ?

Go do the maths on his figures. They don't add up.

Still good to see they want to launch more of these scamming domains. There's one born every day.

[AdultKing]

.pro is a more popular domain than .xxx and I can't remember ever seeing a .pro domain.

[2intense]

fuck .xxx

[Emil]

This is hot:



.XXX is not.

[Freaky_Akula]

Prior to the launch, Stuart Lawley claimed that ICMR would be bringing in around $200 million a year though dotxxx. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...6038373596.htm

[Paul Markham]

fuck .xxx

It looks like they're going to get fucked big time when renewals don't happen. Some domain sellers are going to get fucked.

[Naughty-Pages]

Wait a couple of months until all those wannabe domainers find out they can't afford to renew those crappy .xxx domains no one is interested in.

Agreed... I can't believe some of these people that scooped up a dozen or two names thinking they would be able to resell them.. lol

it actually makes me feel bad for them...

I especially liked this part of the article:

Out of all those registrations 132,859 are adult-oriented and a whopping 82,976 are non-adult defensive registrations, domains of celebrities and sensitive uses, and those ICM Registry reserved for future uses and sales under the .XXX Premium Names Program and the .XXX Adult Performer Program.

That means in total there really are only 49,883.. but of those: most were probably done by domainers.. lol

as can be seen by this:

Actual number of “built out sites” that they are aware of and can acknolwedge is 27,555 at this point

which will probably be 1/2 that number come renewal time.

[JFK]

Prior to the launch, Stuart Lawley claimed that ICMR would be bringing in around $200 million a year though dotxxx. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...6038373596.htm

this is interesting, didnt know where all the funding came from

"The Internet has made Stuart Lawley a wealthy man. In 1999 he got rich by taking a British Internet service provider public. The London Sunday Times has named him one of the 1,000 richest people in Britain."

[Why]

can we say FAIL?

[NETbilling]

Terrible numbers

[FetishWeb]

Actual number of “built out sites” that they are aware of and can acknolwedge is 27,555 at this point

Wait a minute - do people actually believe Lawley's figure of 25,000 "built out" .xxx sites?

I'd be surprised if there's even 250 outside of place holders, forsale pages and weird junk.

61 .xxx sites in the 1 million on alexa? thats pretty damning.

[Failed]

I'd imagine now that there is a grandfather clause guaranteeing .xxx domain owners the .porn, .sex, and .adult domains at no cost for reserving the added extensions there will be many more renewals than previously anticipated and registering of .xxx extensions will increase. I will certainly be renewing the 4 .xxx domains I own.

[tonyparra]

I'd imagine now that there is a grandfather clause guaranteeing .xxx domain owners the .porn, .sex, and .adult domains at no cost for reserving the added extensions there will be many more renewals than previously anticipated and registering of .xxx extensions will increase. I will certainly be renewing the 4 .xxx domains I own.

dont mind being apart of the adult ghetto do you

[Failed]

dont mind being apart of the adult ghetto do you

I don't mind being apart of anything that's profitable.

[FetishWeb]

I don't mind being apart of anything that's profitable.

Good call. Profits will definitely soar when no one can reach your sites.

[Failed]

Good call. Profits will definitely soar when no one can reach your sites.

And when is this going to happen? This scare tactic was used for how long now without any actual blockage? I consider it a smart investment to carry a few domains just in case it works the other way around and governments decide porn can only be on adult domains. It's probably just as likely a scenario.

[Quentin]

I'd imagine now that there is a grandfather clause guaranteeing .xxx domain owners the .porn, .sex, and .adult domains at no cost for reserving the added extensions there will be many more renewals than previously anticipated and registering of .xxx extensions will increase. I will certainly be renewing the 4 .xxx domains I own.

In order for that grandfathering clause to have any significance whatsoever, ICM Registry has to win approval to be the registry for .porn, .sex and .adult, first.

There's no way that's going to happen before the first renewal period for .XXX domains. Each gTLD application has to go through a rather long approval process, then all applications are subject to objections by various groups with standing to object (and believe me, there will be many objections to .porn, .sex and .adult), and there's no guarantee at all that ICM will ever win approval to administer those three gTLDs.

In other words... probably wiser to not count your chickens before the egg has been laid, much less hatched. ;-)

I outlined all of this in a post last year -- but you needn't take my word for it on any of this; you can read ICANN's gTLD Applicant Guidebook for yourself. Sure, it's long and dry, but if you are staking your assessment of your .XXX domains' value in part on the prospect of eventually owning the .adult, .sex and .porn versions of those same names, you owe it to yourself to understand the process and the issues.

[FetishWeb]

And when is this going to happen? This scare tactic was used for how long now without any actual blockage? I consider it a smart investment to carry a few domains just in case it works the other way around and governments decide porn can only be on adult domains. It's probably just as likely a scenario.

You should put that "smart investor" grey matter to work and ask yourself why someone like Lawley would want to introduce 3 other extensions to compete with .XXX

[Naughty-Pages]

I consider it a smart investment to carry a few domains just in case it works the other way around and governments decide porn can only be on adult domains. It's probably just as likely a scenario.

