I received a very interesting question a few days ago from Pink, who is the webmaster at PinkRetailTherapy.com. It was such a good question that I thought it deserved a properly thought out answer. Pink asks 

I’ve noticed is that there are a lot of good .org.uks left. I know they are not worth much yet but do you think they will be a good long term investment for further down the line? The same with .me.uks as well.

Domaining.org.uk gets readers from all over the world so its worth explaining a bit of background first.  

In brief, .org.uk and .me.uk are two of a number of UK Second Level Domain Names and the best known is .co.uk. - me.uk is for personal domains and org.uk is for non-commercial organisations. However, like the Top Level Domain .org, over time .org.uk and .me.uk have been used for a wide variety of purposes and in a variety of enterprises.

It is true to say that domainers, generally, prefer Top Level Domains such as .com and .net although demand for country code domains like .de (Germany), .cn (China) and .co.uk domains is also quite strong.

Compared to .co.uk demand for .org.uk domain names is relatively weak and I would guess that the main market for .me.uk domains is domain name speculators and some website developers.

Sales prices of .org.uk domain names have not been that encouraging and are far below .co.uk prices. There is no reason to think this is ever going to change, at least in the forseeable future. This means that, in my opinion,  all but the most generic and sought after keyword rich .org.uk domains are going to be of interest to domainers and end users.

Reported sales on the website DomainPrices.co.uk, which lists reported sales prices of uk domains, are worth looking at and back this up. (Of course, these are ‘reported sales’ and many, many sale prices are never revealed.) 

Most of the top sales of .org.uk domains reported on Domain Prices, are:-

Betting.org.uk £1,351 ( $2,700) May 2007

Mobile.org.uk £675 ($1,350) Oct 2006

Locksmith.org.uk £510 ($1,020) Jan 2008

Counselling.org.uk £370 ($740) Mar 2007

Apply.org.uk £250 ($500) April 2007 

There was one reported sale of a .me.uk on the Domain Prices site - HouseInsurance.me.uk which sold for £1,000 ($2,000) in December 2007.

I believe that domainers considering adding .org.uk and .me.uk domains to their portfolios should understand that only the most generic domains and sought after keyword rich names have a reasonable chance of appreciating in value. However, they are likely to be worth much more if developed into websites.

Domainers determined to buy .org.uk or even .me.uk should concentrate on buying domains on topics that people are searching for and are in demand such as business and commercial topics and, more generally, domains that can be used for business/commercial websites.   Brandable domains should be avoided at all costs. Also, in my opinion .org.uk and .me.uk domains are unlikely to appreciate as fast as domains with more sought after extensions.

Having said this, it is true that there are many more ‘good’ domain names available to register with these extenstions.

In terms of search engines optimization, a key word rich .me.uk will rank as well as a .co.uk domain, containing the same keywords, in the same order. Furthermore, because Google ignores hyphens, keyword-keyword.me.uk is viewed by Google as the same as keywordkeyword.co.uk. So, many domainers are establishing ‘minisites’ and niche sites on domains with these extensions and will register and develop the hyphenated version of the domain name if the non-hyphenated version is not available. Minisites can produce an encouraging monthly income and, by developing substantial numbers of these sites, they can become a significant revenue stream, in addition to any appreciation in the value of the domain. However, the amount of earnings can vary enormously depending on the topic. I have produced an introduction to developing minisites and niche sites which you can find here.

So although prices of these types of domain names will rise as the general tide of domain name prices rise, I believe that they will always be the most problematic of domains and most illiquid. This means that only a very small proportion will be worth buying and keeping for the long term. Furthermore, it takes time and experience to be able to identify those domains with potential.

The strength of these domains is the fact that they are relatively cheap if bought at registration fee prices and, if developed, can frequently be made to rank well in the search engines. However, whether building and monetizing one (or two or three) large websites is more profitable than building a substantial portfolio of minisites, or niche sites, is a matter of considerable debate.

So what do you think? Have you had success selling .org.uk and .me.uk domains. Are you holding on to the best .org.uk and me.uk domains in the hope that they will appreciate in value? Have you any experiences of developing minisites? Share your thoughts below……..