Monthly Archives: April 2007

Mon 30th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Wire Survey Results - 2007 Domain Name Wire survey concludes; results to be released this week. Thanks to everyone who participated in the 2007 Domain Name Wire survey. Greater than 300 domain name investors and service providers from 50 countries responded to the survey. The results of the survey will be released in separate articles this week. Before providing the results, let’s take a look at who participated: -17.4% of respondents own 1,000 or more domains -84% of respondents consider ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Launches Initiative to Clean Up Whois Records - Program will test registrars, registrants for accurate whois records. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) just published a report about the accuracy of domain name whois records and announced new initiatives to improve accuracy going forward. Whois accuracy is a major problem and handling by registrars is inconsistent. On one extreme, registrar GoDaddy canceled the registration of FamilyAlbum.com because of inaccurate whois information. ... read more ...
Fri 27th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why are .Biz Domain Prices Increasing? - NeuStar’s rational for increasing prices: Everyone else is doing it. .Biz registry NeuStar is raising wholesale prices 7% to $6.42. NeuStar’s rationalization for raising prices has nothing to do with increased security or management costs. Instead, NeuStar basically said “everyone else is doing it, so we’re going to do it too.” NeuStar’s letter to ICANN about the price increase states “NeuStar is taking this action to align .BIZ domain prices more ... read more ...
Thu 26th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name Gambling Auction Could Be Biggest Yet - Silent auction next month may eclipse $10M…with one domain. Moniker’s live domain name auctions have been the talk of the domain name industry over the past year. The company, in conjunction with TRAFFIC and other conferences, has sold big ticket domains including Cameras.com for $1.5M and Families.com for $650,000. But all past sales might be dwarfed by Moniker’s next auction in conjunction with the Casino Affiliate Convention in Amsterdam May 3-5. The irony ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Domain Name Auctions Grab Attention - Auctions for 06.com, Rex.com reach for the stars. Sedo is positioning itself for some big domain name sales over the next week, including Rex.com, which is currently at $395,000 with one bidder. A sale is never a sale until the domain is transferred and money is in the bank, but I imagine Sedo would have removed this bid by now if it wasn’t from a legitimate buyer. Rex.com will be one of the top 5 sales of the year thus far if the sale goes through, and the biggest ... read more ...
Tue 24th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Patents.com Auction Grabs Attention - Patents.com and Patents.net have a high bid of $350,000. The domains patents.com and patents.net belonged to the law firm of Oppedahl Larson LLP. But the firm has disolved and the domains are being auctioned together. The auction is not being handled by a domain broker but offers can be submitted through the patents.com web site. The current high offer is $350,000. Patents.com receives considerable type-in traffic. It’s Overture+Ext score is 131 and the term ... read more ...
Mon 23rd April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SedoPro Partner Forum Offers Discount for TRAFFIC Hotel - Domain industry professionals attending both SedoPro forum and TRAFFIC will save $200 on NYC hotel. The second annual SedoPro Partner Forum will be held at the Mohonk Mountain Resort in New Paltz, New York directly before the TRAFFIC New York City conference. The event kicks off June 17 and concludes June 19. Sedo is picking up most of the cost for the event, but attendees are required to pay $149 per night for accomodations. If you register by April 23 you will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CitizenHawk Helps Companies Squash Typosquatting - Domain Name Wire interviews Graham MacRobie, CEO of CitizenHawk. In the late 90s Graham MacRobie had internet fever and his own dot.com startup. He received an email one day from a company that believed it had rights to the domain name MacRobie was using for his startup. Later, that same person emailed to say they had gone ahead and registered a similar domain name, but with a hyphen. Nothing ever came of that incident, but it has bothered MacRobie ever since. ... read more ...
Thu 19th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
More Domain Names Sell than we Think - The “unreported” domain name market dwarfs reported sales. Each week Ron Jackson publishes the week’s highest reported domain name sales for the week at DNJournal.com. Jackson provides an invaluable service to the domain name community. But DNJournal’s reported sales are just the tip of the iceberg. Jackson is aware of a number of other domain sales but isn’t allowed to disclose them. Beyond even what he knows about, more domain sales occur that never ... read more ...
Wed 18th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Survey Concludes Friday - Friday is the deadline for submitting your responses to Domain Name Wire’s 2007 survey. Domain Name Wire’s 2007 domain name survey is coming to a close. All submissions must be received by Friday, April 20. You may complete the survey here. 50 randomly selected respondents will receive a coupon for a free domain name at Dotster. This year’s survey asks the domain name industry to rate service providers (including registrars, drop services, sales venues, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What is a Domain Name Worth to an End User? - Forget pay-per-click multiples. Domains are most valuable to end users. A couple weeks ago I more than quadrupled my money on a domain name sale. I purchased the domain less than a year ago at a reseller market. I used a broker to market the domain to companies that sold the related product, and he brought in a nice five-figure sale. (I’m not disclosing the domain nor the actual sales price for confidentiality reasons.) This domain didn’t get much traffic. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ocean Tomo Intellectual Property Auction This Week - IP Auction to include patents, trademarks. I just arrived at the Swissotel in Chicago for a two day conference and auction organized by Ocean Tomo. The auction will take place Thursday afternoon and include dozens of patents and trademarks. The most recent auction netted $26M in sales, although only one domain name was sold. The auction typically includes domain names from large companies like IBM. The last auction included Alerts.com, but buyers weren’t bidding. ... read more ...
Mon 16th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameDrive Launches Spring Incentive Programs for Domain Parking - NameDrive is offering up to a $300 bonus to domain name parking customers. Domain parking company NameDrive is offering new customers a $100 bonus and existing customers a $300 matching bonus through June. New customers must sign up by the end of April to qualify. New customers must earn at least $100 through June to qualify for the $100 bonus. Existing customers will have any increase of at least $50 per month (compared to March) in revenue over the next three ... read more ...
