The state of the UK namespace.

[tomclowes]

Hi all.

I run a software company which has historically had a lot of exposure to domain names and the markets that exist for them. Historically we have predominantly built products on .com domains and have had good success with this.

Recently we have been investigating a large play in the UK namespace but noted some interesting things during our research. I was curious as to whether people with more experience/exposure to the UK namespace could share their insight with me?

As I can tell there is no real market for the resale of .co.uk and .uk domain names. If one were simply a reseller you'd be looking at sales in the £xxx - £x,xxx (for the best names) unless you are selling a great name direct to an end user that needs it? It seems to me that there is no real concept of buying a name for £xx,xxx and selling it for more simply because there is not enough demand for the namespace. Would that be a fair suggestion?

As far as end users go, UK businesses seem less interested in domain names than their international counterparts. I suppose that .com is international and there are thus a lot more potential end users. That said I feel that the few big end user sales that are happening are happening behind closed doors and that big is not really that big in the wider context?

As I understand, this is the biggest UK domain forum, and DomainLore is the biggest UK only sales platform. I very rarely see actual 'premium' domains sold here or on DL.

Fortunately I am not a domain reseller but would it be fair to say that nowadays it is a tough game to be in with the UK namespace. Great names don't come along often, and when they do there is not much money in it to do it as anything more than a side project? If that is a fair assumption, who would you say is buying UK names, and for what reasons?

If I have a look at NameBio the best (personal) names that I see having sold recently are:

octopus.co.uk 3,425 USD
proteinpowder.co.uk 2,437 USD
psychiatrist.co.uk 1,921 USD
kickboxing.co.uk 1,399 USD
bookkeeping.co.uk 4,103 USD

These have obvious uses for particular business/eCommerce/branding yet sell for (in the grand scheme) very little.

My main question is given a seeming lack of interest from resellers and end users in the UK namespace, as a developer should I even bother developing on .co.uk/.uk or should I just stump up the cash and pay (a lot) more for .com domains.

Thanks a lot.
Thomas

 

[RobM]

*edit* misunderstood your post
The uk market has always been valued about 1/10 of the com market in my opinion but that is because the barriers for entry and competitiveness are so much lower. It also used to be a lot cheaper but nominet seem intent on destroying that along with their useless extension diluting the namespace and expect massive price increases every year. Now I would not personally develop on any uk domains but there is still a strong reseller market. I would imagine most sales go unreported from experiences and witnessing the sheer volume of offers and the amount coming through dnmanager. Also there are still a lot of people chasing and catching lots daily - there must be a market as some of them have been doing it years.
However I'm unsure what you think is the problem - if people catch domains for a few pounds and then sell them £xxx-£xxxx reseller and more enduser that is still a good % roi. Buying for resale only in the 5 figure range to me seems like bad business. You buy at that price to develop and make consistent earnings - in the uk market that is likely to be most, if not all, of the domain's market value.
TL DR: there are 1 tenth as many uk domains as .com and the entry price can be anything from 15 times lower. You wouldn't expect the same activity in both extensions.

 

[fuzzer]

Whenever I see domains on TV, magazines, billboards, shop signs etc - the majority are .co.uk rather than .com.

From my point of view .co.uk is seen as the trusted extension for doing business in the UK - over .com as often the latter can lead to confusion for consumers - am I being taken to a US site??

I like to think most involved in marketing are aware of this.

Would be nice if Nominet had some recent stats/polls for this - anyone aware of any?

 

[RobM]

I doubt nominet have them. They can probably tell you how many parking spaces near you though or something useful like that.

 

[Nigel]

I think .co.uk and .uk are still the preferred choice of businesses focused on the uk market. However the co.uk market has suffered from lack of love from Nominet. Instead of nurturing and promoting this national asset they hiked reg fees and introduced the .uk (despite many domain experts telling them there was no demand for this new extension). When did you last see a nominet ad on national tv promoting our national extension? Indeed have you ever seen a nominet ad on national tv. promoting it? Premium domains are still in demand, but not at the prices of 6 to 7 years ago. End users will sometimes pay a big sum for a special .co.uk so those who have chosen their portfolio carefully should do well in the future. If you were looking to develop purely for the uk market then a .co.uk or .uk should do well and be a lot cheaper than the equivalent .com.

