Monthly Archives: November 2010

Wed 10th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google To Give EVERY Employee At Least a 10% Raise: Total Cost $1 Billion Dollars - As our PPC revenues continue to decline, today comes the news that Google is going to give everyone of their 23,000+ employees at least a 10% raise come January 1, 2011. According to the BusinessInsider.com, not only will every Google employee receive a raise but each will receive a Tax Free $1,000 end of year bonus. Tax free in that Google will pay the taxes that each employee would owe on the $1K bonus. According to the author of the story the legendary Henry Blodget: “Google will also give ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
“Huge Auction Of 150 Timeless Trademarks and Domain Names” To Be Held In NY: InfoSeek, Computer City, General Cinema - In an ad that appeared in the New York Times yesterday, by a company named Racebrook announcing that an action of 150 “Timeless Trademarks and Domain Names” will be held on December 8th at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. In reviewing the list there are certainly some interesting, well known trademarks included in the auction: Infoseek (Search Engine) General Instrument (Audio/Video, Telephones) General CinemaBraniff (Airlines) American Brand Meister Brau (beer) Lucky Whip (food topping) Handi-Wrap ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Elliot Silver Launches Domain Q&A Site DomainQuestions.com - New site makes it easy to ask and answer questions about domain names. Elliot Silver of ElliotsBlog.com launched a new site for the domain name industry today — DomainQuestions.com. The site makes it easy for domainers to ask questions and get answers from the community, including Elliot himself. The idea stemmed from a problem Elliot encountered. “Just about every day, I receive at least a couple of emails asking for some insight and advice about domain names ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HostGator to Use LogicBoxes for Its Domain Registrar - Large web host to use LogicBoxes for domain name registration. LogicBoxes just picked up a big customer. The company announced today that web hosting company HostGator will use its back end registrar services. HostGator currently has an ICANN accreditation but is registering domains as a reseller. The transition from reseller to registrar will occur in early 2011, and existing customers and resellers should not experience any impact. According to DomainTools, HostGator ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Good News: CPC’s Up Across a Board in October - Major vertical CPCs are up according to Efficient Frontier. Efficient Frontier, which manages a significant amount of pay-per-click spending for its clients, has reported that the prices paid per click in major verticals were up in October. The numbers are up compared to both September as well as October of 2009. Has the online advertising market recovered from the doom and gloom of 2009? These numbers suggest so: Vertical | October 2010 | October 2009 Finance | ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This is Big. ICANN To End Registry-Registrar Separation - Andrew, There is a practical dynamic which is often overlooked in theories of the impact of relaxing VI restrictions. The underlying assumption is based in the .com situation circa 1999 in which, without an agreement with the registry, a registrar would have nothing to sell. What we have now is a situation in which a single registrar has rolled up roughly 40% of the market. GoDaddy’s success is admirable, but it has also had effects similar to the effects that, say, Wal-Mart has had ... read more ...