Fri 13th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Adam Dicker: Changes entrance to DNForum - DNForum.com owner Adam Dicker promises changes to ensure the site remains a “business forum”. DNForum.com owner Adam Dicker announced a few days ago that changes are coming. In a post on the site, Dicker said: I feel we have quite a few unprofessional people that are about to [be] banned in order to keep this a business forum. Please feel free to pop me up your top offenders list, remember the goal is to get rid of trash talkers and buy and sell domains, Personal ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Registrars Offer Discounts if You Ask; $5.99 Renewals during GoDaddy - GoDaddy offers $5.99 renewals; other registrars have discounts too. When you multiply domain name registration and renewal costs across thousands of domains, saving even a few dimes per registration adds up quickly. Many registrars offer “preferred” pricing for large domain name owners. This article will discuss some of this pricing along with a coupon code for domain renewals at Godaddy. GoDaddy -GoDaddy has special offers almost daily. I get an e-mail from ... read more ...
Wed 11th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How to Get Control of Your Domain Name Empire - Lack or organization can result in reduced profits and lost opportunities. I’m frazzled. So much going on. Just completed a big domain sale. Is the escrow wire in the bank? Just got an offer on another one. How should I respond? I know I have a bunch of domains coming up for renewal, but they’re all at different registrars. Consolidate with all of those EPP codes or just renew? I’m getting about 10 renewal notices a day from GoDaddy, Dotster, Moniker, ... read more ...
Tue 10th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy’s Support: Cross-sell Machine - Calling GoDaddy support? Expect a cross sell. I used to work for a Fortune 500 company that serviced millions of customers. Whenever a customer called in for support, our tech support representatives were required to attempt to sell them a product at the end of the call. That can be tough: “I’m sorry about your service being unavailable for 24 hours and that your bill is inaccurate, and that this has caused you hours of inconvenience. I’m also sorry you ... read more ...
Mon 9th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Wire Turns Two - Domain Name Wire hit the two year milestone last month. I was scrolling through Domain Name Wire’s archives yesterday when I noticed that the monthly archives list in the left column was getting rather long. 25 months long, in fact. March marked Domain Name Wire’s second anniversary of bringing you domain name news. A lot has happened in the domain name world since I first got started about a decade ago. Much of this activity has occurred in the past two years. ... read more ...
Fri 6th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How to Beat a Domain Price Increase - VeriSign made its “official” announcement. Now what? On February 2 of this year I wrote about VeriSign’s disclosure of plans to hike wholesale domain prices later this year. VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) CEO Stratton Sclavos said they would increase .com prices and .net prices: “In essence,” said Sclavos, the .net price increases are “already locked and loaded.” VeriSign has made its semi-official announcement of price increases, and now the mainstream ... read more ...
Thu 5th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wall Street Journal Profiles .mobi - Article in Today’s Wall Street Journal discusses .mobi domain names and web sites. On page B1 of today’s Wall Street Journal is an article “Mini Web Sites Target Users of Mobile Phones“. The article discusses the domain name and new tools that help consumers build mobile web sites with ease. It profiles Johannes Tromp, owner of a bed and breakfast that uses kilburnie.mobi. Tromp claims to get 30-40 new calls per month as a result of his .mobi site. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
“Domain King” Launches Domain Name Blog - “Domain King” Rick Schwartz starts blog about domain names and web traffic. Domain investor and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference co-founder Rick Schwartz has started a blog at RicksBlog.com. Schwartz promises to use the venue as a way to “ruffle some feathers”: I’ll ruffle a few feathers and mix it up a little bit. We’ll expose the cons and let you know the real skinny on payouts. Pissing folks off is my specialty. It’s easy to do when you stick to the numbers ... read more ...
Wed 4th April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Austin to Houston: 68 Domain Names - Roadtrip shows prevalence of domain names, even for small town businesses. If you took a lot of family vacations in the car as a child then you probably recall many road games: finding all 50 license plates, finding the letters of the alphabet on billboards, etc. Today I drove from Austin to Houston and decided to count the number of URLs on billboards and other signs. I know that URLs are on many billboards in large cities, but I was particularly interested in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Expired Domain Name? Unexpected Check. - The original registrant of an expired domain name at Network Solutions gets a check in the mail. I just read a good post from Domainer’s Gazette, a new domain name blog. (It’s great to see the myriad of new blogs related to domain names. Each has its own personality and perspective.) The author had a domain name at Network Solutions that he let expire. It sold on SnapNames for about $1,000 and Network Solutions is sending him a check for $83. Network Solutions’ ... read more ...
Tue 3rd April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
False Positive for Phishing Wreaks Havoc - What happens when your domain is mistakenly flagged as a phishing site? Many domain name owners participate in multiple types of monetization. Pay-per-click is perhaps the most popular but is just the starting point. Many have found affiliate programs including pay-per-action and lead programs to be quite lucrative. Over the weekend I was uploading links for affiliate programs and testing them. Something interesting happened. As I followed one of the affiliate ... read more ...
Mon 2nd April 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Registrars’ Better Business Bureau Records Spotty - Analysis of Better Business Bureau complaints alarming yet inconclusive. Domain Name Wire surveyed the Better Business Bureau records of the seven largest domain registrars with considerable North American consumer operations. Registrars ranged from 2 complaints on the low end (over the past 36 months) to 321 on the high end. Consumers can register complaints with the Better Business Bureau when they are unsatisfied with how a company responds to their customer complaints. ... read more ...