.DEV domains are getting a lot of buzz and I think they will be great for developers, but not for Domainers

dot-dev-domains

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about .DEV domain names over the last week, probably more so than any other new gTLD launch. It looks like with the power of the marketing machine that is Google, .DEV is officially on people’s radars, and I mean people outside of the domain industry.

At the same time, I know plenty of Domainers who have gone on a buying spree, and I think they’re going to be disappointed when they find out that nobody wants to buy their .DEV domains.

Here’s what I see going down right now. Developers around the world now know that .DEV exists, some of these people haven’t heard of just about any other new gTLD so for them, the opportunity to register something they really wanted exists…or, err, did exist, but not any more.

Like any new domain name extension that goes into GA, all the good names get scooped up, quickly. While some people did shell out the big bucks to buy super premiums in early access, 48-hours into GA and a lot of the best .DEV names were gone. I’ve heard a number of people in the tech world complain that Google made all this buzz about .DEV and then everything they go to register is already taken.

So it goes.

The reality is, most of the people who want to buy .DEV domains now, really just wanted to hand-register the .DEV name they had in mind. When they found out it was taken, they weren’t thinking for a minute, oh maybe I’ll pay thousands of dollars for the name, they just shrugged and moved on.

I shared the .DEV domains that I bought, none of which that I expect to resell since like I said in the title of this post, I think .DEV domains are great for developers, but not for Domainers. What I do think we will see is a lot of .DEV domains getting built out over the next six months. I think .DEV lends a lot of credibility and I don’t know but something tells me it wouldn’t be surprising to see .DEV domains rank better for dev-related topics, heck the extension is owned by Google.

If you’re a Domainer who went on a .DEV buying spree, don’t hold your breath when it comes to selling these names…but if you’re considering developing them out, I think you could be pretty happy with the results. We’ll have to see as time goes on but I think .DEV is a win for devs, but like most new gTLDs will be a loss for Domainers.

Want to buy domains that you can sell for a profit? Go .COM. Want to build a geeky site about a topic you think developers will dig, I think .DEV could be a great pick.

(Image credit – https://devdojo.com/articles/get-your-dev-domain-name)
Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton