Hoarding domains will become more expensive which will be a concern for those speculating in domain names. But I doubt the yearly increase of 7 percent per year will have any negative effect on those who use one or just a handful domains for regular purposes. Costs of hosting, site maintenance, etc. will still be considerably higher than domain costs for many years to come.

Hello-

Sorry for my limited English.

up to a maximum of 7 percent in each of the final four years of each six-year period

Does it mean that EACH year it can increase up to 7%, or, that it can increase up to 7% over a period of 4 years?

Costs of hosting, site maintenance, etc. will still be considerably higher than domain costs for many years to come.

Not in my case. I own 20 domain names, and rent a $10 / mo dedicated server (this was a Black Friday 75% recurring offer).

It is 7% each year if I understand it correctly.

Many small business operators only count direct costs which they see at incoming invoices as the costs for their web presence. But the time you invest in maintaining the site, posting on professional forums like WebmasterWorld etc, are also costs associated with it. And although you may not add an hourly rate to them, these hidden costs are still there. For most people these costs are significantly higher than $10/month. Just remember, without web presence, that time would have been available to earn money in other ways.

It is 7% each year if I understand it correctly.

Thank you.

Might be a good time to renew all our .com domains for the max time allowed which I believe is still ten years.

Not a bad idea. The interest costs you save by paying each save are less than the proposed 7% price increase. In the past, it was also rumoured that a long renewal time had benefits in ranking in Google, although I never heard any confirmation from Google's side.

Might be a good time to renew all our .com domains for the max time allowed which I believe is still ten years.

It depends. I found out that, often transfer from one registrar to another is discounted, and cheaper than renewal . This is what I am doing. I keep switching between registrars, which is saving me like 20% compared to a renewal price.

Many domain names are worth diddly squat now that EMDs (Exact Match Domains) are no longer "so" important v high quality, unique, brandable, informative sites.

Over the past few years I have relinquished 200+ names and seen them all jumped on immediately by domainers and, guess what, they're all still available!

So, 7% pa over 6 years is a total increase of 50% ... it will all depend how many names one has as to whether this is an issue however I remember well in the 90s paying USD 70 pa for .com names to Verisign and I had a lot of names!

It may act as a deterrent for people hoarding domains. I guess it better to have then in circulation rather than sat in someones hosting account ding nothing. With the "recent" influx of domain extensions, it is also harder to sell domains in general. May be lead to some people simply dropping their domains rather than retaining them for the long term.

Mack.

up to a maximum of 7 percent in each of the final four years of each six-year period

:: business with calculator ::
That works out to 31% every six years: say, from $10/year six years ago to $13/year now. And then $17/year after another six years, and $22.50/year six years later, and so on. Nice deal for somebody.

7% each year

Sounds like local "rent control" ordinances.

In the past, it was also rumoured that a long renewal time had benefits in ranking in Google, although I never heard any confirmation from Google's side.

This had been written into the Google Historical Data Patent, way back, essentially to keep someone else from patenting the idea.

The superficial theory was that churn and burn spammers wouldn't invest in long term registrations.

Google, along with various commentators, decided that this would, at best, be a noisy signal... probably often misleading... as there could be many reasons apart from long term committment to a domain that would cause shorter registration periods.

I'm all for keeping domains that are not actually being used for anything legitimate in the pool of availability however raising prices is akin to punishing an entire class for the act of a single student.

Perhaps the negative aspect of illegitimate mass-copyright bombardment could instead be used for domains that are not in the pool and are serving no obvious purpose, especially companies that specialize in domain-squatting. ICANN reserves the right to audit for up to date contact information, that would be a much more effective means than mass-punishment.

Right now namecheap reports domain registration is about $0.17 USD a year for the ICANN fee. The question then arises the break down or pie chart of where the money goes for a .com TLD.

John

The question then arises the break down or pie chart of where the money goes for a .com TLD.

The "final" price of a domain name is ICANN fee + registry fee (Verisign for .com) + registrar fee/margin (namecheap in this example).

Cloudflare proposes domain name transfers/renewal with just the ICANN and registry fees (may be others do the same, I don't know).

I'm going to transfer mine from GoDaddy to Cloudflare. Cloudflare charges only the ICANN and registry fees. That makes renewing for ten years very inexpensive.

That makes renewing for ten years very inexpensive.

Just checked mine and I've been paying about the same for years with my reseller account, if push comes to shove I'll do a 10 year registration for my most important 10 names and probably sell / relinquish the rest ... Insofar as I am concerned, and many within my industry, websites are purely brochure sites these days however YMWV!

@RedBar - Ten years for my .com domain will be about $80 US. That's very inexpensive. If I renewed it for 10 years with GoDaddy, it would be double that abmount!