Tue 9th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells Over $350K in Domains This Week - Afternic.com just released the results of their reportable domain sales for the week ending November 7th, with over $350,000 in sales. As last week,  included in the tally are only the reportable .com’s which sold for $2,000 or more and non .com’s which sold for $1K or more. Topping this weeks list this week is the domain name Vivent.com which sold for $15K. Vivent translated from Dutch into English as “listen” and Vivent.nl seems to belong to a fairly big company A few nice LLLL.com are ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
MTS.TV Sells For $33,500 On Sedo - The Domain Name MTS.TV just sold on a Sedo.com auction today for a whopping $33,700. The auction had 3 bidders battling it out through the $20′s and $30′s before closing at $33,700. Its one of the higher priced .Tv sales I have seen in a while. At first blush a lot of domainers might not understand As to whom would want or pay anything near this much for a three letter .TV domain. However there seems to be at least 3 large communications companies in different parts of the World named MTS. MTS.ca ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
BBCNews.co.uk: “Colombian Domain (.Co) Challenges .Com” - A story published by BBCNews.com today, talks about the growing popularity of .Co domain names as .Co now approaches 600,000 registrations. The story quotes Juan Calle the CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S., the company which is operating the registry for the ccTLD. How big are .Co’s plans: “”We are going for a global audience and in three to five years we hope to have three to five million registrations.” The article also states that: “38% of firms registering for a .co domain are in the US, with ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The “Ultimate Domain Shortener”: B.ly Hits The Auction Market At Sedo & Closes Today - There aren’t too many people who visit the Internet regularly that haven’t seen or heard of one of the worlds most widely used and popular domain shorteners; bit.ly. Sedo.com is currently holding an auction for the domain name which would be the ultimate shortener of one of the best known and most often used shorteners: B.ly The auction sale not only includes the domain B.ly but also includes  Be.ly, and Bee.ly. As of publication there is only 1 bid on the auction at 3,ooo Euro’s (approx $4,200) ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registration Opens for New Top Level Domain Conference - .nxt conference registration now available. If you think you’ve heard a lot about new top level domain names over the past couple years, you haven’t seen anything yet. Next year we may finally see the opening — and perhaps closing — of the application round. Which means it’s crunch time. Anyone interested in new top level domain names should consider attending the .nxt conference. Organized by former ICANN employee and journalist Kieren McCarthy, the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Quinstreet Bought CarInsurance.com for a Organic Traffic - Organic traffic and following keys to $49.7 million purchase. I just finished listening to the Quinstreet conference call that discussed the acquisition of CarInsurance.com. As with the company’s previous media acquisitions, the company said the value comes primarily from the organic traffic the site receives and how that converts into leads. Also like some previous acquisitions, CarInsurance.com was previously attached to an insurance agency. The agency will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Holds Another Portfolio Auction - Personal block of 32 domains up for auction. Last month I reported about how Sedo was holding a portfolio auction on behalf of an individual seller. The seller sold around 90% of his domains. Right now Sedo is having another portfolio auction. This one has 32 domains all at no reserve and ending Wednesday. The list this month doesn’t have as many keyword domains as last month, but there are still some good domains (especially at no reserve). I especially like ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HostingCon Opens Registration for 2011 Event - Early bird registration now available for next year’s HostingCon. HostingCon has opened registration for its 2011 event in San Diego, CA. The show will take place August 8 – 10, 2011 at the San Diego Convention Center. I attended last year’s event in Austin. There were about 1,500 people in attendance, over 100 exhibitors, and a lot of domain name companies. Some of the domain companies that exhibited last year include: Afilias DotMobi eNom ResellerClub and ... read more ...
Mon 8th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Why Doesn’t The Market Like All The QuinStreet Domain (Site) Purchases? - Today’s news that Quinstreet has bought yet another category killer insurance domain, this time CarInsurance.com for $49.7 million. Within the last year Quinstreet has spent over $100 Million Dollars in insurance domains (sites), with this purchase added to the acquisition of Insurance.com and Insure.com. Yet despite having acquired the premiere Internet properties in the insurance space, Wall Street seems unimpressed. Quinstreet which went public at $15 a share in February of this year is  currently ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