 

[Admin]

Nominet have done their best to ruin the UK namespace. I largely agree with you but strongly believe that most UK businesses dont value high enough the importance of the right domain. They just dont 'get it'. Maybe one day that will change, perhaps its changing very, very slowly.

 

[lazarus]

If you are targeting the UK market I would defiantly opt for a .co.uk / .uk
Check out Seemly for past prices.
https://seemly.co.uk/domains/prices

 

[tomclowes]

For some additional context. I am a developer. There are a few names that I want which are actual premium names. Based on reported sales and the general apparent state of the market I think that the names are overpriced but as an end user of sorts I am trying to gauge the extent to which overpaying the general market is reasonable/worthwhile as a business.

Some individual response:

*edit* misunderstood your post
The uk market has always been valued about 1/10 of the com market in my opinion but that is because the barriers for entry and competitiveness are so much lower. It also used to be a lot cheaper but nominet seem intent on destroying that along with their useless extension diluting the namespace and expect massive price increases every year. Now I would not personally develop on any uk domains but there is still a strong reseller market. I would imagine most sales go unreported from experiences and witnessing the sheer volume of offers and the amount coming through dnmanager. Also there are still a lot of people chasing and catching lots daily - there must be a market as some of them have been doing it years.
However I'm unsure what you think is the problem - if people catch domains for a few pounds and then sell them £xxx-£xxxx reseller and more enduser that is still a good % roi. Buying for resale only in the 5 figure range to me seems like bad business. You buy at that price to develop and make consistent earnings - in the uk market that is likely to be most, if not all, of the domain's market value.
TL DR: there are 1 tenth as many uk domains as .com and the entry price can be anything from 15 times lower. You wouldn't expect the same activity in both extensions.

I saw your original response too. No point has been missed. I was trying to gauge who is buying what, for how much, and why. By the sounds of it you are a reseller buying names for cheap and then selling them for £xxx - £x,xxx. I assume if you do this full time your business is made by the volume of sales rather than individual transaction value?

Whenever I see domains on TV, magazines, billboards, shop signs etc - the majority are .co.uk rather than .com.

From my point of view .co.uk is seen as the trusted extension for doing business in the UK - over .com as often the latter can lead to confusion for consumers - am I being taken to a US site??

I like to think most involved in marketing are aware of this.

Would be nice if Nominet had some recent stats/polls for this - anyone aware of any?

To be honest from my personal experience I disagree. I think I've seen more new gTLDs than .co.uk/.uk. That said perhaps I have my blinders on and am simply not noticing. Do you have any examples?

I understand what you mean about the whole 'Is this the US site' stuff.

I think .co.uk and .uk are still the preferred choice of businesses focused on the uk market. However the co.uk market has suffered from lack of love from Nominet. Instead of nurturing and promoting this national asset they hiked reg fees and introduced the .uk (despite many domain experts telling them there was no demand for this new extension). When did you last see a nominet ad on national tv promoting our national extension? Indeed have you ever seen a nominet ad on national tv. promoting it? Premium domains are still in demand, but not at the prices of 6 to 7 years ago. End users will sometimes pay a big sum for a special .co.uk so those who have chosen their portfolio carefully should do well in the future. If you were looking to develop purely for the uk market then a .co.uk or .uk should do well and be a lot cheaper than the equivalent .com.

Agreed. A lot cheaper than the .com = true. But cheap? Absolutely not That is essentially my concern. I am buying an asset for a business with a specific intention, but if the business sinks I do not have an asset I can resell. That concerns me.

Nominets lack of care and attention to promoting the namespace.. Is it just going to get worse? Is .co.uk/.uk as bad as .us?

Nominet have done their best to ruin the UK namespace. I largely agree with you but strongly believe that most UK businesses dont value high enough the importance of the right domain. They just dont 'get it'. Maybe one day that will change, perhaps its changing very, very slowly.

This is an interesting point in and of itself. You see a lot of big enduser .com sales to mainly US companies. Is it simply the case that UK companies are not clued up on the value of a good domain name? Or is it that the UK public do not care and as such there really is little value?

