Domain names are the home to your asset on the internet. And unlike the physical world, there are limitations. First, you could only get a .com domain along with a few others. Hence, there came a limitation.
Of course, the combination of letters is in billions and more. But the ones which you want are limited. Because there are finite desirable names. For example, you might want podcastclub.blog, but you won’t want podcastculb.blog because the spelling is wrong. So even though it’s available, it isn’t desirable.Now compare this with the capitalist viewpoint, if you are rich – you can hoard ‘n’ number of desirable domain names. Because you have money. And since you have no use for it, you can sell it later to someone who needs it. Of course, at a high rise.
This is legal but not moral. Imagine Bill Gates buying all the domain names in the world for $10 each. And then selling it for $500 each. If you want a desirable domain name, and you want them – you have to shell the amount. There is no other way.
The Race To Get Domain Names
Naturally, the race began to hoard as many domain names you could afford. Also, if you were a brand – you wanted to have all the possible name combination of the domain. Because if a customer misspelt it, which she will – your visitor might end up somewhere else.
You might lose a customer, and at worse, you might lose your reputation as a brand. Doesn’t matter, if your work would suffice with one domain name, you went ahead and bought a bunch of similar names.
This added to the cost of your business and continuous monitoring. Because if you slipped to renew the domain name, someone else might register it asap. And then you will be held ransom to pay the huge money.
Which many have did in the past? Also, there have been many companies paying millions to buy the 3 letter word domain.
It’s enticing because that is easy to remember and spread. If your domain name is significant, it isn’t very easy to type or share with a friend. But if you have a domain name which is a single word, then there is less chance of error. The less number of characters it has, the better.
The Market Has Flooded
Since there were only a few domain extensions available, many names have been taken. And if you are born now, then you won’t find yourname.com available. Because all the possible names have been taken. So what’s the solution.
To your good faith, the domain authority realized this. And now there are literally many extensions available. For example, .blog, .guru, .club and many more. So there are now more possibilities for finding yourname.extensions because of new rules and availability.
Many people are trying to hoard or misuse famous names domain. And people with power or money are doing this.
The domain registrars also realized this and sometimes, they repurchase the domain and sell it at a higher price.
Everyone is gaming the system to get loads of money. And since, everyone can do this – everyone does.
High Value
Domain names company makes money when you renew. Because if you buy a domain name – chances are either you will hoard it or make something on it. And once you have done it, you will renew the domain name. And so, the domain name companies get recurring money from the customer for ages.
The challenge is that they need to entice you to get a domain name registered through them.
But why you would pick a particular company – you don’t know. All of them are pretty similar and provide the same UI.
The thing you can compare is the initial price. And hence, you see many companies providing with $1 domain deals.
Sure, they are losing money upfront, but many people will renew the domain, and thus they will make back the money. Also, there are upsells which many people end up buying.
Ads In Search
Since this is a huge money-making business, the domain name companies use advertisements to make sure you land on their site. And I did a simple test – I searched for ‘buy domain names’. And the result turned out to be 4 ads and then the organic search results.
But the 4 ads filled up the whole of desktop, and many users are going to click on that. So you can see that the best results are shadowed by ads because they are shown more prominent.
And guess what in Google search results, the first ad is from Google. Which is another level of capitalism at play? The ideal scenario shouldn’t be like this. Luckily, the duckduckgo results were better with just one ad.
Ideal Search
In a hoard to earn money, many immoral things are happening. And if search gets corrupted, then that is a big blow to the culture. Google is the prominent search engine, and it doesn’t deliver on the best content for your search -’buy domain names’.
It pushes ads to you because they make a commission or they show their own company. So much for being a good search engine.
The search engine is the heart of the internet because many small companies rely on getting discovered through them.
But because of such money-motivated nature of big giants, small companies would find it hard to flourish. Despite getting number 1 for search, they are overshadowed.
I hope duckduckgo gets bigger and remains the same. Google – please maintain a balance or your ship will sink.
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