So as the new gTLD are rolling out and we see the pricing that many are carrying some of them with an annual renewal fees that reminds us of the .TV days I wanted to share a couple of personal decisions we made regarding our own portfolio.
As most of you know the .TV registry had premium renewal prices on most of all their good premium domain names until a few years ago when they accepted a one time premium payment and normal renewal fees.
However old legacy .TV domains that had an annual premium renewal fees still have those fees unless the owner drops the domain in which case its purchase for a one time payment with normal renew fees.
In March we had a decision to make.
A domain we owned Bahamas.TV was expiring and required a $500 annual renewal payment.
So we had to decide if we should continue to pay the $500 annual renewal fee for Bahamas.tv or let it go and see if we could acquire it on the drop.
We didn’t have a backorder at Name.com, which traditionally gets the vast majority of dropping premium .TV domains, so the chances that we would catch the domain with another registrar wasn’t great, but just a few days before the drop, I was able to get the domain name BahamasTv.com at NameJet.com for $98 with a normal .Com renewal fee of lets call it $8.50.
I don’t know what Verisign charged as the one time fee for the registration but I’m sure it was in the $x,xxx range.
So if I had to do it all over again, I would do the same
I’m happy to own BahamasTv.com for $98 with a $8.50 renewal fee than to pay Verisign $500 a year for life to keep the .TV domain
I would have loved to keep the .TV domain as well, the would have cost me $5K to keep for 10 years and it hurts the resale value of the domain.
On Sunday I got the domain DietCamp.com for $114 in a drop auction.
Once I won the auction I went to see if the new gTLD domain Diet.Camp was available to be registered.
I intended to register the domain if it was not already taken.
When I went to my registrar of choice the domain Diet.Camp was available but for a registration and annual renewal fee of $233 a year.
I passed.
I’m good with DietCamp.com for my $114 one time purchase and my $8.50 renewal fee.
It will be interesting to see how these premium new gTLD renewals work out in the long run.
I have registered some new gTLD domains that carry a premium renewal fee.
I think a lot of them are worth keeping but a lot more will not be worth keeping.
