See latest update near bottom (in red)~
Earlier today I saw a thread on NamePros.com that was titled Domaining.com no longer free. I myself did not receive an email from Domaining.com but that is also because I provide content to the site.
You may have seen a message when going to Domaining.com today that looked like this:
What do I think of this charge?
- Since I will not see a penny of it, it’s a bit upsetting to me since my content is used. Is my traffic that I get from Domaining.com worth the money they will make since my content is part of the site? Maybe… but I also see this traffic taking a Big Hit
- It’s going to hurt the domain industry as a whole
- One of the biggest things, is with the new feature of Selling Domains on Domaining.com, unless you have an account you can not click or purchase the domains listed for sale. The submission will greatly drop
Now $35 for a Year is not that big of a deal. A lot of great information is provided on Domaining.com but the content can also be seen on the blogs that are writing the content that is provided on Domaining.com .
Part of paying the $35 fee, you get the Daily Domaining.com newsletter which features domain names for sale 24 hours before the domain(s) are listed on the actual site. Secondly, it speeds up your reading process instead of visiting all the blogs you like to read via RSS or directly. The third, the fee will keep spammers down for Francois. (Domain buyers)
When this idea of Domaining.com going to a pay site first started around November 20th, I wrote about it and the majority of people were very unhappy to here this. You can see that post here and the 50+ comments as well.
After that post, I had really thought that owner Francois was going to be happy with the new Domains For Sale section to prevent the site going to a pay site but I think the dollars coming in for that have not reached the dollar amount he was happy with.
Now some will pay the $35 annual fee, but many will not. Since many of these people that will not pay to use Domaining.com are also the same people that WERE paying to submit domain names for sale on the site. The ultimate question will be, will the people that pay the $35 yearly fee total up greater then the ones that would of submitted, sold and purchased domain names when the site was free?
Since Non-paying members will No Longer be able to purchase domains, this will be a Huge Hit to that feature that was just offered. I know I will not be listing any unless non-paying members that want to purchase Can or proof of paying members is High.
I also think that many people will be using the RSS features on blogs that they like to read. If you are interested in using the RSS feature on DotWeekly.com, it’s up in the header next to the search box. Just click the Little Orange Box. or just click here.
I hope something positive comes of this $35 annual fee, but I am just not seeing it currently for readers or the domain industry as a whole. Will the bloggers that fill Domaining.com with the fresh content ask for their feeds to be Removed since Domaining.com will be making further profit off their content and have less visitors visting Domaining.com? Again, something we will see with time.
I wish Francois the best with this decision, but my gut is telling me the site will be back to Free but many will have left and will not look back to it in the future.
UPDATE: Domaining.com seems to have a quick change of heart? Posted by the owner on NamePros.com thread mentioned above.
"Hello,
Penny pinchers, this is a funny english term I learnt today reading this thread.
For the adepts of this community I have two good news:
- First, there is no longer need to register or be logged to access the pages linked by the headlines in domaining.com
- Second, I restored most closed accounts. So you could continue receiving your "favorite" daily newsletter.
I admit I have been a bit sharp, and decided to let you a pair of weeks to better valuate if our service worth these tremendous $35.
Enjoy the end of the year,
Francois"
Now from what I can tell, you still have to be logged in to purchase a domain from the domains for sale section. Since you no longer need to login to read the headlines, I am just not very clear if you need to pay to buy now? It seems things are changing (probally no sign ups) pretty fast, so I will let the dust settle for a bit and do a follow up post Next Year!
RegFeeNames.com
Hi Jamie,
I think this gong to seriously hurt domaining.com I cant see many people paying.
I really hope im wrong as I dont want to see domaining.com disappear but Francois has to make money to Cover his costs personally I would create a donation section where people can donate an amount they feel comfortable with.
