Monthly Archives: May 2011

Thu 26th May 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Your Traffic Quality is About More Than Just a Visitor - Traffic quality comes down to one key result: conversion. When domainers talk about “traffic quality” they usually talk about the quality of the visitor. Here are four common types of visitor: 1. direct type-in 2. typo type-in 3. referral link from web site 4. search visitor (rare for pure parked pages) 5. paid traffic This is certainly important. But it’s only part of the equation. At the end of the day a quality visitor (or quality click) means that the ... read more ...
Wed 25th May 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
OrangeJuice.com Sells For $44,800 On NameJet.com - The much hyped no reserve auction just ended at NameJet.com for the domain name OrangeJuice.com with a winning bid of $44,800. Although there were 517 people in the auction only 7 were willing to bid $20K or more for the domain. The domain was advertised on the front page of NameJet.com with a banner ad for a few weeks and I even received an email from Network Solutions (a NameJet.com partner) promoting the auction. The winner of the auction goes by the handle of pertevniyal. We have been running ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google’s Matt Cutts On Why Porn Sites Have Such A Low Page Rank - Recently an adult webmaster asked Matt Cutt’s of Google why porn site do not enjoy high Page Ranks. “What are the technical reasons porn sites have such low PageRank? “None go over PR6. “A lack of links from trusted sites? Rampant link exchanges with low quality sites? Penalties for affiliate links? Or is there a general penalty on the industry?” “Cutts, who says the Google doesn’t have an antiporn rule, theorizes it has to do with popularity vs. links, saying PageRank looks at ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Cupid.com Buys The Domain Name Cupidon.com For $280,000 - According to an article in business7.co.uk, Cupid.com a company located in Scotland just acquired the domain name Cupidon.com for £175,000 which coverts into $280,000 Dollars. Cupidon is the French equivalent word for cupid. In Feburary of this year Cupid acquired the operating site  IndianDating.com for $200,000. IndianDating.com, had around 600,000 members at the time of acquisition. According to one of the articles,  the parent company Cupid is generating  £4 Million a month or $6.5 million ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
PbNation.com Sold For “Up To $3.2 Million” - According to a press release today, a publicly traded company, CrowdGather.com, (OTCBB:CRWG) “acquired the domain name, website, and assets related to PbNation.com one of the world’s largest online paintball communities according to Forbes and the Chicago Tribune.” “The total purchase consideration for the PbNation.com site and assets is up to $3.2 million, consisting of $1.4 million in cash, 1,149,425 shares of the Company’s restricted common shares, and certain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
CafeMom Launches Mom.com As A Daily Deals Site - According to a press release, CafeMom has launched Mom.com, as a daily deals website. “The free shopping service, launched nationally and in an initial test market, offers families deals of 50% off or more on nearby restaurants, salons, stores, activities and services.” ” The first local market in Northern New Jersey has registered more than five thousand users and generated thousands of transactions in its first weeks of operation.” Mom.com subscribers receive an email each day highlighting ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
YNOT To Start Site For Sale Of Adult Websites: YNOTMarket.com - According to AVN.com, YNOT Group LLC announced today it plans to launch  YNOTMarket.com, in June which “will be a full featured adult website virtual marketplace designed to help both buyers and sellers of adult websites.” “YNOT Market continues our trend of providing valuable business services designed specifically for the companies in the adult Internet industry,” says Connor Young, President of YNOT Group LLC. “We have seen a real demand for help in buying and selling websites, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fortune 500 Company Goes After Three Letter .Com But Loses - Company with $5 billion in annual sales decides to try to nab domain through arbitration rather than buy it. The price just went up. The owner of TDS.com has successfully defended his domain name from Telephone and Data Systems, Inc in a UDRP case. Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. is #450 on this year’s Fortune 500 list and generated nearly $5 billion in revenue last year. TDS.com was originally registered way back in 1991. The current registrant, Daniel Wang, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mike Mann Ordered to Transfer 21 Domains to Facebook - Facebook awarded 21 trademark-infringing domain names. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has ordered BuyDomains founder Mike Mann and his company Domain Asset Holdings to transfer 21 domain names to social networking site Facebook. The domain names all include Facebook plus an additional word, such as AboutFacebook.com, FacebookFest.com, and FacebookStuff.com. The case was delayed at first over some confusion apparently caused by Mann’s legal team. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