If you are targeting the UK market I would defiantly opt for a .co.uk / .uk
Check out Seemly for past prices.
https://seemly.co.uk/domains/prices

Is this your website or something? It proves my point that UK and .CO.UK domain names are not selling for big bucks..

Thanks all

 

[lazarus]

Hi No this is not my website. Obviously not all sales are recorded. Did you filter the largest amount to the smallest?

Can you please define big bucks? xxx,xxx - x,xxx,xxx

Thanks

 

[tomclowes]

Hi No this is not my website. Obviously not all sales are recorded. Can you please define big bucks ?

Anything above 20k

 

[lazarus]

Ah OK, I bet there are plenty of private sales above that going on. Obviously auction sites sell these for bargain bucket prices.

 

[ian]

As Rob said, .co.uk's are typically 10 - 15 times less than .com; I think that is a reasonable difference given one is geographical. Is it any different for other geo extensions (that are not generic like.co), so .fr, .de etc? Premium prices are still paid, but those are typically to end-user corporations that don't wish to discuss price. Any premium domains being sold on the likes of Domainlore are expected to reach the higher end of the reseller scale, no more than that.

If you have specific domain names in mind for a project, then see who is selling them; if they are even for sale. Some resellers (domainers) are open to doing realistic deals, others are not.

 

[Admin]

First of all can I just say @tomclowes you should post more .

Second...this is crazy talk

Nominets lack of care and attention to promoting the namespace.. Is it just going to get worse? Is .co.uk/.uk as bad as .us?

Nothing like it. .co.uk is SOLID, always has been and always will be, they just messed up with .uk both on the decision and then the execution.

Thirdly, there is no doubt a lot of business is done behind the scenes. I'm sure quite a bit here on Acorn based on the conversation message statistics which are similar to the individual post statistics in number.

Finally, my sales are based on requests from my parking pages. They never touch here or DL and are never reported anywhere, I'm sure this is the same for many resellers.

 

[bonusmedia]

As a developer: from a standing start, .co.uk does better in the UK market, hands down. More authority/trust in search results.

The big sales go unreported unless the buyer sees PR value in shouting about how much they spent. Sometimes dubiously.
I'd guess that Namebio list are all reseller sales, I'd agree they look on the cheap side. I would have paid more than that for octopus if I'd seen it.
You can't use reseller values to judge fair market value.

I'm heavily biased because we own some, but I expect top-end premium generics to hold value until/unless we move beyond using domain names entirely.
Maybe the definition of top-end premium generics has become a bit narrower...

Any domain is ultimately worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If you're buying to resell in future, you need to be sure there's something 'left in it'.
If you're buying to develop, I wouldn't worry about the market value at all, just whether you can get it at a price that makes sense for your business model.

For a big successful site, the domain always ends up being a tiny % of the cost anyway.
If you're going to invest years of your life into a project, get the best name you can possibly afford.

 

[tomclowes]

As Rob said, .co.uk's are typically 10 - 15 times less than .com; I think that is a reasonable difference given one is geographical. Is it any different for other geo extensions (that are not generic like.co), so .fr, .de etc? Premium prices are still paid, but those are typically to end-user corporations that don't wish to discuss price. Any premium domains being sold on the likes of Domainlore are expected to reach the higher end of the reseller scale, no more than that.

If you have specific domain names in mind for a project, then see who is selling them; if they are even for sale. Some resellers (domainers) are open to doing realistic deals, others are not.

True. The name(s) in question are for sale in principle but are at end user prices. It’s just that whilst I have what I believe to be a good idea, I don’t traditionally consider myself an end user. Even if I did, it is not clear how much is reasonable to pay.

First of all can I just say @tomclowes you should post more .

Second...this is crazy talk


Nothing like it. .co.uk is SOLID, always has been and always will be, they just messed up with .uk both on the decision and then the execution.

Thirdly, there is no doubt a lot of business is done behind the scenes. I'm sure quite a bit here on Acorn based on the conversation message statistics which are similar to the individual post statistics in number.