Regards,
Robbie
LittleDevil
Real smooth, Francious. In Francois’ defense though, he doesn’t seem to have any idea about business/website development. He’s been doing everything he can to make that website difficult for users to access. It costs next to nothing to build and host a site like Domaining.com, so I’m not sure why he hasn’t figured out the ad model yet or some other revenue generator. Considering, he’s borrowing content provided by bloggers like yourself, then charging for it, he’s hurting the industry. I’m pretty sure if I put a three-year old behind a computer they could come up with a better plan. I know I’m not gonna pay a single penny to use the website. I’ll go build my own site, use a feed reader, visit the blogs directly, or go over to dnheadlines.com. I’d hope that bloggers who provide content to Francois demand a cut. Considering, you’re gonna lose a lot of traffic since no one these days is gonna pay for a free service. And he’s reselling your content in essence.
Johnny
Sounds like we need another domain article aggregator.
I will not be paying this fee. Everywhere you turn someone wants a fee these days….I’m sick of it.
Troy
I believe that Francious has every right to attempt to charge for his site. But… I also have every right not to pay, a right which I will certainly be applying.
Good luck with the change Francious.
IT
Hi Jamie,
You summed it up nicely. Domaining.com canceled my free membership today – I am disappointed. I don’t think I will pay the $35 to be a paid member. If I am interested in a particular posting, I will go to individual blog directly to read it. Another nice post… Happy New Year to you!
rpanella
Just goes to show that one who is a smart domain investor can still be incompetent when it comes to business decisions.
Charging for something that is free anywhere else is not a viable business strategy. There are countless other aggregators and you can set up your own in a few minutes with freely available scripts. Most serious/frequent users will use a free feed reader anyway (I rarely visit it other than to discover new blogs to add to Google Reader).
It is a shame too as it was the perfect domain for a news aggregator like this.
RIP 2008 Domaining.com
Lawrence
$35?
this site can suck my balls
…SUCK myyyyyy ballllz
**Jamie Says**
How do you really feel Lawrence? LOL I approved it, but try to keep it clean as I’m sure nobody wants to be sucking any balls.
Gordon
I agree with the others – someone could create a clone of domaining without too much work, and I’m sure someone will do it. It has a great interface, so whoever builds the new one – make sure to build a good interface.
$35 isn’t much money, but you’d be surprised how tough it is to get someone to pay for something that they are used to getting for free. I did this once with a much more unique and difficult to replicate service with 100k+ registered users, and we had about a 1% conversion rate. Do the math on that one.
Lastly – paying for the service goes directly against the whole concept of selling domain names via the site. Domaining could have been a great competitor to Rick Latona as far as selling names – but now I just don’t see it.
I’ll be scratching my head for a while on this one.
Leonard Britt
Yes, I received the email and was a little irritated as we all prefer to get our news relatively free. There is some great content here so I cannot blame the attempt to monetize it. But as others have stated, if one sees the headline and brief description, they could quickly Google to the relevant blog. The likely scenario is that the readership of some blog posts will go decline. I haven’t decided whether I will go the cheapo route and Google for articles or just pay what is a reasonable charge for a magazine subscription.
Martin
Domaining.com has already turned to crap. There are only 4 blogs I usually read anyways, so I will just subscribe to them. The others will just fail because I guarantee all their traffic is from here.
RKB
I have no problem with Francois charging this fee but at the same time I think he can be better of making money via selling ads or featured domain listings, etc.
Lets see how it all play out in next few weeks.
Thanks.
sparky
You should always use the RSS for your favorite blogs because Domaining filters it- you only get 1/10th of all the domain news that’s published- compare to the FREE and unfiltered news here:
http://domain-name.alltop.com/
**Jamie Says**
The bad thing, your site doesn’t have DotWeekly.com so I really see no reason for anybody to visit.. LOL Not that I need anybody else using my content.
Kevin Davis
I really hope he rethinks this I like coming here for updates and news.
**Jamie Says**
Checkout the latest update. This just may have happened.
Domainer
I think this idea will backfire big time.Goes to say everyone makes mistakes not only newbees.