I had anticipated picking up a couple .xxx's in the future as a backup in the event that happened, but I figured I would wait for them to adjust the pricing once they realize it was a mistake and total failure. Now if a Bible thumper makes it into the Presidency in the upcoming election here in the US, I may reconsider my time frame.

I mean no one wanted it to begin with, whether it was bible thumpers or those in the porn industry.. but they wanted to extort people to gain revenue, so they blatantly ignored everyone.

I have said all along the only possible outcome from .xxx will be negative one.. aside from the ridiculous pricing that would eat up a good chunk of profit margins, there is also issue of blocking and/or some countries forcing their citizens who own porn sites to use .xxx as a red light district.. just like they restrict adult businesses here in the USA (strip clubs, theaters, adult stores are restricted by zoning to certain areas).

I have over 1000 sites.. if I were to switch, that would translate to like $100,000+ a year instead of $8,000+ a year.. which would leave just enough revenue remaining to pay my hosting and employees... of course then I would also have to live in a cardboard box and eat at the soup kitchen.... I wonder if comcast will allow internet service to a cardboard box?

[AdultKing]

I track around 4000 keywords, .xxx domains don't rank for any of them. nuff said

[Barry-xlovecam]

In order for that grandfathering clause to have any significance whatsoever, ICM Registry has to win approval to be the registry for .porn, .sex and .adult, first.

There's no way that's going to happen before the first renewal period for .XXX domains. Each gTLD application has to go through a rather long approval process, then all applications are subject to objections by various groups with standing to object (and believe me, there will be many objections to .porn, .sex and .adult), and there's no guarantee at all that ICM will ever win approval to administer those three gTLDs.

In other words... probably wiser to not count your chickens before the egg has been laid, much less hatched. ;-)

I outlined all of this in a post last year -- but you needn't take my word for it on any of this; you can read ICANN's gTLD Applicant Guidebook for yourself. Sure, it's long and dry, but if you are staking your assessment of your .XXX domains' value in part on the prospect of eventually owning the .adult, .sex and .porn versions of those same names, you owe it to yourself to understand the process and the issues.

There is also the matter of string contention to consider and the resulting string auctions -- receiving approval and the franchise to operate the .adult, .sex and .porn gTLDs may very well be contested by more than one applicant.

stay tuned http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program...cation-results

[CYF]

can't say I'm really surprised. No one seemed to want the extension to begin with.

[Paul Markham]

Wait a minute - do people actually believe Lawley's figure of 25,000 "built out" .xxx sites?

You mean he might be bullshitting us?????????????

[Naughty-Pages]

You mean he might be bullshitting us?????????????

Well.. he blatantly bullshitted his way to get .xxx (while at the same time ignoring every single one of the thousands upon thousands of industry related people against it)... so ya.. i believe it.. lol

[Black All Through]

Wait a couple of months until all those wannabe domainers find out they can't afford to renew those crappy .xxx domains no one is interested in.

I can back that up, I've spoken to two idiots from Canada that aren't going to renew their .XXX domains, they bought them for a quick resell and cant find anyone to take them off their hands.

[lazycash]

I don't mind being apart of anything that's profitable.

Great, so how much profit have you made over the reg fees of your 4 .xxx domains?

[Freaky_Akula]

For a good laugh read http://domainincite.com/is-xxx-really-that-crappy/ Hilarious how these domainers keep trying to fool themselves into believing that .xxx isn't doing too badly.

[PornMD]

I track around 4000 keywords, .xxx domains don't rank for any of them. nuff said

Gay.xxx ranking page 1 for gay xxx is the only .xxx ranking I've heard of. $500,000 well spent, right?

[ppcwiz]

Found this tweet earlier to be pretty funny

@CNETNews
The .XXX top-level domain: A vast wasteland (and not in a dirty-minded way)
http://cnet.co/Kb5hzG

Is anyone actually going to .XXX domains?

An analysis suggests that only 61 .xxx domains are in the top 1 million visited sites in the world. The highest is at number 51,549 in the Alexa rankings.

I know that many people were excited when .xxx domains first reared their pretty heads a year ago.

Yet there was already some evidence at the end of last year that some institutions, such as, for example, Stanford and the U.S. Department of Justice had not bothered to protect themselves by registering their own .xxx.

...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57...-.xxx-domains/

[Failed]

Great, so how much profit have you made over the reg fees of your 4 .xxx domains?

I'll actually give you an honest answer about profit here on GFY (shocking). I've made just a little over the initial registration fee and little more than the amount required to pay the renewal fees coming up. I'm not here pretending to be a baller, or saying the way ICM went about this whole thing is a great way of doing business, just that I'm not going to give something up that has potential and won't allow myself to pressured by others who hate ICM.

Refocusing that hate for .xxx on card bangers, piracy, shaving, cheating...you know, the real issues that have destroyed business would be a better focus in my opinion.

[kate27]

very interesting read, thank you for posting!