It’s been a very exciting week for emoji domains with Vice News releasing Page Howe’s emoji domain interview.
In addition, expiring emoji domain auctions are picking up steam in the last week or so, garnering greater visibility and activity at GoDaddy and NameJet auction platforms.
Over 1,200 emoji domains made an expiring auction appearance in the last 7 days over at GoDaddy.
Two of the biggest emoji domain sales coming from this auction were ?.ws and ?.ws, which impressively closed at $720 and $860 respectively.
If you’re curious about the previous 1,200 expired emoji domain auctions and their outcomes, then you may want to check Who.is for registration status or NameBio.com for possible pricing.
In the next 7 days, an additional 650 emoji domain auctions will have their turn on the GoDaddy Aftermarket platform.
Seeing 45% of the 650 expiring emoji auctions occur December 9th (today!), the breakdown is as follows:
- 294 (45%) – 12/9/2017
- 94 (15%) – 12/10/2017
- 64 (10%) – 12/11/2017
- 90 (14%) – 12/12/2017
- 65 (10%) – 12/13/2017
- 19 (3%) – 12/14/2017
- 23 (3%) – 12/15/2017
The most notable expiring emoji domains in auction WITH bids are as follows:
??.ws (12/09/2017)
⚜?.ws (12/09/2017)
???.ws (12/09/2017)
??.ws (12/09/2017)
??.ws (12/09/2017)
?⚾.ws (12/09/2017)
??.ws (12/09/2017)
??.ws (12/09/2017)
?.ws (12/11/2017)
??.ws (12/12/2017)
???.ws (12/12/2017)
??.ws (12/12/2017)
??.ws (12/12/2017)
??.ws (12/12/2017)
??.ws (12/12/2017)
⚫.ws (12/13/2017)
⚪.ws (12/13/2017)
??.ws (12/13/2017)
A handful (or two or three or four) of the most notable expiring emoji domains in auction WITHOUT bids are as follows:
✇.ws
??.ws
??.ws
?.ws
?.ws
??.ws
??.ws
?.ws
??.ws
??.ws
??.ws
??.ws
⚡?.ws
?⚡.ws
?⚡.ws
⚡?.ws
??.ws
??.ws
??.ws
??.ws
❤?.ws
❤?.ws
❤?.ws
??.ws
???.ws
??.ws
???.ws
??.ws
??.ws
???.ws
??????.ws
❄❄❄.ws
???.ws
???.ws
???.ws
??????.ws
?????.ws
It’s always interesting to see first-year registrations soar for any given domain niche, especially emoji domains.
In the same breath, it’s also telling to see as many emoji domain drops and non-renewals as being witnessed.
I attribute most non-renewals to emoji domain renewal sticker shock. Going from an initial $4.99 price per emoji domain to 5-8 times the initial price (depending on which registrar you use) is quite costly, especially for domain investors not planning to renew in hopes of selling before renewals come knocking at the door.
Despite the number of emoji domain drops and non-renewals, it’s encouraging to realize 3-4 figure auction sales for single emoji domains.
The jury is still out on double, triple, and combo emoji domain sales, but they too could turn the corner given enough time, the right combo, and, most importantly, increased customer usage.
In closing, I encourage you to study and read up on where emoji domains have been, where they’re at currently, and their future likelihood of sticking around BEFORE buying or bidding into a frenzy of excitement.
Interesting article. Can you educate me on how an emoji image becomes the standard that populates throughout the DNS network? With so many custom emojis available, is there a standards body tasked with selection? Thx.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your comment. As it pertains to emoji standards, please visit the emoji section of the Unicode website: http://unicode.org/emoji/. Thanks.
Emoji Domains operate off of the 15+ year old IDN process, this has been used for international languages and non-ascii characters., with success.
Each emoji domain is converted to a code starting with xn--(XXXXX).ws to make a regular domain.
so once its a regular ASCII ascii domain name it can be sees/used/resolved on
every router, browser, device etc on the internet.
BUT HERES THE SPECIAL PART – IDN’s needed you to have special keyboard with that country’s language on it, SMARTPHONES have emoji already there, on almost 1 Billion globally. Update your Android if needed, but each smartphone either has an emoji button, or an Abc/123/Emoji toglle
So when a smartphone , or MAC, or a windows computer with the virtual keyboard hit the emoji buttons for the url, the browser, social network etc converts the name and resolves. Social network also work automatically, and google sees the descriptive short code of each emoji for search and seo, ie Face with Sunglasses is “Cool”, Soccer Ball is “Soccer”
Still some quirks out their and not everything works perfect, kinda like mobile phones in circa 2001.
Hope that helps
Punycoder.com is place to enter any XN– number and see the emoji , or enter any emoji in the TEXT box, and it converts to a XN– PUNYCODE.
Lastly, if no windows keyboard yet (to get hit table mode, and see the keyboard in the lower right), then you go to emojipedia.org or emoji one and you easily copy the emoji to punycoder.
Page Howe
BuyEmojis.ws
Maybe I’m missing something Page regarding that special part, but don’t you still need an English keyboard to type the .ws part? ?
excellent question, anyone could answer?
Yup
Not sure if I understand the initial question, but technically you could also just copy and paste “.ws” instead of typing it in.
This ‘thx’ is late, but I really appreciate the answers from both Alvin and Page. Cleared up the fog! Thank you!
Lastly, each EMOJI has only one best Punycode, even thought it may show up a little different on each social network, if i own the RainbowEmoji.ws domain name, i own the punycode and there are no other owners of the single rainbow emoji, or if you have a combo, you own it,…
then each social network or browser may render it differently, just like if i own a domain name and a social network uses Time New Roman, it looks different, than Courier font on another website – but theres only one owner of the word.com domain name
Unicode is vital, because – for instance TheDomains.com hasnt updated yet, it allows NON-ASCII character in documents, websites, etc
Emoji Domain End-Users and Investors can Save approximately $12 on each Renewal by Transferring their .ws domains to Dynadot.
Below is the current .ws “Registation, Renewal and Tranfer” fee comparison (according to TLD-List.com) …
GoDaddy:
Registration = $4.99
Renewal = $34.99
Transfer = $34.99
Dynadot:
Registration = $7.99
Renewal = $22.99
Transfer = $22.99
Hi Rob,
Thanks for sharing! GoDaddy’s pricing can actually go lower when purchasing Discount Domain Club (starting at $9.99 per month, billed annually). Also, another option to look into is DomainCostClub.com which I recently wrote about here: https://www.kickstartcommerce.com/remove-middleman-wholesale-domain-pricing-today.html.
Additional Note:
TLD-List.com currently lists 1and1.com as having the least expensive “Transfer and Renewal” Fees for .ws Domains … If their Fees are accurately listed, that would be a significant savings of $20 per Emoji Domain Renewal!
1and1:
Registration = $14.99
Renewal = $14.99
Transfer = $14.99