Does the Air.Space sale mean good things for .SPACE domains?

by Morgan on November 1, 2018

So the big news this week in the new gTLD world is the sale of Air.Space for $17,500, and – as you can see from the image above, the new owner already has a landing page up. One of the questions that I find people ask me quite a bit when they read about sales like this is – “so does this mean .SPACE domains are a good investment?”

My answer usually is, “no” and to cut to the chase, in this case it’s also no.

The challenge with new gTLDs is that there will be some nice juicy five-figure sales, but unlike .COM where these can represent a real meaningful comparable sale, these are honestly just one-offs. It’s also important to note that Air.Space is probably one of the best .SPACE domains and as we’ve seen with a number of new gTLDs, the very best domains can sell for a pretty penny…if you’re lucky.

All that being said, the more people who buy and develop on a new gTLD, the more consumers start to learn about it. My guess is that almost nobody knows that .SPACE exists yet…but after this sale, and after this site goes live, more people will.

Of course, you need a lot more than one or two solid active sites, and this is where TLDs like .CLUB and .XYZ have been able to see meaningful traction. It’s also why I never look at the number of registered names in a new gTLD because that number is relatively meaningless, it’s developed sites that matter, and if you do a deeper dive, developed sites used by real and interesting businesses.

So as a domain investor, I wouldn’t touch .SPACE with a ten foot pole. As an end-users, I might now finally learn that .SPACE exists, and hey – if more people like Air.Space start building interesting companies on these domains that could certainly drive more end-user adoption.

What do you think? Am I being too pessimistic here, is there something about .SPACE I’m missing? I want to hear from you, comment and let your voice be heard!

{ 3 comments… add one }

Matt Holmes November 2, 2018, 3:08 am

Not too pessimistic. My question is this:

Is there any organized data or somewhere online you can find out the total number of visitors for the total number of net gTLDs?

I’m sure .xyz and .club would have great amounts of web traffic across all their domains, but what if there are a few individual domains that get significantly more traffic and would raise awareness?

I’m not hopeful that that information is available, but it sure would be interesting! What do you think Morgan? Would overall unique visitors for all parked and developed domains on new gTLDs be the best indicator of ‘awareness’?

Reply
- Rod November 2, 2018, 4:50 am
  
  I think each gtld has to stand on its own. Not be lumped statically into “new gtld” as a market share slice.
  
  There is a wide variance between these extensions, and the successes and marketing of one extension cannot be applied across the category to show success for new gtlds.
  
  Reply
Rod November 2, 2018, 3:38 am

Glad to see reality checks like this.

Name me 10 other .space domains that would likely have 5 figure value. Airspace.co sold for $18,000 also.

Air.space.
Outer.Space
Explore.Space
My.Space
Aero.Space
Storage.Space

Those are the only 6 I can think of. There the case for almost all new gtlds. They only work as domain hacks and only the best 5-10 names that make sense as a hack will have decent value.

However, people will see this and go register 50 space names that make absolutely no sense.

Reply