Scott
@Martin
I’m not so sure about the fail part. You see, I’m one of the smaller lesser known blogs on there and only get ~40 clicks per article. Yea, Domaining.com helped me get started and sent readers my way, but it would never cause the death of me. Losing 40 clicks simply won’t kill me
The problem is, to Francois’ own admission, readers tend to click on the names they recognize, not articles that appear interesting.
This isn’t Domaining.com’s fault. And this phenomenon is not exclusive to domaining. This is the case in any niche.
So I don’t think the lesser blogs are receiving enough traffic from there to be in danger of failing if they lose it.
Ms Domainer
*
Why should I pay for content that is free elsewhere?
While Domaining.com is nice, it’s not vital to my interests. So I’ll not be paying this fee.
*
Frankie Aladi
And here I was thinking that the suggestions I gave him on selling domains on the site was working. After Jamie’s article about a month ago, I wrote an article the next day “Domaining.com: when love is not enough”
Anyway I wish him the best and I am sure he will find a way somehow. I understand how difficult it is to keep up a site. He has spent a lot of money. Do you know that until recently he paid 5 bucks per signup for his affiliates. I think it just went down to 3 bucks or so.
Time and money has been spent on that site but if youtube and facebook are still free, We as domainers need to put our heads together and make domainning.com work somehow.
By the way I will like to use this opportunity to invite everyone to my blog on 2nd of January. A big annoucement is on the way.
Yaron
I cant believe Francois gonna make this terrible mistake.
I would sell Domaining.com before making such a terrible move. I mean, This traffic worth a lot, and he is going to give away most of it…
Steve
@ Yaron,
I agree with Yaron, I think its a big mistake.
Yaron – great meeting you in Mnahattan. Hope to see at the Playboy Mansion.
Happy new year
Jason
Gotcha covered Jamie and everyone else, I think
http://popupnews.com/about/domains/
I was also canceled at Domaining.com. Nothing about the way that site worked ever made much sense to me… :p
Rob
I’ve read a lot of complaints about how someone is charging for a simple site that is nothing more than an RSS feeder, or about how someone is charging for content that he doesn’t create himself.
I look at it differently. I don’t care how simple the site is or who creates the content. I look at domaining.com simply as a service offering. For me, it’s a great service and a great resource. The $35 per year equates to about 10 cents per day. For me personally, I think it is a fair price to pay for a service I use and enjoy daily.
Francois
Hello,
Yesterday a lot of our members and supporters already paid the annual fee (thanks a lot) but I also received few mails about this issue.
I remember one of our members saying:
- Domaining.com should be free!
Today everybody forget all have a cost and think all is due.
Convinced, I sent myself a letter to PEER1 saying I should not be paying these $4k to 6k of monthly hosting and data transfer they charge me.
Imagine their response…
- Domaining.com is useless, anyone can use an RSS reader…
So I checked our data and found this member logged +600 times these past months.
Probably a strong sign of his lack of interest.
- As a good mentor he suggested me few financing ideas, one of the most creative was to sell advertising.
Sure the problem is our industry leaders don’t spend money advertising in domainers sites…
Again, I want to clarify this small fee even paid by most should NOT cover half of our costs.
I mailed to Jamie:
“The asked fee should have a small impact in the finaning of the service as you may imagine, the main aim is:
- STOP all the incentives, fake sign ups, scams, … our affiliate program is generating when paying for free sign up.
- As we should launch auctions soon I don’t want them be pertubated by anonymous that have nothing to lost.
This small fee will filter and help prevent bad behaviors.”
Now as I posted in NamePros.com last night, for the adepts of the “Penny pinchers” community I have two good news:
- First, there is no longer need to register or be logged to access the pages linked by the headlines in domaining.com
- Second, I restored most closed accounts. So you could continue receiving your “favorite” daily newsletter.
I admit I have been a bit sharp, and decided to let a pair of weeks to better valuate if our service worth these tremendous $35.
