Understanding Domain Industry Basics
Posted by Daniel Negari in Featured
The past 48 hours have been very exciting for .xyz. As we have expected, our tremendous success has been accompanied with a number of questions. I intend to field more advanced questions in the future, but I want to set up this Q&A series with the fundamentals. I will summarize key points that all registrants should understand about domain names in general, along with .xyz in particular.
What is a Registrant?
A Domain Registrant is the individual or organization that has registered a domain name. For example, if Bob is the owner of onemillion.xyz, he is the Registrant of the domain name onemillion.xyz, which he purchased from the Registrar (i.e. Uniregistry). Any questions that a registrant may have regarding a particular domain name or set of domain names should be addressed to the Registrar.
What is a Registrar?
A Domain Registrar is an organization that enables Registrants to register domain names in various top level and second level domain extensions. The Domain Registrar also manages the reservation, transfer, and renewal of domain names. As a result of the shared registration system created in 1999, Domain Registrars must be ICANN-accredited. Also, in order for a Domain Registrar to carry a specific gTLD or ccTLD, the Domain Registrar must be accredited by each associated registry.
What is a Registry Operator?
A Domain Registry Operator, like .xyz, is responsible for the operation of a particular domain extension (gTLD or ccTLD). Such responsibilities include administering the data of the top level domain, generating zone files, maintaining the whois database, and providing equal operational access to all Registrars. It is up to the registrars to determine how they would like to drive registrations.
What is ICANN?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (or ICANN) is a nonprofit organization that administers the global domain name system, which includes the entire naming system and all domain extensions. As the registry operator of the generic top level domain domain .xyz, we work within the rules and structures put forward by ICANN.
source: (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/welcome-2012-02-25-en)
Why does .xyz have so many registrations?
This is the result of two years of hard work from the team behind .xyz. Through extensive media outreach and persistence in working with registrars of all sizes, we have created a distribution network of 200+ registrars, plus their reseller networks. Our distribution network has been educating registrants about the value of .xyz and pricing .xyz domain names as low as $8.88. As a result, we have generated a vast amount of registrations from individuals, investors, startups, and established organizations.
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Keep in mind that .com wasn’t built in a day. Anyone that has already bought a .xyz is a founder, and you have made a wise investment. There will be many more sales like Deals.xyz, which was brokered for $8,113, in the aftermarket. In fact, there are already a number of .xyz domain listings on Flippa and active auctions on GoDaddy for .xyz domain names. Rather than creating a Founder’s program and charging thousands of dollars for premium domain names, I have provided equal footing for investors from all income brackets and countries to invest in .xyz.
As we get closer to our goal of one million registrations, I am sure there will be many more questions. This site is here to provide relevant answers. I will soon be releasing tips to help investors buy and sell .xyz domain names.
Best Regards,
D
*NOTE TO COMMENTERS* Please note that I am the CEO, and I do not read blogs or blog comments very frequently. I had originally only planned to post on this blog once a month, but I do intend to address my commenters with responses to educated questions.
Daniel, I have about 20 .xyz domains right now and I’m looking to acquire some more. Can you answer some questions?
1 – Did you make a deal to give away 25,000+ domains for free to existing .com owners? If so, what was your thinking behind this? Doesn’t this doom these names to become at best redirects to the .com? PetOwners.com will never rebrand to PetOwners.xyz and now you have kept PetOwners.xyz out of the hands of someone who might have built a site on the name. Am I wrong?
2 – I bought as many .club names as I could reasonably afford because I saw the registry promoting the extension heavily and putting money behind promoting new sites using the extension. Can you tell me what plans .xyz has to promote the extension and sites built on the extension?
By the way, one common thing I hear about xyz is that it’s too many syllables to pronounce. Once the extension becomes known, it will probably be ok to leave off the “dot” when saying the name simply because xyz is an obvious break from most keywords. In other words there is no need to say “For more information go to Pet Owners Dot XYZ”. It can just be “For more information go to Pet Owners XYZ”. I think it’s an interesting difference from other extensions.
Hi William,
Thank you for your support so far and your well thought-out question. My answers are below:
1. The market is competitive and dynamic, some registrars might charge $0 for a domain name, and others might charge $50 or $5,000. It is up to the registrar to decide how they wish to market their products and services (ex: free hosting, rebates, etc…)
As a Registry Operator – it is not our role to set that pricing. The way it works is that we set a standard wholesale price – just like Verisign sets for .com. To protect our Registrars, we are not disclosing our wholesale pricing, however I confirm that it is the same for all Registrars regardless of how much they sell a domain name for.
