The recent announcement that Uniregistry would be upping the prices on 16 of its underperforming new gTLDs by up to 3,115% from 21 August has had one, so far, really unfortunate consequence. GoDaddy, the world’s largest registrar, announced it was dropping Uniregistry’s entire portfolio of gTLDs from its offerings.
“We need more revenue from these strings, especially the low volume ones, without question,” Uniregistry CEO Frank Schilling told Domain Incite, who broke the story, at the time. “We can’t push on a string and stoke demand overnight. So in order for that string to survive as a standalone it has to be profitable.”
While an increase in the registry fee need not impact on registrations, the case of .berlin increasing their registry fee by 50% is a case in point, it’s hard to see how increases closer to 3,000% will add to either revenue or registrations. In the case of .berlin, the registry fee increased from €20 to €30.
But GoDaddy’s decision isn’t final according to Domain Name Wire.
“We have stopped registering or transferring Uniregistry domain names into our system,” GoDaddy. GM of Domains Mike McLaughlin told Domain Name Wire. “The dramatic price hike Uniregistry announced left us no choice. Until we can assess the impact on our current and potential customers, we have stopped new registrations.”
Uniregistry thinks the decision won’t last. Schilling told Domain Incite he was “surprised” by the decision.
“We are extremely surprised by GoDaddy’s reaction but are pleased that our extensions are available at many other registrars who support our approach. We remain ready to support GoDaddy when they decide on a path which works for their customers. We expect them to return.”
Uniregistry is the eighth largest new gTLD registry by domains under management with over 851,000 registrations across 24 new generic top level domains, the largest of which is .link (372,700 DUM) and .click (158,400). It’s not just the gTLDs with the lowest registration figures as previously speculated that are impacted, both .link and .click are too.
See below for the list of impacted gTLDs and the increases, as compiled by Blacknight.
| Domain Extension | Current Retail Price | Wholesale % Increase | New Retail Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| .juegos | €11.99 | 3115% | €349.00 |
| .hosting | €24.99 | 1400% | €349.00 |
| .audio | €11.99 | 972% | €119.00 |
| .diet | €16.99 | 650% | €119.00 |
| .hiphop | €16.99 | 650% | €119.00 |
| .flowers | €21.99 | 466% | €119.00 |
| .guitars | €24.99 | 400% | €119.00 |
| .property | €24.99 | 400% | €119.00 |
| .blackfriday | €32.99 | 275% | €119.00 |
| .sexy | €16.99 | 200% | €49.99 |
| .christmas | €24.99 | 150% | €59.99 |
| .click | €6.99 | 50% | €8.99 |
| .help | €16.99 | 50% | €24.99 |
| .pics | €16.99 | 50% | €24.99 |
| .tattoo | €24.99 | 50% | €39.99 |
| .link | €8.99 | 5% | €8.99 |
The above table was sourced from the Blacknight blog here.