Finally, my sales are based on requests from my parking pages. They never touch here or DL and are never reported anywhere, I'm sure this is the same for many resellers.

Ha. I will do.

Out of interest, how many of those sales would you consider end user and what kind of prices are you attaining?

As a developer: from a standing start, .co.uk does better in the UK market, hands down. More authority/trust in search results.

The big sales go unreported unless the buyer sees PR value in shouting about how much they spent. Sometimes dubiously.
I'd guess that Namebio list are all reseller sales, I'd agree they look on the cheap side. I would have paid more than that for octopus if I'd seen it.
You can't use reseller values to judge fair market value.

I'm heavily biased because we own some, but I expect top-end premium generics to hold value until/unless we move beyond using domain names entirely.
Maybe the definition of top-end premium generics has become a bit narrower...

Any domain is ultimately worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If you're buying to resell in future, you need to be sure there's something 'left in it'.
If you're buying to develop, I wouldn't worry about the market value at all, just whether you can get it at a price that makes sense for your business model.

For a big successful site, the domain always ends up being a tiny % of the cost anyway.
If you're going to invest years of your life into a project, get the best name you can possibly afford.

Very interesting insight. Would you be prepared to share any of those domains and the end user valuations that you place on them? I am assuming significantly more than those examples I posted?

True. A good domain for a good business is usually an insignificant Cost. The problem is my approach is somewhat ‘go big or go home’ - the domain is part of the making the business good. I’m trying to discern if going big on a domain is a thing in the UK namespace or if I’m just being ripped off

 

[Nigel]

gold.co.uk is one of the top .co.uk sales and developed into one of the leading gold bullion websites. Purchased for £600k in 2015 - here is telegraph article:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technol...ches-record-price-for-.co.uk-domain-name.html
Another top sale was furniture.co.uk in 2016 for reported $700k - not yet developed- here is report on acorn
https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/threads/furniture-co-uk-sold-for-700-000.141258/

 

[fuzzer]

To be honest from my personal experience I disagree. I think I've seen more new gTLDs than .co.uk/.uk. That said perhaps I have my blinders on and am simply not noticing. Do you have any examples?

I'm basing it on observation myself - I regularly drive all over London (central and suburbs) and the southern counties, have seen many, many high streets and all the billboards and vans/lorries inbetween. I try not to be biased, but make a mental note every time I see a domain name (not including foreign lorries) - and I'd honestly say a conservative estimate would be at least 70% are .co.uk.

Same during tv ads - in fact, thinking about it now, I'd say .co.uk usage has been growing over the years, where you would have seen many .coms years ago, there's more and more .co.uks.

It really would be an idea for Nominet to spend some of our reg/renewal/membership fees on some surveys that can reinforce this! (anyone from Nominet reading?) Maybe send someone down some high streets to count domains on shop signage OR count usage in tv ads.

 

[bonusmedia]

True. The name(s) in question are for sale in principle but are at end user prices. It’s just that whilst I have what I believe to be a good idea, I don’t traditionally consider myself an end user. Even if I did, it is not clear how much is reasonable to pay.

If you're building a business on it, you're the end user.

Very interesting insight. Would you be prepared to share any of those domains and the end user valuations that you place on them? I am assuming significantly more than those examples I posted?

Not on a forum, I'm domains@<myusername>.co.uk

True. A good domain for a good business is usually an insignificant Cost. The problem is my approach is somewhat ‘go big or go home’ - the domain is part of the making the business good. I’m trying to discern if going big on a domain is a thing in the UK namespace or if I’m just being ripped off

Pretty subjective. Yes, some people invest in expensive premium UK domains to develop successful projects. But those people could probably 'execute' without it anyway, having the best domain is on top of that, not the main reason for success.

 

[RobM]

Good luck trying to find domain owners nowadays though with no website now the GDPR is 'protecting' us from spam by not listing any details in the whois. That's why people should park their domains even if they don't want to put a site on them.

 

[newguy]

Good luck trying to find domain owners nowadays though with no website now the GDPR is 'protecting' us from spam by not listing any details in the whois. That's why people should park their domains even if they don't want to put a site on them.

Yes this change seems to have thrown a spanner in the works for many!