2. We have been promoting .xyz and we will continue to promote .xyz aggressively for years to come. .xyz is my life, and my passion. Anyone that invests in .xyz will reap the rewards of the hard work of our team and our registrar partners. There is already a demand for premium .xyz domains and this demand will only continue to grow as the popularity of .xyz grows. In just the first few days we have seen numerous .xyz websites pop up and you will begin to find more and more sites indexed in google. Here are some examples from around the world: http://www.tan.xyz http://www.dbt.xyz/ http://muji.xyz/ http://www.jip.xyz
As more end users adopt .xyz you will see the value of your premium .xyz domains increase as well.
I already know of a few .xyz domain names that have been flipped and several premium domains that have already been brokered. The aftermarket is just beginning. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to learn more about buying and selling .xyz domain names.
Regarding the usage of PetOwners.com to PetOwners.xyz – I would like to see the registrant of PetOwners.xyz build a website to target the next generation of internet users, for special marketing and promotional campaigns, and for email services. The goal is not to replace their .com with a .xyz – although some people will do that, and are in the process of doing that. New registrants are coming online and need an affordable, available, and catchy presence. We are working very hard with our marketing campaigns to get these customers into .xyz domain names
Regarding XYZ being the last three letters of the alphabet – and being three syllables, that is what makes the extension unique, and addicting. Try and forget it :)
I hope this information has been useful for you, and anyone who had any questions or concerns on how the .xyz Registry is involved in the domain ecosystem.
D
Hi Daniel. I just got off the phone with GoDaddy and they took back Tutor.xyz. It was already in my portfolio, and I thought I had purchased a nice .xyz domain name. GoDaddy said that they made a mistake and that it had been registered to someone else. Whatever the true reason it is upsetting to pay for a domain name, have it in your portfolio, and then have it taken away from you. You may want to check with GoDaddy and other registrars to make sure they don’t start taking back domain names that domain investors have registered.
Patrick
Great point. Our support team has been responding to questions we have been informed of. This seems to be an isolated pre-registration situation with your registrar. Remember the post – We are the Registry – not the Registrar, and you are the Registrant. Using Tutor.xyz as an example is perfect. It is a great domain. – worth more than $10-15 – for sure. I would say it might go for $500 – 1K on NameJet. Now from a registry standpoint – we get a request from a registrar to create the domain name tutor.xyz . We do not see that there is one , two, three, four, or however many registrants trying to buy that domain.
Walking through the steps – we get a create request. The registry – creates the domain. This is done on a first come – first serve basis. What that means is whatever registrar puts that request in first, gets the domain. Next step, the domain is created and the Registrar takes it from here. In the case of Tutor.xyz – the domain was created at GoDaddy.
You may do a WHOIS lookup here
http://nic.xyz/whois
And Check out who the Registrant (the owner of tutor.xyz is)
We have been informed of aftermarket auctions @ GoDaddy occurring right now. It seems multiple requests for the same domain – led to an auction. We have nothing to do with this as the Registry.
Now as to your specific situation – as the Registry (.xyz) we are not involved in any way with the Registrant. The Registrant is the client of the Registrar.
Lot’s of R’s going on here – even the best of us confuse it sometimes.
The WHOIS lookup indicated the domain was registered @ GoDaddy. Do the WHOIS lookup and call or email the registrant. Offer him $100, 200, $500. See what they say. Should be a no brainer; bought for $15 flipped for $250 in less than 2 days. Take the domain, build it, lease it, flip it, partner with someone on it, use it for your own personal Tutor service. How cool is that your tutor’s email is [email protected] – set yourself apart from the market. Join the next generation.
I will be posting more educational content on how to domain properly as a value add for my readers. I disclaim again, I am running the fastest going registry right now, what other Registry is out there personally responding to legitimate customer support? There are a handful of these types of questions we have already fielded, and in almost every case, the Registrant has secured other domain names. 113 Million .com’s registered; and the registry is still growing.
Lets hit the first million together. You the Registrant – are my partner in this venture, rather than holding back every good name (like tutor.xyz) I gave it away at reg fee, no variable pricing, pure transparency.
Best of luck to you.
D
You can delete my comments but it does not make you a real entrepreneur.You should be banned from this industry !
Give away free domains and say .xyz is sky rocketing.What a real liar you are.You can still fool some out there.
But you have no credit against domainers whom can identify a liar from a km.