209.8 Million Domain Names As of April - Web adds more domain names in Q1. April started with approximately 209.8 million domain names registered according to VeriSign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf). That means the base of registered domain names grew by 4.5 million in the first quarter. The company says there are a combined 108 million .com and .net domain names registered. I suspect we’ll see some huge PR as the base of .com domain names approaches 100 million. VeriSign estimates there ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign and Go Daddy Increase Government Lobbying - Two domain name industry heavyweights spend more on government lobbying in 2010. Both VeriSign and Go Daddy substantially increased their spending on U.S. government lobbying over the past year, data collected by Domain Name Wire show. The numbers are based on public records filed with the U.S. Senate under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. VeriSign spent $3.315 million on lobbying last year, up from $2.4 million in 2009. Go Daddy Group, which owns domain name registrar ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Most Expensive Second Level Domain Names in a World? - Which country charges the most for second level domain names? Which country code do you suppose charges the most money to register a second level domain name? Perhaps established countries like Germany’s .de? Another rich Western country? Nope. I’m not positive, but I think Nigeria wins the prize. According to Nigerian publication Next, a grand total of 10 second level domain names have been registered in the country’s .ng domain name since the registrations ... read more ...
Tue 24th May 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
Afternic.com Sells $650k In Domains Led By FunChat.com For $40k - Afternic.com just released its sales for the week ending Sunday May 22th. All reportable domain sales $1k and over totalled $646,892. The top seller of the week was FunChat.com at $40,000 followed by iVideos.com for $16,800. A notable mention also goes out to EmailServer.net as being one of the non .coms breaking into the five figure range, having a sale price of $10,000. Here is the full list:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Google Of Russia, Yandex Goes Public Today: IPO Price $25: First Trade: $35 - The company which is commonly referred to as the Google of Russia, search engine Yandex  priced its initial public offering above expectations Monday night at $25 a share raising $1.3 billion and putting a market value of $8 Billion before trading began. The first trade was at $35 up 40%. At $35 a share the company market value is $11.2 billion. Shares traded as high as $42 and as low as $31. At 11am the stock is trading around $33 a share. Yandex generates 65% of Russia’s Internet search traffic ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic and Sedo Combine for Over $1.5 Million in Domain Sales - Strong sales week but no six figure transactions from top marketplaces. The two largest domain name marketplaces, Afternic and Sedo, combined for well over $1.5 million in announced domain sales over the past week. Sedo led the way with Bills.org, while Afternic had a very strong sale with FunChat.com at $40,000. Here’s a list of notable sales above $5,000 (Afternic sales denoted with “Afternic”, others are Sedo): .com humidifiers.com 50000 USD funchat.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TheHotList.com Buys HotList.com From Microsoft - Startup pries domain name loose from software giant. When your startup wants to upgrade its domain name, it’s never a good sign when the domain you want is owned by one of the biggest companies in the world. That’s what happened recently with “social discovery engine” The Hotlist. The company uses TheHotlist.com as its main domain name. As any domain investor will tell you, this means a lot of people tried to find the site at Hotlist.com. (Remember how ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Publicly Traded UBM Adds Data.com to Moniker Auction - Data.com to highlight upcoming live domain name auction in Barcelona, Spain. [Update: Salesforce.com bought the domain name ahead of the auction.] Publicly traded media company UBM plc has added its Data.com domain name to Moniker’s upcoming live domain name auction in Barcelona. The reserve price is between $1 million and $5 million. This is a fantastic domain name, especially with the “Big Data” trend in enterprise business. Although the domain names are ... read more ...