Enjoy the end of the year,
Francois
Daniel Dryzek
Francois – I think it is very good move to enable links to all, so you don’t need to to log in and pay annual fee to click on links. If that’s the case now, then $35 fee is ok for premium services at your site. Good luck!
Bob White
As I mentioned the first time this came up, capitalism is a great thing. If you can get it great! I personally think that in a “pair of weeks” the “penny pinchers” will have spoken and domaining.com will be free again. The $35 is not the issue, its what you get for it. Good luck Francois, only you can decide whats right for domaining.com.
Scott
If the affiliate signup is getting abused and is part of the reason for the annual fee, then I personally would remove it. I don’t think it’s worth it.
Ken Gettys
With the PAY IT NOW title, it says “Thanks for your support” like it is a non-profit organization! It should say “Thanks for your Money Sucker”! Like others have said, the ~special~ information this site pretends to offer is easily found by doing a “domain news” search!
And the domain auction scam it runs is a joke too! Two days of publication for $10 with no overall sales results information being shown. What a waste of money!
sparky
just don’t understand bandwidth coasts of $4-6K a month. Explain please. These are links- no big files being downloaded.
Dave Bricker
I can’t dispute anybody’s right to charge what they want for what they own. However, a site offering expertise in domain development should probably be demonstrating its expertise by getting its revenue through domaining. “I’m willing to chock the ‘PAY IT NOW’ statement up to second language issues, but would be more impressed by seeing how domaining.com makes $$$ as a domain name. A subscription-based site doesn’t say much for the investment potential of domains.
james b
I won’t be paying. Its a shame I like the site but not worth me paying the money. Good luck. James
Ted Stalets
Fun to read – but will not join as a Pay Site.
All the best!
Ted
Joan T
I will be unsubscribing from this site toute suite. You have traffic, you have interest and now instead of taking advertising… you are going to charge your loyal database. Brilliant!
ParkingFirm.com
I personally think Domaining.com is a decent service with its daily newsletter but it aint really worth paying up, and of course cuz there are half a dozen more around the corner offering us to visit them for free.
One such site I’ve started visiting now is http://domain-name.alltop.com , definitely worth a visit.
-
Jay M
ParkingFirm.com
Stephen Douglas
Well, Francois seems to have felt his head swelling like a balloon lately, with his popular success. To bad he equated that with $$$$ and charging for reading content we all can read by setting up “google alerts” on our gmail. Plus, he’s charging people to read content we’re providing.
Even worse, I paid to advertise ONE domain with him, $20… true, i would take 100% of the profit, but he only runs the domain name on his site TWICE, and if there are no takers, your $20 is gone – PER DOMAIN YOU LIST WITH DOMAINING.COM.
If he had a website “clearinghouse” of the domains that domainers paid him to list, that would be fair, but he doesn’t. So if you pay $20 to list your domain on his email/website, it only gets listed twice, and then it’s GONE. He should have a list of all the domains that were paid to be listed with his site, and keep listing them until they are sold. It costs nothing for him to do this.
That’s my word, and I’m pissed that I have to give him my expert advice and not receive any compensation for it. But I feel I need to make these statements.
True, someone can come up with another RSS feed aggregator like Domaining.com, but until I see it, Francois has the last laugh.
Huw Williams
OMFG – well what a bunch of PENNY PUSHERS
Francois has worked hard to create the interface that delivers off the press professional domaining news to your doorstep every day – WHICH FEEDS OUR LITTLE ADDICTION! And it’s a measly $35 for a full 365 days! How much do you spend on luxuries elsewhere like your drink and your smokes and your over shopping in the supermarket on stuff you really don’t need – eh!
Come on guys – where due is due, it’s a great little service and if Francois feels it’s worth a little extra from his fellow domainers I personally have no problem in obliging – which I have.. here’s to the next year of subscription DN news delivered every morning – lovely!
Happy New Year to all
**Jamie Says**
Would you still pay the $35 if the “news” was gone? What if a service was around that Paid the people providing the content (the bloggers) and the service was Free….
