[November 16, 2011]

Domain Name Pricing Data Reveals Insight into Potential Performance of New Extensions

Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace and monetization provider, today announced the addition of ten new sub-indices to IDNX, the industry's first standardized domain price index. The addition of this functionality enables IDNX users to graphically compare the historical pricing trends of separate Top Level Domains (TLDs) including .com, .net, .org and .co.uk. With the pending introduction of hundreds of new gTLDs, the IDNX sub-indices give entrepreneurs, marketers, and others in the domain industry data to help forecast the potential success or failure of new endings.

"There's no doubt that opening the floodgate on new domain extensions will be a significant milestone in the history of the Internet, but we've seen the introduction of new names before," said Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo. "While speculation runs rampant about how new names might peform, we can learn a lot from what's happened in the past. For example, IDNX shows that .com has remained the clear leader even after the introduction of new TLDs ten years ago, and we expect that to hold true for the foreseeable future."

Developed by economist and internet entrepreneur Thies Lindenthal, IDNX uses real estate economic methodology to provide investors with critical insight into the current market value of domains, domain industry trends, and the risk to return ratio of domains as a financial asset. Breaking IDNX into sub-indices has enabled Lindenthal to make the following observations based on the available data:

• Me-too won't do. The historic performance of .net, .org, .biz, and .mobi was too weak to close the gap with market leader .com. Both price trends and registration numbers show that demand for "second-best" substitutes has been modest, at best.
• Management Matters. The relative success of .info vs. .biz and the other TLDs introduced in 2001 shows that a TLD can be successfully introduced to the market, which provides encouraging news for aspiring registries.
• The bigger the better. The .com extension, which targets the entire world, has outperformed regional champions. Even successful country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) like .co.uk and .de have not kept pace with .com since 2008. This casts some doubt on the viability of new regional TLDs that have been proposed, such as .nyc (for New York City).

"Running a domain registry is no simple task. In fact, it's reasonable to assume that most new TLDs will find it difficult to reach the same levels of success as .com," said Lindenthal. "People that are interested in applying for a new gTLD should think long and hard about the logistics of launching a new domain extension, and the performance of the current domain market, as indicated by IDNX, is an invaluable indicator on which to base their decisions."

To view IDNX, and the new sub-indices, visit http://sedo.com/idnx.

About Sedo

Sedo, an acronym for "Search Engine for Domain Offers," is the leading domain marketplace and monetization provider. Headquartered in Cologne, Germany and with offices in London, England and Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world's largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 15 million listings. The success of Sedo's model has attracted a global membership base of more than 1 million domain professionals. For more information, visit www.Sedo.com.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]