Monthly Archives: March 2012

Sat 17th March 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
The Inside Story Of The Fastest Growing TLD .TK Adding 1M Registrations Per Month It’s Free & Soon #1 - Over the last couple of Verisign Domain Industry Brief (March 2012 here, December 2011 here) one ccTLD has seemingly come out of nowhere to become the third largest ccTLD in terms of registration. The extension is  is .TK and its the ccTLD of the tiny island nation of Tokelau located in the South Pacific, population 1,268. As of publication the extension has almost 8 Million active domain names, and adding around 1 million per Month. At the rate of growth it should overtake .Uk which just passed ... read more ...
Fri 16th March 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com Sells Channel.com For $125,000 - Just crossing the Sedo.com sales wire is the domain name Channel.com which just sold for $125,000 The domain was owned by the Web Technology Group of London and the domain is pending transfer at Sedo. As to whom the new owner maybe, it could be any number of TV or broadcasting companies around the world, but to make a wild guess, I would go with Channel Television Limited of St Helier, Jersey, also of the United Kingdom which brought and lost a UDRP last year for the domain name Channel.Tv We will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Uk domain hits 10 million milestone - 10 million .uk domain names currently registered. Today .uk domain registry Nominet announced that the .uk domain crossed the 10 million domain milestone this week. The domain name swarvemagazine.co.uk, registered on March 12, represented the 10 millionth domain. Of course, more than 10 million domains have been registered to date, but this is the base of currently registered .uk domain names. The .uk domain ranks fourth in the world for size, following .com, .de ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
New TLD proprietors should not rest on domainers for most revenue - Sorry new TLD operators, but domainers don’t have much money to give you. Launching a new TLD? I hope you don’t have a big line item for revenue you’ll make from domainers registering your domains. I’ve written about this before, but want to stress it again: there’s not enough money to go around. Yes, domainers have been there to prop up launches such as .eu and .mobi in the past. But a couple things are different this time around: 1. Domainers don’t have ... read more ...
Thu 15th March 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Corwin Calls Out ICANN Board For Not Selecting URS Provider & The Board Seems Confused - Philip Corwin of the Internet Commerce Association just addressed the ICANN board in the open public session and asked about ICANN selecting a provider for the Trademark Clearing House and the URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension). As you will see below from the transcript ICANN said at the previous ICANN meeting in Dakar in October that a provider for the URS would be selected within a month and of course now it is March and one still hasn’t been selected. It then took three people to answer the question, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Nominet: .UK Hits 10 Million Domain Names - According to the BBC, .Uk just hit the 10 million domain mark. The 10th million domain name is  swarvemagazine.co.uk which was registered by Steven Northam for a photography-based publication. Nominet who operates the .Uk registry, “described the news as a “mega-milestone”. “It took charge of the top-level domain name in 1996 when there were 26,000 .uk sites.” Nominet’s chief executive, Lesley Cowley, is quoted in the article saying that the .uk registrations are growing at 10% for the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New Study: Almost Half of Major Consumer Brands Set to Apply for a Dot Brand Top-Level Domain (gTLD) - According to a study commission by Afilias, almost Half of Major Consumer Brands Set to Apply for a dot Brand Top-Level Domains. The USA / UK survey, was conducted by Vanson Bourne, and found that 82% of major brands are aware of the opportunity to apply for a dot Brand TLD, and that of those “aware” 54% of those companies intend to apply for a dot Brand TLD. The survey of 200 consumer-facing businesses with 3,000-10,000+ employees, was conducted in February 2012 The survey captured the attitudes ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
SalesForce Acquires Another Great Domain and Launches Site.com Today - According to several stories out today SalesForce.com has just its l;aunched another  site on a great domain. The domain name is Site.com, is described as a product that which offers marketers and businesses a simple, cloud-based content management system. The domain name whois record changed 3 times just in February of this year from Site Services, Inc of Santa Clara to Domains Cable and James Barre, and the now is under privacy at SafeNames.net the same registrar that its recently purchased social.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Network Solutions pitches AfternicDLS domains to registrants of identical domains - Email promotion puts your AfternicDLS domains in the spotlight. If you have domains on AfternicDLS at the Premium level, your domains might be getting a bit more attention in a promotion right now. Just minutes ago I received an email pitch from Network Solutions for a premium domain similar to an existing domain I have registered at Network Solutions: The domain name offered for sale is the .org equivalent of a .com I own. The email advertisement tells me I can ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
DNW’s take on SEO and new tip turn domains - Top level domains and search engine rankings. How compatible will new top level domains be with search engine optimization? The issue was thrust into the limelight following ARI Service CEO Adrian Kinderis’ article on marketingmag.com.au yesterday. The money line was this: Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will. In a rare direct and immediate response to an SEO rumor, Google’s Matt Cutts ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Did Salesforce.com acquire Work.com domain name? - A bunch of signs point to “yes”. Last week I spotted a change in the whois record for work.com that makes me think Work.com has sold and changed hands. Now there may be a clue about the buyer. On March 9, I discovered that the whois for Work.com changed from Business.com (the old? owner) to a whois privacy service. Normally no big deal, except that the domain name had been listed in Moniker’s last live domain auction. Today it surfaces that Salesforce.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Twitter snaps adult Posterous domain names on day of merger announcement - Company registers two domain names for acquisition but it probably won’t use them. Twitter announced the acquisition of Posterous on Monday, and just to be safe it registered a couple related domain names: TwitterPosterous.com and PosterousTwitter.com. The whois records on both domain names show they were registered on Tuesday — the day after the announcement. However, DomainTools’ historical whois shows an interesting entry on Monday, March 12. The March 12 ... read more ...
