Today I received a $50 domain inquiry for a top 3 word .com.

I’ll take a few moments to share a few thoughts for domain buyers and sellers.

I’ve received a few offers on this same domain over the last year, so I knew that I was not going to rollover and blindly accept this offer without doing a little research.

Just based on the previous domain inquiries and offers, the lowest price I was willing to accept was $25K.

As I do with every domain and right from the start, I also checked to see if the other domain extensions where registered, available, or developed.

And to my surprise and advantage as a seller, all other domain extensions were registered and a few had fully developed websites belonging to thriving businesses.

So I did what anyone should do, which is performing a few business searches to be sure that those businesses were legit.

If you haven’t heard or read somewhere across the Internet in recent weeks, Google is stepping into the domain space as a registrar, and full force too!

Personally, I’m not sure what this all means for the Internet in general other than saying that Google has now put 1And1.com, GoDaddy, Register.com, Web.com, Network Solutions and the likes clearly in the crosshairs of their radar.

In addition to forcing their way into domains, Google has also partnered with service providers to offer unique drag-and-drop, no coding required, website creation platform via Wix, Weebly and Shopify.

These partnerships are huge because now customers are able to streamline finding and buying a domain, and easily developing and hosting their website with best-in-class intuitive tools.

For GoDaddy, this has to be the worst timing due to their recent IPO announcement. Not only that, but Google once was a domain partner that referred their customers to GoDaddy and Enom for domain purchases. Well, no more!

The more and more I think about Google Domains, which is currently in an invite-only beta mode, and it’s impact on domain names and search in general, things could very well be changing for domain and search industries, and in big ways.

So, what does this all mean?

It’s been known for quite a bit of time the importance of a domain name and its ability to provide businesses with search ranking advantages.

If business owners would have known the outcome of the Internet and the .com craze of the mid 90’s some twenty years ago, then I’m almost certain that most would give thousands of dollars to go back in time to have purchase their premium .com of choice when they were free or cost a few hundred dollars.

There were millions and millions of domains floating around with little to no financial investment.

You simply had to be a risk taker, gambler, or saw just a glimpse of what the Internet could and would become.

It’s always difficult to predict and know the future from where we stand today.

However, it is much easier to take a 20/20 glance back down memory lane and see all the signs pointing to your current position.

Fast forward from decades ago, and it looks like history might be repeating itself again with the second coming of new gTLDs or new domain extensions.

By time its all said and done, there will be nearly 1,900 new domain extensions in the open market.

Looks like GoDaddy is pushing for the new domains, also known as new domain extensions or general top-level domains (gTLDs) using a fresh new look and pop of orange on their new homepage.

Too, the irony is that they also push a discount for .com domains at the very top of the page in a pop of orange (see below).

The updated home page is definitely better than the muscled-up Danica although you can keep scrolling to be scared out of your wits with a good size image of a beefed-up Danica.  But I digress.

From the looks of the new homepage, it appears they’ve aligned the new domain extensions per their liking or suggestive purchase pattern of .club, .email, .guru, .reviews, .today, and .directory.

Out of the listed domain extensions on GoDaddy’s homepage, .guru is on fire closing in on 50K+ new domain names being registered (see ntldstats.com).

Like most domainers, I’ve been watching and reading about the new gTLDs, also known as general top-level domain names or new domain extensions, for over a year now, following TheDomains.com, Rick Schwartz, Morgan Linton, and other domainers.

I’ve also followed GoDaddy’s new extensions promotion as well as 1And1.com’s new gTLD promotional commercial.

1And1.com created a great commercial that was well positioned, but what a waste of time and money in my opinion.

To think that 1And1.com wasted nearly 50 million dollars in one-time new gTLD advertising just baffles me to no end.

And for the record, I’ve not seen that same 1And1.com commercial advertising for new gTLDS since my post.

But I digress.

Personally, I’ve taken the stance that domain names, especially premium and super-premium keyword domain names, using new gTLDs are not going to be as successful as .com domain names.

Let the latest Internet fun begin: Here’s to the latest land grab of new internet domains!

There has been much talk and hype centered on how the new internet domains, technically known as generic top-level domains (gTLDs), will impact the current 22 domains that have been known by most since the mid 90’s.  

Afterall, internet users have become quite accustom to typing .com on the end of everything as it relates to the Internet.

Most people that know anything about domains question whether the new internet domains will cause .com to lose or gain in its luster, value and dominance.

From the existing .com to .net to .org to .me domains and on, the latest batch of new internet domains to be rolled out is somewhere near 1400 hundred new .whatevers.

I say or reference the new internet domains as .whatevers, because there will be a wide range of options for individuals, professionals and businesses entering into the internet space going forward.

No longer does a business have to depend on being the first to stake claim to .com domain either taken by a competitor or common person.  If you’re a plumber, there will be .plumbing.  If you’re a lawyer, there will be .lawyer.  If you are a tattoo artist, there will be .tattoo.  If you a shop of any sort, there will be .shop and the list goes on.

No matter what you feel nor how you feel about .com addresses, the new internet domains are yet another option for many people to bring their businesses online.

Which this brings us to the ask the question of whether or not existing businesses, as well as new small businesses, should be wary of new internet domains?

Much talk can be had regarding buying domain names with hyphens or dashes.

The don’t ever buy a domain with a hyphen camp…

There is the camp that is totally against it, as if buying domains with hyphens is an unforgivable sin.

If a hyphenated or dashed domain were the last domain name on earth to use, they wouldn’t dare think of buying and surely not using such a domain name.

The use of hyphens is like breathing camp…

Then some fall into the camp of not blinking an eye at buying and using domain names with hyphens.

This camp of folk buy and use hyphenated domain names even when non-hyphenated domains are available.

The hit-or-miss hyphen camp…

Then you have those in the middle that, depending on the day and hour you catch them, are a hit or miss on buying and using domain names with hyphens.

This crowd tends to base their decision to buy and use domain names with hyphens much like flipping a coin.

They don’t necessarily have a method to their madness for buying or not buying and using dashed domain names.

Which camp do you best relate to, and, more importantly, which camp will stand the test of time?

But no matter the camp you find yourself in, I think it is safe to say that buying and using domains with hyphens is nothing new under the sun in the Internet world.

There will always be a market for selling and buying domain names with hyphens.

But before you scurry off into the deep abyss of buying hyphenated domain names, I’d like to share some thoughts on why and when to consider buying and using domains with hyphens.