Cedrick Reese
I for one have enjoyed the newsletter, but I also have the domains bookmarked so that will eliminate me from having to pay the $35 a year. Even though it is a small price for a yearly subscription, I think he could make money by selling ad space within his newsletter depending upon the amount of subscribers.
Rob Sequin
Judging from the 35 replies, I guess Francois has heard from his customers.
If DNJournal and DomainNameWire don’t charge for their content, I don’t see how Domaining can charge for it’s content.
The Wall Street Journal charges for its content but not many other publishers can do it. DomainTools charges for their content but that is more of a service to access data.
So, I’m not sure what sites in the domain industry can charge for their site up front. Sure, sedo, afternic, snap, namejet, bido etc charge you AFTER the transaction but charging for content is a tough sell to any audience, not just domainers.
Gordon
$4,000 per month on bandwidth and hosting??? I don’t spend $200 per month for hosting for ALL my sites, that get several hundred thousand uniques per month…..
**Jamie Says**
. That does seem Very Extreme Francois.
I think he said $4,000-$6,000.. Don’t forget that extra $2K
Johnny
My subscription got cancelled?
I actually READ these newsletters and didn’t notice.
Guess it’s not as useful as I thought.
Everybody everywhere all the time wants $35 for something or nothing.
F, it’s NOT penny pinching… there’s so much “gimme-gimme” that ANY amount should be scrutinized. I feel like I am choking to death on gimme-gimme.
To simply render unto Caeser as one poster insinuates just makes for another fool and his money.
Everyone now must THINK and CHOOSE who to give $1 to, much less $35.
I can get this info elsewhere, so the value added is just not there for the saavy domaineer.
Francois, love ya (mean it) but you have a good thing that is yours to ruin or rule. So… so long and thanks for all the fish!
Rafiq
I’m dissapointed from them going from free to paid. i’m even planning to launch a similar one under http://www.domainjokers.com soon which will be always free.
Sri
I haven’t yet read all the comments, but it does seem very outrageous, paying for aggregated content. Did Francois hand-reg domaining.com or buy it from the secondary market for a hefty price? Probably he want’s to realize a.s.a.p., the price he might have paid for the domain name.
On a hunch, I just looked up “Readers Digest” on the web and landed on their site. And, holy cows! They are giving away gift subscriptions for $5. Yes, 12 issues of RD delivered to your door for $5. Can’t believe it! Go check rd.com. For $35 you can gift 7 RD subscriptions!
But on second thoughts, is Francois playing a game of HPM triggers to get noticed and talked about? Domaining.com’s Alexa rank has been decreasing for some time now.
Mat
Hi All Domainers,
Charge for an information website, never ever gonna happen! The web is all about free information and connecting people to a wealth of free knowledge!I undertsand you want to make a profit however this is not the way to go about it. Why dont you try concentrating on selling more domains and the only way to do this is through increasing traffic to your website, and lets face it a website traficed at 61,635 (which is yours) is not really that successfull, what do you think? So why not continue to increase traffic to your website through information and build on driving reveune in other functionalities!
Umm maybe think more about crowdsoucing!
Food for Thought
Cheers Mat
Kevin Davis
I just submitted a name and paid for it and Francois refunded my money and I have paid for 7 domain features in the last 2 weeks alone.So in the last 2 weeks I have spent more than 50 dollars advertising domains and now you will not get any of it.Re think it Francois.Kevin Davis
Randall Brown
Like I Wrote on my blog, I see this “fee” hurting the site more then us. If you dont like paying the large hosting fee a month then sell your site. But, mot everyone in domaining has the money to pay.
I don’t use domainging.com ever since I sent an email and the reply i got back was not bad but not nice. It seems edgy, also more sites are coming around with the RSS feeds like SocialDN.com for FREE. I think Ross might have more sites linked. He doesn’t mind that your site may not have PR and does not charge. But he does care about the content.
Good Luck Domaining.com, Why not set up a Donations Post and who ever donates 35 can be listed on a page and Recognized for the donation and link to there site, You will get allot of Donations that way.
