RegisterFly Lawsuit Ensnares Demand Media -
RegisterFly collapse creates headache for eNom’s buyer.
The Dummit Law Firm of Winstom-Salem, North Carolina is leading a class action lawsuit against RegisterFly, ICANN, and eNom after the collapse of RegisterFly left about 75,000 domains in limbo.
This spells trouble for Demand Media, the domain company that launched last year and has collected over $200M in investments. Demand Media purchased eNom and is now on the hook for any potential liabilities. eNom is ... read more ...
Monthly Archives: March 2007
Thu 29th March 2007
Wed 28th March 2007
Median Domain Selling Price: $600-$750 -
Information from Sedo, along with an Afternic sales analysis, reveals that the typical domain name purchase is under $1,000.
It’s always bothered me that domain name aftermarkets reveal “average” sale prices for domains. Averages do not represent typical domain sales because they include outliers like Vodka.com, which sold for $3M. So if a domain seller sells 100 domains for $100 each and one domain for $3M, then the “average” domain sale price is nearly ... read more ...
Tue 27th March 2007
ICANN: Let’s Learn from RegisterFly -
ICANN is reviewing policies in the wake of the RegisterFly fiasco.
Many in the domain name community are blaming ICANN for not taking action sooner against disgraced (and disaccredited) domain registrar RegisterFly. The company imploded earlier this year, placing valuable domain names in limbo. ICANN intervened after it was too late, say critics.
An article from the Associated Press says policy reviews are on the agenda. There about 860 registrars now and growing. ... read more ...
Oversee.net Plans Future DOMAINfest Conferences -
Oversee.net’s popular conference will hit Amsterdam in May, back to L.A. for 2008.
Oversee.net, parent company of domain name parking company Domain Sponsor, has announced its next DOMAINfest conference will be in Amsterdam May 16-17, 2007. The agenda and speakers have not been set, but people interested in speaking may complete a submission form. The DOMAINfest web site also refers to another conference in L.A. in 2008.
The most recent DOMAINfest conferece ... read more ...
Video.us Sells for $75,000, Sets Record Domain Sales Price -
Video.us has sold on domain aftermarket Afternic for $75,000.
Video.us has set a record for publicly announced .us domain name sales at $75,000. The transaction was executed through Afternic and was completed today, according to the sales logs at Afternic.com.
.Us is the country code domain name for The United States. .Us has grown in popularity and there have been many five figure sales. Large companies have started to embrace the .us extension, and Volvo has ... read more ...
Fri 23rd March 2007
Fewer Ads Result in More Revenue for Domain Name Owners -
Want to boost ad revenue on parked pages? Try using fewer ads.
By way of legendary domain investor Frank Schilling’s blog, I came across a story about Google showing fewer ads on its search results pages. Google is showing fewer ads on its search pages because it has found that showing fewer ads boosts click through rates.
Schilling points out that he’s seen the same affect on his domains — showing fewer ads ultimately results in more clicks.
I’m a big believer ... read more ...
Wed 21st March 2007
.Pro Domain Names Hit Record Prices -
Four .pro domain names have sold at Afternic for over $10,000 each.
Four .pro domain names have sold at Afternic for at least $11,000 each. All of the domains are related to video: Movie.pro ($22,000), Video.pro ($35,000), Stream.pro ($11,000) and Streaming.pro ($18,000). According to searches at DNSalePrice and NameBio, these are the four highest priced .pro domain names ever sold (and publicly announced). The domains appear to have been purchased by “Streaming ... read more ...
Tue 20th March 2007
.Info Hits 4 Million Registrations -
4 millionth .info domain registration occurred last month; registry releases stats.
.Info domain name registry Afilias announced that the 4 millionth .info domain was registered on February 1, 2007. .Info was one of the first so-called “new TLDs” to be released in 2001. 500,000 .info domains were registered in the first 90 days after launching.
In connection with the announcement, Afilias released a report titled “4 Million Milestone Analysis Report”. ... read more ...
