Is Domain Speculation Bust?

The latest Netcraft survey is more interesting than usual, because it reports a drop in the total number of registered domain names, as well as a decreasing number of sites reachable overall by the survey. It's been a traumatic year in the tech world, but the drop in domain names goes back to domain name buy-ups of 1999 (and looks like it will accelerate the same way domain speculation did in 2000). All is not gloom, though, and the number of registered domain names is not the same as the number of active sites. The Netcraft site points out that "as domains bought for speculative reasons are abandoned, we can expect a higher proportion of sites to be active." Read the rest of the survey report for more interesting information on the state of the domain world.

Comments

Yes, domain speculation is bust

[Animats]

I expected this to happen, which is why I was against ".biz" domains as unnecessary. By now, everybody who has a viable business and wants a domain name has one. There's not much of a market left in names alone.

Look at GreatDomains.com. Skip the "list prices" for domains, and look at the "recent offers" listings, which are all in the few hundred dollar range. Realistically, that's where the prices are now. And those are offers for ".com" domains. Off-brand domains like ".ws" (Western Samoa), ".tv" (Tuvalu), and ".to" (Tonga) are almost worthless.

ICANN is now starting up a "registry escrow" program to back up the registrars, so that when registrars go bust, the domains don't disappear. It's good that they're thinking ahead. A registrar shakeout is due.

It's over.

Re:Other news

[the eric conspiracy]

Microsoft's server market share is at its highest level ever, with much of the increased share coming from Apache.

That's NOT what Netcraft actually said.

"The drop has had particularly evident impact this month at the popular registrar register.com, which has seen the number of registered but unused sites parked at futuresite.register.com drop by 300k, accounting for the drop in Apache numbers this month."

In other words the drop in Apache numbers was actually due to lack of registration renewals at Register.com, NOT due to any gains by Microsoft.

If you look at the percentages based on ACTIVE sites, Apache actually INCREASED share this month, from 61.88 to 63.34, +1.46, while Microsoft increased at a much slower rate,
26.40 to 26.62, or +0.22.

Lest anyone claim that Apache's share is inflated by inactive sites compared to Microsoft, the Netcraft survey shows the Apache share for total active + inactive to be lower than the active share, while Microsoft's share adding inactive sites is HIGHER than it's active site share. This clearly Microsoft's numbers are inflated by a large number of inactive sites.

In fact, if you look at total number of active sites for the past THREE months, IIS has actually declined, while Apache has increased .