Rodney
I don’t understand the $3k-$4k for hosting. My site is only fractional of it and the website traffic, I guess, should not be that huge due to redirect. Francois does have an advertisemnt section http://www.domaining.com/advertising/ on the site. I took a close look at it and I am just wondering why the advertisers not coming? Too expensive for the charge? I would say, free access, with paid premium features, should be the future direct for many sites. Domaining should consider that
bob
Morning Coffee Firefox extension
The idea is simple. You know how you have that list of websites that you visit every day, morning coffee Firefox extension puts them all in one place and opens them up with one click replaces domaining.com
http://www.shaneliesegang.com/projects/coffee.php
Garry
I submitted a domain for sale on domaining.com a couple of weeks ago and from the emails I got from Francois, I think he’s a first class turd. He didn’t even list my domain for what I wanted him to. Who cares if my domain is overpriced. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. But from his name and his apparent language barrier, I guess he’s French and we should just expect this kind of behavior from him. Bye Francois. I not think I join you domain site.
Sri
Francois,
I am ready to offer you free hosting – yes FREE. No ads, no riders, no reciprocals, no scratch my back required.
If you really do want to get paid service, for $6000 a year (not month), I could set you up a dedicated server with around the clock human attended customer support thrown in.
Frankly Francois, if you ARE paying that obscene amount for hosting and bandwidth (data transfer as you say), you should kick them (your hosting provider) you know where and seriously reconsider someone else (like me for instance).
Best wishes.
Mick
Man oh man. You are indeed a silly man Francois. To have a potentially successful site with growing popularity and through simple greed you have pressed the self distruct button. Ethically, I cant see how you can use someone elses freely available content to line your own pockets. How much of the reg. fee goes back to the blogger? Actually dont answer that Im sure we know the answer. Any way it may not be too late to reverse your mistake but I do believe that the damage has been done and you have lost faith of many loyal visitors and indeed shown your true colours. Just to think that you think that we are so gullible to think that you pay up to $6000 a month (or year for that matter) for hosting this site. I suggest also a change of name for obvious reasons, what do you think ‘Frank’. Maybe we should use the great afterdomainer.com (now for sale hehe). Thanks Frank for another registered domain for my stable just in case you proceed with your rego fee. Thanks for the post Jamie, love your work as always,
Mick from downunder.
Mick
Just realised my error in registration of afterdomainer.com so now I am happy to say that I have just registered afterdomaining.com as well. Happy Days.
Mick from Downunder
Francois
Thanks Sri for your kind proposal.
But many dedicated servers are involved in the service, not only one: Firewall server, SQL server, web servers. They are servers running under Microsoft software with expensive licences. Prices are almost the same from the main hosting companies offering similar service, we use PEER1 for years. We will not go to big pain of a change to save few hundreds dollars.
…
For the main reasons exposed we can no longer go free for the membership.
Now I hear your comments, as a result the annual membership has been reduced to $25 and an option at $10 for 3 months will be soon available.
The decision is retro active, so all that paid $35 have now a $10 credit + $5 bonus into their domaining.com account.
Gordon
Francois,
I think you are missing the point. It is not the amount of money, it is any money that is bothering people. I don’t think you will see an increase in subscriptions at $25 – if someone doesn’t want to pay for something an extra $1 per month won’t change their minds.
Francois
Well I think this time I definitively got the point as now domaining.com is FREE:
No need to register to can read headlines!
…
The membership for existing members will continue FREE like in the past. Free members could receive our daily newsletter but will only see featured domains 24 hours after paid members. So if you are not receiving our newsletter your account has been deleted as there is no interest to maintain it.
…
Now membership for new members will no longer be free, we will charge $25/year or $10 per quarter.
…
This fee as you understand is no longer a fee to can read news or receive our newsletter, it’s simply a fee to can do business:
- Receive new featured names before everyone.
- Can list featured domains.
- Can use profesionnals services to come lile auctions.