Is the .xxx madness over?

just another failed tld. they only get 10 new registrations per day or so.

10 too many

They made a big big mistake by over-pricing; completely shot themselves in the feet

.xxx are garbage. But the world is filled with suckers, so I don't fault ICANN for trying. They figured they could milk adult webmasters for cash and segregate them away from the world wide web all in one shot.

It was just a dumb webmaster tax

ICM is applying for .porn .sex and .adult IMO, their overpricing is intended to "extort" money from trademark holders. Getting stakeholders to actually use .xxx is less important to them.

You would have to be a fool not see the bigger picture, did you know that over 1,000 new domain extensions are hitting the space. Not country code domains but gTLDs Generic Top Level Domains. Basically because so many domain names are already registered under the current naming system, ICANN is increasing the number of domain extensions available to enable people to choose better, more relevant, and more targeted domain names.

Google intends to index domains differently for a better user experience, the free ride is over with SEO, you now need to spend money for marketing and branding. This is where big money is going to be spent online, branding some of these new domain extensions. In which means the .com is no longer relevant. It wont be overnight, but in a couple of years a lot of these new extensions will take off.

Google themselves are in the domain biz, they are coming out with .google, .docs, .lol, and .youtube, they want people to promote their youtube channels with a .youtube extension. Smart idea to make money, plus I am sure they will out rank other extensions...since they want more out of their own search engine.

As far as .xxx, I do agree it is expensive but if you lived in Japan and needed to get a .jp domain, they go for almost $100 also. Plus again looking at the bigger picture here, if relevant and targeted for an adult website, a search engine may favor an adult website extension like .xxx, and If you own a .xxx domain you get a chance to have the same domain with the new adult extensions .porn, .adult, and .sex. I have around 10 but most likely keep 5, maybe the price will drop in the future.

interesting article

i know all about the new gtlds and i think they're more or less stupid and a waste of money. with prices ranging from 20-2500 bucks per domain and the registries keeping most of the good domains for themselves its a non event. the idea that this is making more domains available is a joke when users will need to pony up four or five figures to get the good ones the registries are holding back (they're holding back tens of thousands, for example .link is holding back over 20,000 domains as premium and these guys are even parking them..lol)..and they are holding more and more back with each release. sure, i bought a few but how people are going to keep paying 250-2500 bucks a year for a renewal on a half ass decent domain? i predict a mass drop next year since the majority of the current buying is being driven by domainers. some tlds haven't even been able sell 1000 domains. many will simply not succeed and domain holders will be left with worthless domains no one wants. i'm willing to bet even in 25 years .com is still number one and the most sought after extension. oh yeah, and icm isn't even making enough money to pay the salaries of all its employees and IFFOR.

I think they are probably banking on eventually seeing legislation to force adult into .xxx or .adult, etc. It's a big gamble on their part. If it happens they could get filthy rich. If not well who knows.

That sounds about right. If they want to sell they need to open things up fully and price competitively. When that happens premium domain values will plummet because there will be so many new TLDs. .Com may be king but sometimes the queen or prince will do just as well.

The problem is at any time the Government wants to demand all adult content be regulated to .xxx, they can do it and it's already set up.

Good post really.

It's lobbyists who want to do that, .xxx use your money to lobby government, lobbying is essentially bribery. On that basis I did not buy any .xxx domains as I'm not going to allow my own money to be used to kill off the rest of my business.

You must own a lot of gtlds

People have been saying this for over a decade since the launch of gTLDs .info (2001) and .biz (2002). According to webhosting.info, there are 3.2 million .info and 1.3 million .biz in the current zone file, hardly threatening to .com's dominance with 61.7 million. .com isn't going to lose its relevance. There are milllions of established businesses that have already spent lots of money marketing and branding their .com sites. It's ridiculous to think they're going to switch to a different gTLD without clear and significant advantages.

Think along the lines of VHS Vs Betamax, that's what .com Vs .whatever is

.com will stay de facto until there's a real game-changer, like when DVD showed up

of all the different "sky is falling" threats to the industry that was about the most ridiculous

I am down from 3k to 175, hope to be under 125 next year...

I don't disagree with you, but the transition is already happening with search engines. I used to rank with domain keywords, now you?re lucky you rank with great content. Another words the little guy is no longer going to be able to compete with just SEO. Facebook is even pushing you to pay now for marketing since they are making it more difficult to find your page.

The .com is still going to be around, but you will see the other extensions rank better for certain words in time. The .xxx extension is now ranking well in google in which a year ago it was none existent.

I did put a pre-order in for 2 .fish extension domains, doubt I will win them.

i've been watching every new gtld release, seeing who is buying what and what is reserved and if its 2 letter, you've got no chance. also apparently the registries can see what is being pre-ordered and are looking through these lists to reserve even more 'premium' domains. i've gone through searching over 100 domains in each new tld and often times i am left with only a handful being either available or registered by a person and not being held as premium or on a collision or block list.

Rip offffff

Yes, of course...