 
Written by The MediaWizard's Blog in EN
Matt Cutts validates my perspective of newgTLDs and SEO! - All the recent propaganda one heard about how .com and other existing TLDs will be doomed in terms of SEO due to the emergence of newgTLDs has been proved to be just that, propaganda. Matt Cutts has this to say earlier today: “don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either”. I’ve been saying the same thing since 2008 actually. “Which essentially means established TLDs will continue to do well ... read more ...
Wed 14th March 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Forbes: You Have To Own A Domain Forever If It Has “Google Juice” - A really interesting article was just published by Forbes entitled “Owning a domain name is forever if it has “Google juice” The article talks about the dangers of re-branding from an existing domain name to another domain and letting the old domain drop. “”Planning to revamp your branding? Maybe relaunch your company or product line?Then before you say “we’ll just point the old domain name to our new domain and let the old one expire” consider the following tale” I’ll let you ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
One Thing Is Clear From ICANN: Law Enforcement Is Out in Full Force & Your Registrations Costs Will Go Up - Yesterday I was having a couple of meetings at the restaurant where the ICANN conference is being held with some RightoftheDot.com clients. As we were seated a large group walked passed us and sat down at the adjoining table and I couldn’t help but notice their attendee badges. Homeland Security, ICE, Interpol, FBI, DOJ. Serious guys. It was a large group of over 10 and all were law enforcement from all around the world. Its clear to those of who have attended the last few ICANN meetings that law ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Will Lana Del Rey Appear On American Idol? - Will Lana Del Rey appear on American Idol? Her record company is Interscope and its founder is Jimmy Iovine. As any American Idol fan knows Jimmy is on the show each week to coach and critic the contestants. The show typically features live performance during its result shows of recording artists, so why we don’t have any inside  information on this , logically Jimmy would feature one of his hottest artists on the show sometime this year and we think sooner than later. There is also a blogger ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Adrian Kinderis: Why Google Will Rank New gTLD’s Higher Than .Com’s - In a blog post today Adrian Kinderis of ARI Registry Services makes the argument that new gTLD’s will  rank higher .com domain names on Google. In full disclosure Mr. Kinderis company ARI is providing backend services for new gTLD’s, but that doesn’t mean his comments are wrong or his argument is flawed Here are some of his comments from his post: “”Will a new TLD web address automatically be favored by Google over a .com equivalent” “Quite simply, yes it will.” “The more I research, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google to start display some-more calm and send reduction trade to publishers - More data and answers to be displayed directly on Google.com. If you do certain searches on Google related to air travel, currency and measurement conversions, definitions, and the weather, Google will show you the result on top of the search results. For example, here’s what I see when I search for “weather in Austin”: When you get your answer on Google.com itself you have no reason to go to a site in the search results for the answer. According to an article ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Matt Cutts: No, new TLDs will not automatically get a boost over .com in hunt results - Straight from the horse’s mouth: don’t expect an SEO benefit from your new TLD. Yesterday Adrian Kinderis, CEO of new TLD registry services provider ARI Registry Services, published a piece saying that new top level domains will automatically be favored by Google over .com: Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will. While many people scoffed at this, it was still open to debate. But now Matt ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Retargeted ads will boost domain parking revenue - Retargeted ads increase the relevant ad inventory on parked domains. Over the past 6-12 months I’ve notice a sharp increase in the number of Google Adsense ads I see that are retargeted. Instead of being related to the topic of the page I’m viewing, the ads are for a site I previously visited. The same thing is happening with parked domain names. Retargeted ads are starting to pop up on them more and more. Here’s an example of a parked page I landed on today. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why we should specify your domains and an easy approach to do it - 3x sales? Yes, please. But make it easy on me. Domain sales sites suggest that you categorize the domain names you list on their web sites. Categorizing your domains helps them sell. According to Afternic, the sales velocity of categorized domains is 3x that of uncategorized domain names. It makes sense. Although many domain buyers search based on keyword, others sift through categories. Let’s face it. Categorizing can be a pain. Sedo offers an auto-categorization ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Heineken, Shopzilla, and a claimant for a Wisconsin governor’s bureau bought final week - 19 end user domain sales from the past week. From beer to shopping to politics, here are 19 domain sales to end users from the past week. All sales took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted. Heineken bought Sol.com for its Sol beer brand for 98,000 EUR at Sedo. ECPI University bought AcceleratedNursingDegree.com for $1,088. Another educational institution — Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, paid $2,880 for LiveGreater.com. Event registration and survey ... read more ...
Tue 13th March 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Domain Holdings Launches Monetization Decision Engine For Domain Revenue Optimization - Domain Holdings announced today that it launched its proprietary Monetization Decision Engine (MDE) which according to a Press Release increases revenues by up to 70%. “The MDE which was in Beta over the last three months.” The MDE routes traffic for optimal revenue yield for our platform users through a series of real-time decisions. The main components are three-fold, with the results offering users some of the most competitive payouts in the industry: “Predictive Analytics: Using a predictive ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic Sells $ 1.1 Million In Domains - Afternic just reported its weekly sales selling  $ 1,131,508 in domain names The highest sale was fromragstoriches.com a well known phrase followed by a nice call to action type of domain, getmoneyfast.com Here are all the reportable sales:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Sedo.com Sells Over $2 Million In Domains Led By Sol.com At 98,000 EUR - Sedo.com just announced its weekly sales data for the week ending March 12th. In all over $2MM of domains were sold. The top reportable sale was sol.com at €98,000. Other domains topping the list of public sales were online-casinos.de at €65,000 and slotcity.com for $56,000. In all 1,061 domains were sold. Below is the entire list of publicly reportable sales in their respective currencies: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...