Author Archives: DomainNameWire

About DomainNameWire

Domain Name Wire is a blog that deals with the domain name sector. The blog covers a range of domain related topics ranging from issues concerning expiring domains, monetization, domain registries and registrars, ICANN, policy, law etc. The blog began in March, 2005, after Mr. Allemann had dropped out of meetings to become involved in domain portfolio company, iREIT. The project began as a hobby to keep him involved in the domaining business, and then became his full-time business.

Thu 22nd March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Kraft gets domain for break multiplication spin-off for only $10 - Kraft able to hand register domains for spin-off snack company. Yesterday I wrote about how Abbott Labs was able to freely register the domain name for its new pharmaceuticals spin-off, AbbVie. AbbVie.com was available. Now Kraft has announced the name of its spin-off $31 billion global snacks business: MondelÄ“z International Inc. What’s more, it appears the company was also able to hand register the domain for its new Moniker, Mondelez.com. It probably spent ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain sales are going up. Way up. - Just ask the company that handles a good portion of the private transactions. Afternic and Sedo release weekly sales reports that are reported by a number of domain blogs. DNJournal aggregates reports from these sources and others. But at the end of the day, public sales figures probably account for about 10% of the domain sales market. A lot of private sales take place with the help of Escrow.com. The majority of domain transactions the company handles are with end ... read more ...
Wed 21st March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company files category movement lawsuit opposite GoDaddy over “Free” remoteness use rebilling - Company says it should not have been charged to renew whois privacy services that were initially free. [Updated with comment from GoDaddy.] A Florida company has initiated a lawsuit seeking class action status against domain name registrar GoDaddy for its practice of rebilling for whois proxy services that were initially offered for free. WineStyles, Inc. took advantage of GoDaddy’s offer of free private registration when you register five or more domain names at ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Abbott Labs registers over 500 domains for AbbVie spinoff, palm registers code domain - Abbott Labs paid the normal registration fee for its new brand domain, but gets defensive with hundreds of registrations. How much did Abbott Labs, a $95 billion market cap company, pay to get the domain name for its spinoff pharmaceuticals unit? About $10. The company was able to freely register AbbVie.com on February 28. So it paid whatever CSC charges for a standard domain registration. This is unusual — large companies usually have to buy existing domains for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hot gossip: media association final GossipGirl.com domain name - Alloy Entertainment wants the GossipGirl.com domain name. Alloy Entertainment, the company behind the Gossip Girl books and TV show on CW, has filed a complaint to get the domain name GossipGirl.com. The complaint was filed with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) under the uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP). The domain name was originally registered in 2004 1998. It expired earlier this year, and was then registered by someone in Greenville, ... read more ...
Tue 20th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows batch is on a tear - Stock up over 40% in past month. Shares of Tucows (TCX) have been on a tear over the past month. After trading in a fairly narrow band since August, shares have popped 41% since February 16. Shares opened February 16 at $.76 and closed at $.88. The stock had another nice pop on March 13, when shares jumped from $.95 to $1.05. Tucows owns the OpenSRS domain reseller platform, retail domain registrar Hover, a large domain portfolio, and software download and computer ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Escrow.com taps in to DomainTools API - Escrow.com uses DomainTools’ API for faster and better escrow processing. Escrow.com has integrated DomainTools into its security and process systems using its API, the two companies announced today. DomainTools announced the formal release its API last July. Escrow.com’s integration, where it can tap into DomainTools database of whois records and other domain data, is a great example of how this can be leveraged: “Prior to partnering with DomainTools and leveraging ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
5 new tip turn domain pricing models - How should registries price their new domain registrations? We’ve seen many new top level domains (and some commercialized country code domains) hit the market over the past decade. They’ve taken various pricing strategies — from sell-if-for-a-low-price-to-boost-registrations to .com equivalent pricing to premium pricing. We’ve even seen variable annual pricing on premium domains. How should you price your typical domain registration fee? Here are several ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Matt Cutts publishes video about new tip turn domains and Google hunt results - Likely to be a “transition period” where Google figures out how to index new top level domains. Today’s Google webmaster video is about new top level domains. Google engineer Matt Cutts already grabbed some headlines when talking about new top level domains and search results last week. I’m not sure if Cutts answered the user’s question, which had to do more with rankings and Page Rank. Instead, he responded to the question of if domains on these new TLDs ... read more ...
Mon 19th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
What are your tip 3 domain names? - Here are the three in my portfolio that I like the most. Causal acquaintances often ask me what my “best” domain is. It’s a tough question. I’m sure if you looked at my portfolio you’d come up with different domains than I would. That said, here are the three from my portfolio that I’d probably ask the most money to part with. ExecutivePay.com/net/org – mainstream talk about executive pay peaked in the years after the economic meltdown. But executive ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The predestine of .travel, .aero, .pro, .museum and more - A look at domain registrations for some of the less well known top level domains. A lot of people point to the results of .aero, .museum, etc. as proof that new top level domains will be failures. This isn’t a fair comparison as most of these domains were hampered with restrictions (sponsored TLDs) from the get-go, making it almost impossible they’d succeed. But since people want to talk about numbers, here’s the latest official data on some of the more obscure ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facebook complains about developer domain - Company asks for FacebookDeveloper.com domain to be transferred to it. Facebook has filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum about the domain name FacebookDeveloper.com. The domain name was registered back in August 2006, so it’s interesting that Facebook waited until now to file a complaint in an effort to get the domain. However, the domain’s ownership did just change hands — transferring from “Jeeves Media Group” in the Netherlands to “macausite” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Sweet16.com. Sadly, only sitting there. - Someone needs to buy and develop this domain. With the NCAA basketball tournament heading to the “sweet 16″, I was curious who owned Sweet16.com. Of course the obvious use would have nothing to do with basketball. It would have to do with 16 year old birthday parties. Perhaps MTV would use the domain for “My Super Sweet 16″, the show about ridiculously spoiled kids turning 16. But if you type Sweet16.com into your browser you won’t end up anywhere. It’s ... read more ...
Fri 16th March 2012
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 ...
 
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 ...
Thu 15th March 2012
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 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
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
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 ...
Wed 14th March 2012
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 ...
 
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
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
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
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 ...
Tue 13th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN: We’re relocating brazen with straight integration - ICANN posts update on vertical integration. ICANN just posted an update (pdf) to the issue of “vertical integration” between registries and registrars. At issue is whether a registry, such as Afilias or VeriSign, can also own a domain registrar, such as GoDaddy. ICANN has been fairly quiet on the issue despite the window for applying for new TLDs coming to a close next month. But it just posted a letter in response to an inquiry from the GNSO Registry Stakeholder ... read more ...