Mon 19th March 2007
Whois Taskforce: New Rules for Maintaining Whois Data -
The “Whois Taskforce” delivered its final recommendations to ICANN.
The “Whois Taskforce” delivered its final recommendations to ICANN for changing whois going forward. The taskforce did not receive a supermajority vote on any of its proposals, but did receive simple majority votes. Whois is the database of contact information and data for registered domain names.
One of the recommendations deals with correcting inaccurate whois data. Whois accuracy is ... read more ...
Domain Sniffing: Fact or Fiction? -
Does “domain sniffing”, in which a third party registers domains you’ve searched for, really happen?
I’ve always been skeptical that domain sniffing happens on a wide scale. Here’s what domain sniffing is about: you query a whois site or domain registrar for a domain to check its availability. You wait a few days and then go back to register the domain. To your surprise, it has been registered by someone else. Domain sniffing means that someone was able ... read more ...
Fri 16th March 2007
Johnson & Johnson’s Splenda Domain Name Strategy -
Johnson Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) took a proactive approach to domain registration for its Splenda product…or did it?
Johnson Johnson registered hundreds of domains related to its Splenda sugar substitute in 2005, as revealed by Sustainable is Good and Ecologist. The blog looks at this as a negative thing, but it’s a sign that a large company is paying attention to the importance of domain names. Unfortunately, Johnson Johnson is missing some key typo domains.
Among ... read more ...
Thu 15th March 2007
UB.com Top Sale during Silent Auction -
UB.com sold for $129,420 at Moniker’s silent auction.
The silent auction portion of Moniker’s TRAFFIC auction has ended with $1,188,000 in sales. That brings the total auction value (live and silent) to over $5M.
The top sale in the silent auction was UB.com, which sold for $129,420. UB.com was one of several two character domains to sell (see live auction results here).
UsedMotorcycles.com also cleared six figures with a final bid price of $105,890. After ... read more ...
Invalid Whois? GoDaddy Charges $9.95 -
Administrative fee “nothing new” according to GoDaddy.
GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, charges a $9.95 administrative fee to contact customers after receiving a complaint of invalid whois information. According to Director of Domain Services Camille Ede, this is a long standing practice. The company often charges an administrative fee when it has to do more than send an automated e-mail to handle a non-typical issue.
A GoDaddy customer ... read more ...
Wed 14th March 2007
NameMedia Launches ActiveExchange Domain Sales Service -
Service expands reach of domain sales listings — for a price.
NameMedia, parent company of domain aftermarket Afternic, sales channel BuyDomains, and parking services ActiveAudience and GoldKey, just launched a new service called ActiveExchange.
ActiveExchange allows domain name owners to list their domains for sale on multiple venues with little effort. It’s like a search engine submission service — but to domain listing services and with guaranteed listings. ... read more ...
Microsoft Has Success Against Cybersquatters -
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) scores judgements against cybersquatters.
Microsoft is redoubling its efforts to go after cybersquatters (and specifically typosquatters) that have registered typos of its brand names, such as Microsoft and Xbox, according to several news reports today.
Instead of filing UDRP disputes, which at best result in the return of the domain to the trademark holder, Microsoft has sued a number of typosquatters. It won two U.S. lawsuits, according ... read more ...
Tue 13th March 2007
GoDaddy Makes Reporting Invalid Whois Easy -
Want to report an invalid whois record? Just click the link.
It’s been a couple weeks since the story broke about the registration for FamilyAlbum.com being “deleted” by GoDaddy for an invalid whois e-mail address. Here’s what we know:
1. GoDaddy took the domain registration away from the previous domain owner after it alleged he did not respond to inquiries to the e-mail address of record in whois and his account. GoDaddy was responding to a user complaint.
2. ... read more ...
Topix.com Sells for $1M -
Topix.net buys .com domain from Canadian firm.
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal confirms that the domain name Topix.com was purchased for $1M in January. The new owner is Topix.net, which receives 10M visitors per month. The company understood the user confusion of not owning the .com version of the domain and negotiated the purchase.
