Monthly Archives: March 2006

Thu 9th March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Farm.com sells - It appears the owners of Dog.com and Fish.com have purchased Farm.com. The dog may have a new farm… An astute reader emailed me yesterday saying that Afternic showed the sale of Farm.com for $200,000 on its “Recent Sales” page. By the time I visited Afternic yesterday the sale was no longer posted. But I did a little digging, and it looks like the domain did change hands. On March 1, the Whois record for Farm.com showed “FARM Capital Services” as the owner. ... read more ...
Wed 8th March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The rising waves of choice TLDs - The sale of Camping.info for $28,100 is one example of the rising tide of alternative domain names. Many of the domain name industry’s big players sware they’ll only touch .com domain names. But as .com domain values skyrocket they are bringing the value of alternative domains, such as .info and .biz, up with them. This week’s sale of Camping.info at Sedo (source: DNJournal) is the highest .info sale ever disclosed and is just one example of this rising tide. In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dotster $.50 domains Wednesday - Domain Name Wire has learned that Dotster’s second happy hour will offer domains for 50 cents. That’s even better than the last offer of $1. The first 1,000 people will receive a coupon for a $.50 .com, .net, or .org domain. This is different from last time when the discount was taken immediately at checkout and you could claim up to 5 domains at the special price (in 5 separate orders). The former process resulted in a server meltdown. I have conflicting messages ... read more ...
Tue 7th March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Dotster happy hour Wednesday! - Dotster is holding another “domain happy hour” this Wednesday. [UPDATE: See this new post. I have learned that domains will cost only $.50, but there are limits. There is also confusion about the time.Read more.] Details of the promotion are not yet available, but last time Dotster held a happy hour it sold domains for $1 each. Unfortunately the first happy hour jammed Dotster’s servers and made it almost impossible to register domains. At the conclusion ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TDNAM contrast extended auctions - GoDaddy’s TDNAM service is testing auto-extensions of domain name auctions. This is one of the features I requested in my post on November 3 (see GoDaddy’s Domain Name Aftermarket adds features). Certain domain auctions will automatically extend for 5 minutes when a bid is placed in the final 5 minutes. You can identify these auctions by the clock icon next to the name. This helps users avoid being outbid by someone who has a faster mouse or an automated bidding ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Big day during Afternic - 6 domains close at Afternic today, and a bunch more close tomorrow. Are any of them good values? Afternic’s “Closing Soon” category is sometimes short on domains, but today is an exception. 6 domains will be sold to the highest bidder today and another 4 will close tomorrow. Should you consider buying any of these domains? ZQX.com – The high bid right now is $2,310. OK, it’s not the best three letter .com domain, but it’s probably worth a bit more ... read more ...
Mon 6th March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TrafficClub Feb Results - February was a short month, but the TrafficClub parking service gave me one of my best months yet. As I do every month, here are my updated results with TrafficClub’s paid domain parking service. TrafficClub split tests your domains across several domain parking services and automatically distributes traffic for each domain to optimize revenue. The big story this month is how adding Skenzo’s service to the offering makes a big difference. Skenzo took a domain ... read more ...
Fri 3rd March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rapid domain growth with XSitePro - Make more money from your domain name portfolio. Everyone knows that domain parking is just the first stage of monetizing domain names. It takes one minute to park a domain name. But revenue to parked domains is limited. Traffic to your domains needs to increase if you want to earn more money. To increase traffic to your domains you need to provide real content that attracts both search engines and people. But doing this takes time. Park a page in a minute or ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How we can assistance quarrel Verisign’s latest deal - The settlement between ICANN and Verisign, approved by ICANN just this week, will mean higher prices on .com domains. How can you fight this settlement? Now that ICANN has approved the deal, the arrangement must be approved by the Department of Commerce. You can help apply pressure to the Department of Commerce by contacting your representatives in Congress. Here’s where to find your representatives’ contact information: SenateHouse Bob Parson’s has an example ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
People’s Daily new essay about Chinese domains - China’s People’s Daily has released a story including a denial by China’s Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). CNNIC, the registry of .CN ccTLD, released a statement about the story originally reported by People’s Daily that China was breaking away from ICANN’s DNS. The article in today’s People’s Daily says: In a statement issued on Friday, CNNIC points out that the report is inaccurate and “the corresponding reporter lacks the understanding ... read more ...
Thu 2nd March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New domain name scam - Beware a new take on the old registration transfer scam. If you’ve owned domain names for any period of time then you’ve surely received letters in the mail notifying you that you need to renew your domains. But if you look closely you see that the company sending the correspondence is not related to your current registrar. If you sign the form they send you then you actually are transferring your domain to a different registrar at a high price. The scam has ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Confusion over China’s domain names - A few days after China announced new domain names there are still lingering questions. New reports suggest that China isn’t creating a new domain name system outside of the existing one. They blame an english language story in China’s People’s Daily for creating the confusion. The question is whether the new domain extensions will operate under the existing .cn extension. Although the new media reports suggest China is not creating an alternate route system, ... read more ...
Wed 1st March 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN approves Verisign Deal - ICANN’s Board of Directors has voted to approve the Verisign – ICANN agreement. The controversial agreement will give Verisign control of the .com registry through at least 2012. It also includes provisions for dramatic price increases for the wholesale price of domain names. According to ICANN: These settlement documents include a new registry agreement relating to the operation of the .COM registry. The new .COM registry agreement will now proceed to the U.S. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
China’s .com ambitions – what does it mean? - China has announced its own internet address naming system – but what are the implications? If you haven’t already heard, China has announced that it is releasing its own domain name system. It will be used in China as competition to ICANN’s domain name system that almost 100% of the “rest of the world” uses. To rub salt in the face of the internet, China is going to offer .com, .net, and .org domains. Yep, just like the domains the rest of us use. What ... read more ...