The .BLOG domain name extension went live today which means that anyone can now register a .BLOG domain name at $23.99 up to, well, a whole lot higher. I took at look at Morgan.blog and saw that it’s selling for $6,999 but then, here’s the kicker, after spending around $7,000 I then have to pay $6,999 a year, every year going forward. Ouch.
Sorry but this seems a bit crazy to me. Yes, there are other new domain extensions that sell a name like morgan.something for close to $700 with a renewal of $700/year (which also seems a bit high) but morgan.blog is definitely a new high.
As I looked at some more .BLOG names I found a bunch priced at $13,999, like DomainName.blog which seemed high…until I stumbled on Computer.blog which is listed for $139,999 with a renewal cost of, you guessed it, $139,999. Given how many amazing one-word .COM domains you can buy for $139,999, and knowing that those stellar names cost less than $10 to renew every year this math just doesn’t make sense.
Just in case it’s too small to see, here’s a close up of that pricing:
To be fair, there are plenty of .BLOG domain names available at the lowest registration price of $23.99, but the pricing on their premium domains is intense to say the least. What do you think? Has .BLOG figured out something the other new domain extensions haven’t, or is this going to be a pricing fail?

My guess would be that is nothing more than psychological marketing. Put those kinds of prices on them and people are led to think they must be worth it. And then hopefully enough will spring for it. But I suspect the likely result is (yup, you guessed it) “pricing fail.”
Personally, I don’t even like the $23.99 and up, let alone the premiums.
And with a show of hands, who envisioned all this lovely money grabbing for the release of new TLDs? This lawyer friend of mine was declared that domains were worthless because they were infinitely expandable this way years ago, but he didn’t factor in this. Great for .com, .net and .org though.