Topix.com was owned by a Canadian computer graphics and animation facility that specialized in character animation, special ... read more ...
Mon 12th March 2007
Sedo Announces Second Annual SedoPro Partner Forum -
Domain aftermarket and parking company’s partner forum will be in New York this June.
Sedo announced that its next SedoPro Partner Forum will be held in beautiful Mohonk Resort in New Paltz, New York directly before the TRAFFIC New York City conference June 17-19, 2007. This is an interesting approach — holding a conference just before the TRAFFIC conference in a close location — as Sedo describes in a recent release:
The SedoPro Partner Forum is intended as ... read more ...
New Parking Pages on TrafficZ – will they help? -
Leonard Holmes of ParkQuick.com updates us on the latest in domain name parking.
TrafficZ recently rolled out their new Website 2.0 templates. These templates look much more like a real website than anything I’ve seen so far. They also have two new travel templates and a real estate template. Will these pages result in increased income? That part is not clear.
See examples of the Website 2.0 template at:
wholepsychology.com
healingsteps.com
localherbs.com
healingtrails.com
Examples ... read more ...
Fri 9th March 2007
February Was Tough Month for Domain Name Parking Companies -
TrafficClub, Afternic hit setbacks in domain name parking.
I usually start each month by giving my results for domain parking for the previous month. This will be difficult for February’s results.
First, TrafficClub lost its DomainSponsor and Google Adsense for Domains channels. TrafficClub automatically optimizes your domains across various parking programs. Now all of my domains are only being sent to Skenzo. Although this defeats the general purpose of TrafficClub, ... read more ...
Thu 8th March 2007
Moniker Domain Name Auction Rakes in $4.3M -
The live domain name auction yesterday in Las Vegas resulted in $4.3M in sales; more to come in silent auction.
155 out of 233 names in the live auction sold – 67% – a much higher percentage than in previous auctions. Moniker chief Monte Cahn credits a better selection process and “more experience” for these results. $4.3M in domain names traded hands at the auction, and Cahn predicts another $1M will sell in the silent auction, which ends March 14. You ... read more ...
Greeting.com Sells for $350,000 -
Greeting.com leads Moniker’s TRAFFIC auction in Las Vegas.
(UPDATE: Families.com just sold for $650,000.) Results are rolling in from Moniker’s live domain name auction in Las Vegas today. So far the big winner appears to be Greeting.com at $350,000. The highest sale in the last TRAFFIC auction was Cameras.com for $1.5M.
Below are some other notable sales. Please note that these sales are not final and numbers have not been verified yet:
ET.com $225,000
Settlement.com ... read more ...
Tue 6th March 2007
VeriSign: 120M Domains Registered -
VeriSign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief shows that 120M domain names are currently registered.
VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .com and .net domain names, released its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief. Among the findings is that there are now 120M domain names registered across all top level domain names. This is up 32% compared to 2005.
Country Code Domains. VeriSign credits country code domain names (ccTLDs) for much of this growth. Overall ... read more ...
Mon 5th March 2007
FamilyAlbum.com and GoDaddy Update -
Here’s the latest about the FamilyAlbum.com fiasco with GoDaddy.
Domain Name Wire’s story about FamilyAlbum.com has garnered lots of attention. A story about the story has about 3,500 Diggs on Digg.com. Message boards are buzzing. Bloggers are blogging. But where does that leave us?
Did GoDaddy have the right to “delete” FamilyAlbum.com?
After taking “reasonable” steps to contact the owner of the domain, a registrar has the right to delete a domain ... read more ...
Fri 2nd March 2007
An Update on GoDaddy Whois Issue and Other Registrars’ Responses -
GoDaddy will not return domain; other registrars say what they would do in the same situation.
It’s been just a few days since Domain Name Wire broke the story about GoDaddy deleting a domain registration due to an invalid e-mail address in whois. GoDaddy responded to the article but few people seem satisfied.
Here’s another update. After agreeing to give the previous registrant of FamilyAlbum.com his domain if he indemnified GoDaddy, GoDaddy today decided that ... read more ...