Monthly Archives: August 2006

Thu 31st August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Satire: Internet scientists lower .ORG to “dwarf domain” - A satirical article about domain names jokes about demoting .org to a “dwarf domain”. Need a break from your Thursday afternoon? Click on over to TheSpoof.com for a humorous article poking fun at the recent decision to demote Pluto from its major planetary status: CERN, SWITZERLAND — An uproar took place in the digital world when the Internet Engineering Task Force demoted .ORG sites to the status of “dwarf domain” at its sixty-sixth official meeting in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Monetize This: iMonetize enters domain parking optimization play - iMonetize.com has launched a number of domain services, including a domain parking optimization service that covers most major parking companies. If you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you know I’m a fan of TrafficClub. TrafficClub is a domain parking service that automatically optimizes your domains across various parking services such as DomainSponsor, Adsense for Domains, and Skenzo. There’s a new player in the domain optimization space: iMonetize.com. ... read more ...
Wed 30th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Spainless - A problem at the .es registry shows the importance of stable registries with good technology backbones. Web sites using Spain’s .es domain disappeared from the world for a couple hours Tuesday. The problem was with the .es registry, Esnic, which is the equivalent of VeriSign to the .com and .net world. Think about the money that would be lost if something like this happened to a major domain? From news reports: Madrid, Aug 30 (DPA) The biggest blackout in Spain’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign domain name marketplace report - Verisign recently released its Domain Name Industry Brief. The briefing discusses recent trends in domain names. Verisign is the registry for .com and .net domains and therefore has access to a rich data set. Among the more interesting data: -As of the end of Q2 2006 there were over 105M domains registered. This is the first time a quarter has ended with over 100M domains registered. -The top ccTLDs are .de (Germany), .uk (United Kingdom), and .eu (European Union) ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Business 2.0 essay about general TLDs - Business 2.0 has a new article about the rising value on non-.com domain names. .Com is king. We all know that. But it seems like every week we see huge domain prices for non-.com domains. Of particular interest is .de, which frequently rings up 6-figure sales. A recent Business 2.0 article discusses this trend. The article reveals (for the first time, I believe) that Hotels.eu sold for $330,000 and Shopping.eu sold for $200,000 back in July via Sedo. The article ... read more ...
Tue 29th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
It’s official: GoDaddy cans reward auctions - GoDaddy confirms it is no longer offering premium auctions on its TDNAM service. On Monday I wrote about how TDNAM appeared to no longer offer premium auctions. I wasn’t able to get a clear answer from GoDaddy support, but today I received a response to my message to the GoDaddy Office of the President: Dear Andrew, Thank you for the email. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Please accept our apology for any confusion there has been regarding this ... read more ...
Mon 28th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
OnlineCasino.de $101,000 - OnlineCasino.de is poised to sell for 6 figures on Afternic. OnlineCasino.de is currently in the closing soon section of Afternic with a top bid of $101,000. The domain has met its reserve. Although a bid doesn’t necessarily mean the sale will be completed, this price seems fair for this domain. Afternic has a number of other good domains closing soon: -CashAdvanceOnline.com $9,590 -WorldNewswire.com $3,000 -ImageUpload.com $2,500 Sedo is showing a recent sale ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Where are TDNAM’s Premium Auctions? - GoDaddy’s TDNAM premium auctions have disappeared. And so has GoDaddy’s support. On August 11 I wrote about how GoDaddy was offering “premium auctions” on its TDNAM domain aftermarket. All of the domains in the premium category had traffic and most had starting bids around $10. In order to bid on premium domains you had to pay the $19.99 monthly fee to join at the premium level of GoDaddy’s domain parking service. I paid the $19.99 so I could test drive ... read more ...
Fri 25th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Analyzing a Microsoft cybersquatter lawsuits - The domainer community was abuzz this week after Microsoft sued many individuals for registering domains with its trademark in them. If you search on Google news for “microsoft domain name” you’ll find over 130 hits about Microsoft’s lawsuits that were announced this week. Instead of filing UDRP complaints to get back domains that include Microsoft trademarks, the company decided to sue under the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. This act ... read more ...
Thu 24th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will splogs kill .info domains? - An article in the September issue of Wired explores search spam and the role of .info domain names. The article, titled “Spam + Blogs = Trouble” is a good overview of the problems of search spam, blog spam, and other various forms of web activity designed to take advantage of search engines. (The article will be online September 5, but you can read it on page 104 of the print edition that is available to subscribers now). For those not versed in search spam, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Summer Sale - Afternic is offering a number of quality domains for only $1,000 each. Afternic just announced a special offering of high quality domains from BuyDomains. These domains have all been priced at $1,000. If you pay immeidately via PayPal or wire transfer you save $100, making the purchase price $900 each. There are some great domains on the list. A few that stand out to me include: BasketballMagazine.com HostedSoftware.com TempNow.com PrayersOnline.com SchoolForums.com NetPawn.com OnlineBazaar.com UKparliament.com CaliforniaElection.com AdvertistingLab.com XMLconsultant.com To ... read more ...
Wed 23rd August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainFest Los Angeles - DomainSponsor is promoting a domain networking event in Los Angeles next month. Editors note: Please excuse the lack of posts over the past two days. I had a beautiful baby daughter Monday morning and am just now catching up… DomainSponsor is sponsering a domainer gathering in L.A. September 20-22. Unlike most domain conferences, this event will focus less on panels and sessions and more on networking and deals. Best of all, DomainSponsor (and potentially a couple ... read more ...
