Long Range Declines Seem Likely in Both Typeins & Search Traffic

[David G]

It appears the great success of Smart Phones combined with the strong impact and heavy usage of Apps has already done considerable damage to typein traffic along with browser-based search traffic too. Things will no doubt get worse as the mobile market expands even more.

In addition, once the new unlimited .tld's start resolving that too in all likelihood will have a negative impact on traffic going to .com and other extensions since so many large websites will have their own tld and people will start simply typing in that new tld instead of doing a search or typing in .com, etc. A random example is websurfers who will go to LasVegas rather than Lasvegas.com or bother to do a search for las vegas websites.

This is all very distressing and disturbing news for domainers in general and especially for typein traffic domains and websites (including sites which rely heavily on search-engine traffic). Unfortunately these new developments look like generating domain/website traffic from typeins and search is well past its peak of a few years ago and is fast becoming a long-term bear market.

That overall negativity to traffic and subsequent revenue potential combined with ever increasing renewal fess (i.e. just discovered my Moniker account .com renewals went up to a high $8.99 today) makes it quite likely more and more domainers will be trimming their portfolios a lot, buying fewer domains, or possibly even leave the business starting this year.

Any other opinions on this?

 

[Mark Talbot]

I agree that this may be a way down the road, but you know google will protect their revenue stream from their cash cow, AdWords.

 

[Theo]

Trimming portfolios should have started 5-6 years ago. I've seen an increase in pigeon domains being listed. The panic is evident.

 

[Mark Talbot]

I kept all my pigeon domains cause I just cant part with them.

I also have 4 broken down cars on blocks in the front yard,
three lawn mowers somewhere in the grass,
a washing machine on the front porch next to my couch and spitoon,
and I havent changed my undies in several months.

I just find it hard to let go of things.

 

[Domainate.com]

I don't think .com has anything to fear with new extensions. If anything, the confusion of it all might drive more type-in traffic to the familiar .com.

I do think apps and the like have damaged type-ins. Maybe they've damaged search as well, but I personally don't think so. What many might perceive as damage to search is primarily Google making it harder to manipulate rankings. The traffic is still flowing there - more than ever in fact. You just can't expect to get a ranking with a parked page or a hollow minisite anymore.