So what are the useless tld's to not waste money on....and what has a future...

[A D]

Here are my top 8 in no specific order, feel free to add yours.

.mobi - never had legs excepot domains with pipe dreams.
.tel - Not a domainers dream domain.
.co - Most won't be renewed. A good typo squat with probably lots of lawsuits to some.
.cm - another typo squat
.asia - Not much to say about this one.
.us - Not taking of as well as most ccTLD's
.info - Was good when it was 99 cents or free until you got the renewal notices, laughed then let them drop.
.ws - Not much legs on this one ever.

That's not to say you can't make money off of them but it is to say that it's gonna be tough sledding, most will lose mopre than they make.

The top domains going to be valuable going forward:

.com - no change, com is king
.de - very popular, 2nd most popular extension in the world.
.ca - Still speculative but people will cash in on .ca in 3 years.
.com.au - This one has huge potential, good drops to still be had.

Please feel free to agree or disagree.

-=DCG=-

 

[dn-101]

.kz - the land of Borat
idn - for the perpetually insane

 

[katherine]

There are other ccTLDs that are worth a shot too. Even though their respective local markets are smaller than .de or .co.uk for example.
Like .com.au, .fr has restrictions but soon it will be available to EU residents. And I think it's been heating up in recent times.

In general the gTLD namespace is saturated, the opportunities are to be found on the secondary market.
In ccTLDs there are still decent drops here and there.

About .ca: not that optimistic.
.us: not that optimistic either.

In general there is no gold in the 'new' TLDs. I stick to the established and proven stuff

 

[Gerry]

.eu - overall another massive failure backed by a massive failure of the registry.
.us - ccTLD's not in major usage now are doomed with the release of new extensions.


.travel - keeping my eyes on this. With the surge in new names, keywords like this may actually see a revival or renewed interest for niche markets.
.info - basically a dog at the moment, this could also see a renewed interest when domain extensions that are descriptive and keyword extensions are the norm.
.mobi - again, overspeculated but like the others mentioned, could see a renewed interest with widespread adoption and use of descriptive URL's.
.me - great potential for individual branding and marketing (emphasis on individual)

---------- Post added at 11:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 AM ----------

In general there is no gold in the 'new' TLDs.

Naturally, the gold will be those that control the registries.

 

[silentg]

there will be renewed interest in: .tv and .biz as well.

 

[dn-101]

Weird,
i see a lot ads on top of taxis saying:
Go check #$%.TV

 

[iBizStart]

What about .net, .net?

 

[Gerry]

Love net.

 

[silentg]

.net and the .org.

 

[David G]

A very interesting subject on the-web is that ALL .US extension domains are banned by the Yahoo feed under a quality block. Several pay-per-click parking firms who use the Yahoo PPC feed have confirmed that to be correct, and indicated Yahoo thinks every single .us domain must be poor quality and thus are banned from PPC revenue. Isn’t that an incredible wide-ranging assumption to make!

It’s been an issue for at least 2 or 3 years from what we understand. It appears both Yahoo and some of the parking firms who have been given our .us domains to monetize using the Yahoo feed in-effect keep it a secret and allegedly simply assumed we would not notice the fact we always get zero income from our dot-us country code domains.

 

[Seraphim]

.eu (Video)

 

[Fabbstar]

what do people think of .so?

 

[hugegrowth]

Of the eight in the original post, I'd say four of them - .mobi, .co, .us, and .info still get enough decent sales to make it worth keeping if you have good keywords. So, if you got some good ones in a landrush its probably worth keeping them and paying the annual renewal. But, if I had $10,000 to invest in the aftermarket, I wouldn't be buying these extensions, or maybe cap it at 20% of my budget for a great keyword. And 'great' is different to different people.

.ws, .tel, .cm and .asia don't seem to have much aftermarket action. I'd keep a .tel if it was my name or a really strong keyword, or a word that was important to me, but not really for investment.

.cc is another laggard, but still gets the odd good sale for a strong keyword.
.me same thing, but it can have some use for a brandable, catchy domain.

If the majority of your portfolio is in extensions mentioned above in this post, chances are you're in trouble, unless you have a high quality portfolio of .us or .co (ok, and maybe .info) - and I wonder if the .co magic will continue in the aftermarket.

Clearly .com outsells everything else week after week, and European country codes do well overall.

But often, even with crappy extensions, a good keyword or keyword group can sell well too. It's hard to set rigid domain quality rules because it isn't hard to find exceptions to them all the time. FR.cc just sold for big money, I heard it might have a website or company with it, but it was in the dnjournal report which normally means it was a domain only sale.

---------- Post added at 05:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:55 PM ----------

DCG - what do you think will change in 3 years for .ca? Canada's population is one of the heaviest internet users and .ca is already fairly well established. I know more and more businesses are coming onto the internet all the time, but what will really be so different in three years compared to now?

I'm a believer in .ca but the market seems to ebb and flow from year to year.

 

[stewie]

Since we are talking about wasting money...this would be a good place to list these extensions and the cost/renewal fees.


.mobi
.sc
.ws
.cc

etc...

 

[A D]

[/COLOR]DCG - what do you think will change in 3 years for .ca? Canada's population is one of the heaviest internet users and .ca is already fairly well established. I know more and more businesses are coming onto the internet all the time, but what will really be so different in three years compared to now?

I'm a believer in .ca but the market seems to ebb and flow from year to year.

The .ca market will continue to grow strong and one day in Canada be the first choice of all companies, that said, we are going to have to be patient.
The good news is I am noticing a trend of less and less speculators staying in .ca because its not a short term investment. This I like.

-=DCG=-

 

[dn-101]

Shouldn't the national language in CA be Hindi or Mandarin?

 

[A D]

Shouldn't the national language in CA be Hindi or Mandarin?

Mandarin probably in the Vancouver area.

-=DCG=-

 

[south]

From a pure domaining standpoint, .com/net/org are really the only way to go (at least in the US). However, from a steady income / developing standpoint, I like .com, .net, .org & .us. Contrary to what yahoo may do with parked names, I have many .us on the first page of their search results, both before & after the bing deal, with some being near my top affiliate & adsense earners.

 

[Find A Date]

Dot com should always remain king, but I do like strong keywords in .net, and .us.

I also like .cc as it is the easiest extension to type

Robert

 

[Vincent]

I just earned 5 cents on my .us at parked.com. Didn't make any from my .com, .net, .mx, .co, .info. So, according to my data, .us is above other tlds.