Fri 18th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Commission Junction links - Affiliate network Commission Junction continues to make concessions on its javascript link plans. Affiliate links should be a key part of any domainer’s monetization strategy, so I sometimes write about the latest happenings in the affiliate marketing world. Several months ago Commission Junction (cj.com) announced it was doing away with standard affiliate links in favor of javascript links. Javascript links have some advantages over standard text links, especially ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom raises Club Drop prices - eNom has raised its minimum bid for Club Drop expiring domain auctions. Effective immediately, eNom’s Club Drop starting bid will be $60. Club Drop has steadily raised its minimum bid from $10 to its current price. I used Club Drop a lot when it was affordable, but now there appears to be little reason to go to Club Drop rather than its competitors. So the basic idea is to focus on catching fewer, but more valuable, domain names. This might leave an opening ... read more ...
Thu 17th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo upgrades domain parking - Sedo has upgraded its ad feed, layouts, payouts, and statistics for domain parking. Sedo has one of the best known and oldest domain parking programs around, but Sedo has failed to keep up with the innovation of its competitors on this front. Just this week, however, Sedo announced sweeping changes to both its basic and SedoPro parking programs. For its regular parking program, Sedo has introduced a number of features previously only available in the Pro program. ... read more ...
Wed 16th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic redesign is a success - Afternic’s redesigned site, launched this week, is a major improvement. It’s been almost four months since I sat down with Afternic president Roger Collins at Domain Roundtable. During that meeting he discussed how Afternic was getting a complete face lift and was working on improving its backend database. This week the fruits of that labor became open to the public. My overall reaction is very positive. The new Afternic site has a crisp look and is easy to ... read more ...
Tue 15th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The destiny of domain parking and Call.com $250,000 - Communicate.com filed its form 10QSB yesterday and it contains interesting information about parking pages plus the valuation of Call.com. The company, which owns a number of premium domains and e-commerce web sites, reacquired Call.com last month. It had sold the domain as part of a package including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, and Exercise.com. Part of the sale included lifetime royalties on all earnings for these domains. Communicate.com reacquired Call.com ... read more ...
Mon 14th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wrestling.com sells for $500,000 - Communicate.com has sold Wrestling.com for $500,000. Communicate.com Inc. (OTCBB: CMNN) sold the premium one word domain Wrestling.com in a private transaction for a cool $500k, one of the biggest domain name sales this year. The company is currently listing Boxing.com for sale as well and expects it to pull in more than Wrestling.com. Communicate.com owns a number of premium domains and turns them into sites. For example, the company’s Perfume.com domain was ... read more ...
Fri 11th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TDNAM launches reward auctions - GoDaddy’s TDNAM domain aftermarket is now offering exclusive auctions to its parking service customers. When GoDaddy launched it’s domain parking service “CashParking” two months ago they threw a wrench in the traditional parking scheme — you have to pay GoDaddy to participate. It seems a bit odd to pay someone money for them to pay you money, but I guess GoDaddy is trying to play to the lowest common denominator. That said, GoDaddy allows you to pay a ... read more ...
Thu 10th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom asks resellers to watch their customers - After the New York-based Anti-Defamation League accused eNom of aiding a terrorist organization, eNom has asked its resellers to watch who they do business with. At the end of July, news broke that the Anti-Defamation League asked US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to take action against domain registrar eNom becaues terrorist organization Al-Manar TV registered its domain name at eNom. As I previously wrote, there’s not much a registrar can do about this. Today ... read more ...
Wed 9th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bob Parsons and his large fat mouth - Bob Parsons couldn’t keep his mouth shut; just one of the reasons GoDaddy’s IPO failed. GoDaddy’s boss Bob Parsons likes to speak his mind. Although he’s done a great job growing GoDaddy, I’ve often said he wouldn’t make a good public company CEO. He’s the type of guy who would chew out analysts on a phone call and blame short sellers for all of his company’s problems (ala Overstock.com). In fact, back in April, I wrote: It will be interesting ... read more ...
Tue 8th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy withdraws IPO - The world’s biggest domain registrar decided the time wasn’t right to go public. Breaking news on the financial wires…GoDaddy has thrown in the towel on its IPO, at least for now. After filing its S-1 in May and exposing its finances to the world, GoDaddy will now sit on the sidelines or look for another strategic exit. GoDaddy faced an uphill battle for its IPO despite its market dominance. Not only has the market for IPOs been muted lately, but the company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker Acquired - In another landmark domain name deal, Moniker has been acquired by advertising company Kanoodle. Just months after eNom was acquired, popular domain registrar Moniker has been acquired. Kanoodle, known for its contextual advertising services, is buying Moniker but will operate it as a separate business unit. The new company will be called Seevast. I’m a big fan of Moniker and hold most of my domains with the company. Moniker focuses on clients with large portfolios ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Analyzing a eNom merger of BulkRegister - eCommerce Times has a good article analyzing eNom’s recent purchase. The two-part story debuted last week but the second half was just published today. Despite having some inaccuracies (such as saying Business.com is the highest-ever reported domain name sale) the articles do a good job of surveying the domain name landscape and how this acquisition can shake up the industry. Author Anthony Mitchell analyzes why BulkRegister fell on hard times and became ripe for ... read more ...
Mon 7th August 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain tasting hits .uk domains - Think domain tasting is only a problem for .com domains? Think again. Domain tasting, a.k.a domain testing a.k.a. domain kiting, is the practice of registering a domain only to delete it within the 5 day registry grace period. This allows the person registering the domain to get its money back. A common practice is to register tens of thousands of .com domains, see which ones get enough PPC revenue during the first few days to justify the annual registration fee, ... read more ...