Mon 23rd May 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
More Poker Domain Seizures Today: BookMaker.com, TruePoker.com, FunTimeBingo.com, Doylesroom.com & More - According to the BaltimoreSun.com, to TheBayNet.com more Internet gambling sites were seized and their international owners were indicted today, this time by a Maryland federal grand jury. The domain names and sites were seized today include: Bookmaker.com Truepoker.com Funtimebingo.com Goldenarchcasino.com Betmaker.com Betgrandesports.com Doylesroom.com Betehorse.com Beted.com 2Betsdi.com (however I checked these and all the domain names still seem to be operating as of time of publication) Charged ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
If You Screw With Golden Nugget You Probably Won’t Get A UDRP But A Federal Lawsuit - Vegasinc.com is reporting that GNLV Corp the owner of the Golden Nugget Casinos,  filed two suits in the last month over two typo domain names. The most recent suit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas against Kanter Associates SA for cybersquatting and trademark infringement. The domain name in question is thegoldennuggett.com which has an extra ‘T’ at the end of the domain. The domain holder is a Panama company. According to the site the domain “links to travel and reservation ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Hey Elliot Here Is Why We Should Be Critical of Parking Companies - Yesterday Elliotsblog.com had a  post entitled “not overly critical of parking companies” In his post Elliot says in part: “Yes, there is a BIG issue of them working within a “black box,” not sharing how they calculate revenue share and other information with domain owners. Most are anything but transparent when it comes to their operations, and they likely take a very large cut of revenue from our domain assets.” That of course IS the issue. When someone chats with a parking company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hey Michael, There Are a Number of Variables during Play in Domain Parking Revenue - There’s a reason each parking company performs differently. Alright, it’s time for me to jump in. Yesterday Elliot Silver wrote about parking companies and what they bring to the industry. Then today Michael Berkens wrote a post (rebuttal?) as well. The discussion is stoked by Frank Schilling’s new parking company. A few things up front: 1. I think it’s great that Frank is opening up his platform to others. 2. This article isn’t meant as disrespect to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Adsense for Domains Now Allows Template Selection - Domain owners can pick template for domains on self-serve system. Google Adsense for Domains’ self-service system now allows users to select a template for their domain names. The service has been auto testing alternative templates with various pictures for many months, but users didn’t have control over which templates were selected. There are generic templates (such as “Daisy”) and category templates such as banking, legal, education, and business. A text-only ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Owner of FLVS.net Sues Frank Schilling Over FLVS.com - Schilling’s company named in lawsuit over four letter domain name. Florida VirtualSchool, which runs an online education service at FLVS.net, has sued Frank Schilling’s Name Administration, Inc. over his FLVS.com domain name. The suit (pdf) also names K12, Inc. Florida VirtualSchool says K12, Inc. is a competitor and was receiving clicks from the FLVS.com domain name, which is parked. Florida VirtualSchool has registered trademarks for Florida VirtualSchool and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MarkMonitor: Brandjacking Costs Top Hotels $2B+ a Year - Majority of estimated “losses” are from keyword search engine bidding. MarkMonitor just released a “Brandjacking” report (pdf) about online hotel bookings, estimating that large hotel brands lose over $2 billion a year in lost bookings and unnecessary commissions. The bulk of these losses are from competitors and travel agencies bidding on hotel brand names in search ads. Also included in the report is a study of cybersquatting of 5 top hotel brands. MarkMonitor ... read more ...
Sun 22nd May 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN: We Might Still Be Able To Approve New TLDs in June - Organization says it still might be able to move ahead with program next month. ICANN’s Board thinks it might still be able to approve the new top level domain name program at the beginning of next month’s meeting in Singapore. The approval was put into doubt after comments from government officials. But ICANN and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) just released a joint statement about another “productive meeting” between the two of them. The statement ... read more ...