You Think Facebook Is Bad? Walgreens Sues Over The Letter “W’ - If you think Facebook.com has been overly aggressive in its defense of their trademark going against sites starting with the word “Face” or ending in the word “Book” you should see the lawsuit Walgreen’s just filed over the letter “W” This week, Walgreens filed suit against Wegmans Food Markets Inc., a New York-based supermarket chain over the letter “W.” According to the suit filed in Virgina , Walgreen says The “W” that Wegmans uses in its logo is too close to the style of ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
How Aftermarket.com Can Stand Out From The Crowd - Thought Convergence will be launching Aftermarket.com this week joining a very crowed space of domain name sales/broker platforms. Currently the major players in the Domain name broker/Auction space include Sedo.com, Afternic.com, Moniker/SnapNames.com. NameJet.com, and some smaller players including Latonas.com,  BoxCar.com, Francois Carrillo from Domaining.com set of  sites including Cax.com, NumericDomains.com, PremiumDomains.com; as well as Flippa.com (which also sells developed sites) and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Aftermarket.com Is Alive - It’s alive! Thought Convergence’s Aftermarket.com has been reborn today. I wrote a preview about some of the new site’s features back in August. The site works like a number of other domain name marketplaces, but has a few twists thrown in. I think the domain name verification system through sister company DomainTools will help maintain marketplace integrity. As Michael Berkens opined yesterday, Aftermarket.com could set itself apart from many other marketplaces ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Austin Domainer Weekend Now Includes Football Tickets - Dinner, drinks, and now a ticket to the football game. Thanks to the very generous support of the internet lawyers at Traverse Legal, the Austin Domainer Weekend starting this Friday now includes tickets to the University of Texas vs. Oklahoma State football game on Saturday! In order to get the right number of tickets, it’s important that you RSVP immediately for the weekend. When you RSVP, please note whether or not you’ll be able to make it to the game Saturday ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Quinstreet Buys CarInsurance.com for $49.7 Million, Says It’s Done For Now - Quinstreet buys another insurance web site but says that’s it for now. Fresh off purchases of Insure.com and Insurance.com, Quinstreet has paid $49.7 million cash for CarInsurance.com and related entities. In a press release, the company said this purchase: …expands our proprietary media and traffic sources in Insurance, consistent with our strategy. It builds on our recent acquisitions of Insurance.com and Insure.com, both of which are performing well, and provides ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Typical Premium Domain Name Inquiry - Funny video about the typical domain purchase inquiry. Ah, the domain purchase inquiry. You have to listen to them, but there’s the all-to-familiar pain of uneducated buyers that try to tell you how you should value your domain name. Bill Sweetman created this fun video that will seem very familiar to you. It includes just about everything you’ve ever heard, from “there must be a law against you owning this domain name” to “I got it appraised for less ... read more ...
Sun 7th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
DomainSponsor: Over 10 BILLION Visitors So Far In 2010 - DomainSponsor.com has been running a “year to date “Unique” Visitor” counter on its site and the clock just hit 10,000,000,000. Ten Billion visitors to  Domain Sponsors landing page from January 1- November 7, 2010. That is a TON of traffic. So next time someone questions whether people really type domain names into the address bar of their browser, send them to the Domain Sponsor counter and then remind them that DS is just one of many parking companies and combined with the fact that many ... read more ...
Sat 6th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
BFO.com Sells for $23K on Sedo.com - The domain name BFO.com sold today on Sedo.com on one bid at $23,000 Yes there is a bfo.co.uk, and some slang meanings for the term,  but at the end of the day its a fair price for a domainer to domainer sale still showing that domain are in fact a liquid commodity and good domains can raise cash on a moments notice, unlike many assets. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Lesson From National A-1: If Your Operating Sites You Should Consider Separating Them - Although it still does not appear that any charges have been filed out of the Feds raid on National A-1 offices a couple of weeks ago, that event does take me back to the basics, back to the time I practiced law. When I used to practice law and a client with an existing business came into my office with a new idea for a new business, one of the first things I would tell them is to seriously consider starting that new business in a separate entity, be it a corporation or LLC. The problem with operating ... read more ...
Fri 5th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
uFit.com Sells For $15K On NameJet.com - The domain name uFit.com sold today on NameJet.com for $15,100. Yes I have no idea why this domain is worth that kind of money unless its a “trademarked” term, and well surprise it is. uFit is trademarked and the official site for uFit is ufitbody.com However neither the official site nor this domain seems to have anywhere near the traffic that would justify the price this domain sold for. In some other sales on NameJet.com today: EnjoyTravel.com sold for $4,600 MovingOut.com sold for $2,616 CoolRunnings.com ... read more ...