Monthly Archives: July 2006

Mon 31st July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Featured Listings Results - I sold 3 of my 11 Featured Listings on Afternic. Wait a minute…just 1? A month ago I listed 11 of my domain names in the Featured Listings section of Afternic. These domains get great exposure because they rotate through the home page and show up in bold in all category and search results (each of my Featured Listings received 200+ visits). Within a couple weeks I received offers high enough to meet the reserve price on three of the domains. I was pumped. But ... read more ...
Fri 28th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Communicate.com reacquires Call.com - Domain name development company sold name, gets it back. Communicate.com (OTC: CMNN.ob) is known for owning some of the world’s best domain names, including Perfume.com, Body.com, Cricket.com, and Brazil.com. A while back they sold several of their premium domains including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, Exercise.com, and Call.com. Part of the agreement called for the buyer to pay modest royalties on all future earnings from the domains. Communicate.com announced ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Interview with Branson.com Buyer - Associated Cities has an interview with Larry Milton, who bought Branson.com for $1.6M. You would think that million dollar sales of city domain names would be for huge cities like Houston, L.A., New York, and Chicago. That’s why the domain industry was shocked about the $1.6M sale of Branson.com, a town of just 6,500 permanent residents. Of course that’s not the entire story. Branson is a major tourist destination with 7M visitors annually. Milton is a commercial ... read more ...
Wed 26th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom completes BulkRegistrar acquisition - eNom has completed its purchase of BulkRegistrar, making it the world’s second largest registrar. eNom’s acquisition of BulkRegistrar comes after eNom itself was purchased by Demand Media earlier this year. Demand Media is a recently formed domain acquisition company headed by a former MySpace founder. It competes with the like of iREIT, Internet Real Estate Group, and BuyDomains. After the acquisition eNom has 6.8M domains under management. The acquisition ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom helping militant organization? Um, sure. - I’ve seen some crazy articles about domain names, but this one tops the list. The New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has written a letter to US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking him to take action against domain registrar eNom. The reason? Terrorist organization Hezbollah’s TV station, Al-Manar TV, registered its domain name at eNom. The ADL claims that by allowing Al-Manar to register a domain and by allowing it to “quickly move its site from ... read more ...
Tue 25th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ignorance gives domain attention a bad name - Comments on tech articles about domains show how ignorance makes us all look bad. Whenever I come across a domain article on CNET and its peers I am amazed by some of the comments made by John Q Public. The comments show that the readers don’t understand the domain name system and industry, so they assume the worst — and are typically incorrect. Just today I read an article from eWeek titled “Whois Hijacking My Domain Research?” The article was about the ... read more ...
Mon 24th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
EURid suspends 74,000 .eu registrations - EURid, which manages the .eu country code, has suspended 74,000 registrations. When Bob Parsons and others criticized EURid for its handling of .eu registrations, most people thought no action would be taken. But EURid has taken action, although not because some of the registrants were actually US companies. EURid announced it suspended 74,000 registrations made by three registrars because the domains weren’t registered by the registrar’s customers. Instead, ... read more ...
Fri 21st July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What’s that domain name worth? - Forget domain appraisals. You can get domain name sales comps online. Trying to settle on a price for the value of a domain you are buying or selling? You can do a multiple based on traffic, but that’s not always the best approach. You can search through the archives at DNJournal to find comparable sales, but that’s not easy. You can get an appraisal, but few people place stock in appraisals. Enter DNSalePrice.com, a search engine for comparable domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domainer assembly his Barcelona - Conference in Spain kicks off the evening of July 25. The United States hosts its share of domain name conferences each year, but meetings outside of the US are rare. Sedo hosted a UK meeting a while back and TRAFFIC plans to expand overseas. But European domainers can travel to Barcelona, Spain for a conference next week. The event will run July 25-July 27 and is presented by Afternic, Oversee.net (DomainSponsor), EuroDNS, and Renova Ltd. Some fo the topics to ... read more ...
Thu 20th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registrar ratings - Web site offers consumer reviews of domain registrars. Everyone has their horror story. The registrar that suddenly changed the DNS on their domains. The registrar that loses their domain in the system so it can’t be edited. The registrar that won’t unlock their domains. Here’s a cool site to read about other users’ experiences with over 20 registrars: domainsbot.com/rate-registrar.aspx. Users rate registrars on four aspects including ease, price, services, ... read more ...
Wed 19th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Com investigate in Wall Street Journal - Today’s Wall Street Journal has a column about .com domain name registration data. It features Dennis Forbes, who has run extensive research on the list of 47M registered .com domains. Dennis Forbes was able to acquire the entire list of 47M registered .com domains courtesy of Verisign, the .com registry. Forbes found some entertaining, allthough not very useful, data: -Of the 1000 most common words in the English language, the word “consonant” is the least ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Salient Properties buys Wifi.com for $225,000 - After failing to sell at a number of live domain auctions, Wifi.com finally found a buyer in Salient Properties. The past couple domain conferences have featured Wifi.com, but it didn’t sell at its high price tag. According to DNJournal, Sedo helped broker the $225,000 sale of the domain to Salient Properties. Salient is a physical real estate company that also plays in the virtual real estate market. The company owns scams.net, denial.com, cessation.com, and ... read more ...
Tue 18th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Coupon codes for giveaway domain names - I have coupon codes for free domains at Dotster. Want one? This is a shameless plug for my sister site, FreeDN.com. FreeDN offers free domain names in return for completing simple offers, many of which are free. I have purchased over 100 domain coupon codes from Dotster and you can get an unlimited number of them by participating. Here are some examples of the offers you can complete to get free domains: Foreclosure.com – sign up for a free 7 day membership and ... read more ...
