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How many .com domain names are unused?

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Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#131

Post by macittuna »

On https://dofo.com we have all this data and more, you can check it freely.

By using dozens of filters, you can refine the results and see whatever you want.

For example, 66,237 .com domain names contain "coin" and are listed for sale on marketplaces: https://dofo.com/search/?contains=coin&on_sale=y&extension=c...

You can also check the popularity of any keyword on the trends page: https://dofo.com/trends/keyword/coin It says, how popular is the keyword, how many registered domain names exist with that keyword, what percentage of these domain names are used actively as a website and more.

As for the registrars; yes Godaddy is the first one with about ~70 million domain names under management and Namecheap and Tucows are following it: https://dofo.com/registrars

Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder of dofo.com

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#132

Post by isostatic »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #130
dorgo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers often pay 3€ - 5€ to google for one click. If your 100,000 domains are not complete garbage, you should easily get a million out of it.

> 3€ - 5€ Isn't that for 1000 clicks?

Apparently not

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/07/06/average-cost-p...

> Below are the 97 countries represented in the map, in order of highest average cost per click to lowest average cost per click, compared to the US average CPC, which is between $1 and $2 on the Search network.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#133

Post by ribasushi »

mathnmusic wrote: post #111
ndnxhs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domains already require your real life info. Just give something like 5 free domain names per person and tie it to their ID. There exists more than enough useful domains for everyone its just most go unused

I propose a .pubkey TLD that doesn't need any registration and can be administered by the owner of an associated public key. The mapping to the nameservers could be maintained on a blockchain (to fund the storage costs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin ( 2011 )

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#134

Post by rjf72 »

Domain registration is one of the most perfect use scenarios for a blockchain type system. It would be entirely decentralized meaning no party has any unfair advantage which leads to these sort of systems where players obtain massive amounts of domains for non-market prices and then sit on them indefinitely relying on the occasional way over market price sale to justify the business model. And while views may vary here, I think it would also generally be a positive for governments to no longer be able to strip individuals or companies of their domains, such as for instance SciHub.

One practical problem in the early stages is that various domains could be snagged and used to extort the companies/individuals who 'rightfully' own them for unreasonably large sums of money if they wanted access to their domains. This issue could be resolved by premining and mirroring the current domain system before public launch with domains transferred to their rightful owners upon proof of ownership akin to the systems used by Let's Encrypt.

Probably the most challenging problem would be in determining how many domain registration coins would be generated per unit time. Too few and prices inflate too high and destroy the system. Too many and prices deflate and the coins become worthless - destroying motivation to keep mining, in turn again destroying the system. Lots of possible solutions though. Fun problem!

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#135

Post by C1sc0cat »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #130
dorgo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers often pay 3€ - 5€ to google for one click. If your 100,000 domains are not complete garbage, you should easily get a million out of it.

> 3€ - 5€ Isn't that for 1000 clicks?

No for example in the drink space in which I work the CPC for popular cocktail terms can easily be in the 1-2$ range

eg Negroni Recipe is $2.4 in the US

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#136

Post by acct1771 »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #104
markdown wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the worst squatters right now is www.hugedomains.com They buy up expired domains and immediately put them up for sale for $XXXX At that price, they can sit on the domains for decades and still make a profit when it's sold. Eg: https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_search.cfm?domain_name=cs...

This is something I’m terrified of. I feel like I can never let a domain that I may want to use again in the future ever laps or someone will buy it and extort some exorbitant price from me to get it back.

That would be correct. Why are you terrified? Set up autorenewal in two places.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#137

Post by beaconstudios »

minikites wrote: post #90
BurningFrog wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you scan for uncorrupt institutions, how the hell do you end up on "governments the world over"?

I've never understood why governments (or labor unions) default to "corrupt" and private firms default to "virtuous".

it's more like both are made up of individuals with high self-interest. The difference is you can choose not to interact with a private firm.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#138

Post by richardwhiuk »

austincheney wrote: post #121
zanny wrote: post #52

I'm not really well informed about the politics of DNS at the top, but I've always had the impression ICANN has been grossly negligent / corrupted over the last twenty years. At the end of the day there is profound capital interest in making name records unfair and noncompetitive in order to rent seek fortunes off the Internet and I see no indication ICANN is anything but compromised by those interests in the way the…

This is mathematically simple to fix. Charge US$0.50 per month ($6 per year) for every domain reservation regardless of who is reserving. The fee must be charged per month and not per year, which intentionally results in greater maintenance overhead. I don't care if you are a registrar, government, charity, school, or whatever. US$0.50 each and every month for each and every name. Registrars can slap whatever markup…

All you've done is increase the registration fee by $6 per year as the registrar will happily handle the monthly aspect. The money will just increase the profit of the rent seekers who control DNS.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#139

Post by Double_a_92 »

isostatic wrote: post #132
Double_a_92 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3€ - 5€ Isn't that for 1000 clicks?

Apparently not https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/07/06/average-cost-p... > Below are the 97 countries represented in the map, in order of highest average cost per click to lowest average cost per click, compared to the US average CPC, which is between $1 and $2 on the Search network.

Now I'm unsure if each individual click is actually billed for that much. Or if that's a sum / average of all the advertising costs until someone finally clicks.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#140

Post by masonic »

rootusrootus wrote: post #40
computator wrote: post #34

Can a domain name registrar register a domain name for themselves for free or for a minimal fee? What about Verisign -- if they registered ".com" domain names for themselves , who would they even pay since there is no one above them? Seriously, does anyone know the answer to this? I've never found an authoritative answer. I've wondered if domain name registrars are speculating in the domain name market themselves. Pe…

Wasn't godaddy or someone like them doing exactly that, a number of years ago? I seem to recall a situation where you'd go to their site and search for a domain, and if you didn't buy it, then the next day it would mysteriously show as no longer available, but purchasable.

This GoDaddy domain front-running thread is from just 2 months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18655630

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