Mon 17th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
pcNames.com Review - pcNames makes it easy to find available, expired, and pre-release domain names. I use a number of web sites to find quality domains names. For example, if I need a domain name related to phones, I might search at SnapCheck or DomainTools.com to find available or expiring domains that include “phone”. Both of these are good services I highly recommend. But there’s a fairly new player in town that deserves a pat on the back. pcNames makes it very easy to find ... read more ...
Fri 14th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain name reassignment foils Google - Direct reassignment of expired domain names is foiling Google in its attempts to clean up its search results. When Google announced it had become an ICANN-accredited registrar, the world questioned what the company’s ambitions were for domain names. This issue was further confounded when Google announced that it wouldn’t offer domain registration to the public. Why become a registrar if you aren’t going to register domains? In March 2005 I discussed my beliefs ... read more ...
Thu 13th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Adsense.com is sold - The domain Adsense.com has sold to an undisclosed buyer. One of the great mysteries about Google is why it launched a service called Adsense without owning the domain name Adsense.com. A company with unlimited resources fails to purchase a domain name for its service? It could have bought it at a low price before it started its Adsense program. But apparently they didn’t think it was worth the effort. Instead, they left it in the hands of an advertising and ... read more ...
Wed 12th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
PrimeRate.com sells for $110,000 - Afternic landed a 6 figure sale, just one of many great sales in recent weeks at the venue. Domain aftermarket Afternic.com has sold PrimeRate.com for $110,000. The domain had received offers from five different buyers on Afternic, all for over $40,000. This is Afternic’s second 6 figure sale in recent weeks, as they also sold PrizeFight.com for $105,556 (according to DNJournal). Afternic has been on a roll lately. Here are some of their nice sales: CityMark.com ... read more ...
Tue 11th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Marketplace in Morocco - The domain monetization discussion at the Marrakech, Morocco ICANN meeting on June 27 included lots of fireworks. First, a disclaimer. I wasn’t at the meeting. I just finished reading the transcript of the meeting. Much like reading an e-mail, sometimes it’s hard to understand the tone and meaning of things in writing. Now that the disclaimer is out the way, here’s my take on “Domain Name Marketplace Workshop” at the meetings. A killer workshop. Seriously. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Update - Inside two weeks, my Afternic featured listing have resulted in two sales. It was just a couple weeks ago that I started my experiment with Afternic’s “Featured Listing” service, listing 11 of my domains in the Home Featured category. So far two of my domains have met their reserves and will sell. YouSubmit.com – closes today at 9:19PM ET. Current offer is $180. The domain’s listing has received almost 400 views since upgrading it to Featured. Decay.com ... read more ...
Mon 10th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
OpenDNS - New system challenges scammers and typos, but does it go too far? A new service called OpenDNS officially opened its doors today. The service is an alternative DNS to those offered by ISPs and promises a faster, safer internet experience. Open DNS claims that by changing your internet connection’s DNS to OpenDNS, you can: -Reduce effects of phising attacks and scams -Get faster resolution of domain names -Automatically correct typos The last one might get some ... read more ...
Fri 7th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Not-so-certified offers from Network Solutions - Network Solutions’ Certified Offer Service doesn’t guarantee a transaction will go through, despite the company’s claims. I have received offers on three of my domain names through Network Solutions’ “Certified Offer Service”. This service allows people to make an anonymous offer on a domain name for a $19 non-refundable fee plus 5% of the sales price. I believe that most people that make offers through this service are unsophisticated domain buyers. ... read more ...
Thu 6th July 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Featured Listings update - Results from my featured listings on Afternic have been positive. It’s been a week since I upgraded 11 of my domain listings on Afternic to “Home Featured” (see Afternic Featured Listings experiment.) Results have been great so far: -2 offers received on Decay.com, although they are below my minimum asking price -1 offer received on Wifi.us -2 offers received on YouSubmit.com, which is now in the “closing soon” section YouSubmit.com was the lowest priced ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy banking formula from Amazon.com - GoDaddy coupon code ships with Amazon.com orders. I received an order from Amazon.com today that came packaged with a GoDaddy bookmark. The bookmark includes a coupon code for 10% off your order at GoDaddy.com. Just enter code FUN when you check out. The discount isn’t good on renewals, transfers, and bulk priced domains. GoDaddy Coupon Code: FUN Discount: 10% Expires: Unknown, but likely a long time given it’s mass printed on bookmarks. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain scammer declares bankruptcy - An Australian domain scammer has declared bankruptcy after facing $1M+ in legal judgements. The scammer Bradley Norrish, along with business partner Chesley Rafferty, ran a group of companies that sent fake invoices to UK domain holders in 2003. The suit was brought on by UK registry Nominet because Norrish launched a large-scale data mining attack on Nominet’s Whois database. But Norrish doesn’t seem to have any remorse for his actions. According to an article ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cheap domains sell for a lot of cash - Internet Business Group (IBG) has spent more than £1m to purchase several “cheap” domains. Internet Business Group has purchased several domains for a total of £1.1m. Two of the domains are cheapholidaydeals.co.uk and cheapaccommodation.com. The company is quick to point out that the value behind the domains is the existing traffic, not the actual names. According to an article in The Independent, the chairman and chief executive of IBG Maziar Darvish ... read more ...