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.

Tue 26th May 2015
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Sold! New domain name auctions with Sheel Mohnot – DNW Podcast #34 - How hundreds of new top level domain name conflicts were settled. Which company has facilitated the most (dollar wise) domain name auctions over the past couple years? It’s not the regular industry marketplaces. Instead, it’s Innovative Auctions, the company that has handled over 100 auctions in the past couple years to settle new top level domain name contention sets. On this episode, biz dev lead Sheel Mohnot talks about the success of these auctions and what’s next for his company now that ... read more ...
 
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This week's new TLDs: .Apartments - You can move into a .apartments domain name this week. Donuts releases one domain name in regularly-priced general availability this week and some good ones enter Early Access. .Apartments launches on Wednesday, with many registrars offering prices around $50. This should be a great domain name for geo domains. You might want to look for lesser-known location names and state abbreviations. For example, you can pick up TX.apartments (short for Texas) at a premium price of about $150 per year. (You ... read more ...
 
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Fred Krueger pushed out of Minds + Machines, association reports $5 million bookings - Co-founder leaves company and will focus on his website building platform. Minds + Machines released 2014 results today, and also announced that the board has voted co-founder Fred Krueger out of the company and his role as executive Chairman. Keith Teare, a British tech entrepreneur, will take over as Chairman. The move doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me. Krueger has seemed more excited about his website building software, Mozart, than the core process of top level domain names. In his ... read more ...
Fri 22nd May 2015
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Expired domain name report: 1280.com for $26k and more - Joseph Peterson’s weekly roundup of expired domain name sales. The sadist in me contemplates a cruel reality TV show in which some unsuspecting person answers a knock on the door to find a camera crew pointed right at him. “John Q. Public, you’ve just won $26,010!” Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he sees a beaming fashion model holding out to him a cartoonish bag of money. Then, just as our surprised victim reaches for that bulging prize, Alex Trebek blurts out: “Wait a sec! You let the ... read more ...
 
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2 domain name owners don't respond though win UDRPs - Panelists do their job by evaluating cases on their merits. The owners of Marlboro.reviews and PoolFactory.com can keep their domain names, despite not responding to UDRPs. Although respondents can win a UDRP without responding, panelists typically give the benefit of the doubt to the complainant in these cases. In one recent case, a panelist even asked the complainant to amend the case to make it easier to side with it! One of the two cases was brought by The Pool Factory, Inc for the domain name ... read more ...
Thu 21st May 2015
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New TLD leaderboard dominated by mud inexpensive domain names - Leaderboard dominated by domains that cost a couple bucks or less. New top level domain name operators that want to be recognized as one of the biggest, here’s a simple tip: offer your domains for free or close to it. Take a look at the top 10 domain names on nTLDStats, representing about 2.5 million domain names: .Club is the only domain name on the list that appears to be selling domain names for prices around .com. The others are selling many domain names for a dollar or two, primarily through ... read more ...
 
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Domain definitions: whois remoteness vs. whois proxy - What’s the difference between whois privacy and whois proxy? With talk in Washington and policy circles about whois privacy, I think it would be good to define both whois privacy and whois proxy, and discussed how the terms are usually used. Traditionally, whois privacy has referred to a service in which the owner of a domain name is listed in the public whois record contacts, but the privacy service’s contact details (phone, address, email et al) are listed instead of the owner’s. This makes ... read more ...
 
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16 finish user domain name sales - A debt management company, fabric seller and modeling company bought domain names last week. Sedo handled $1.3 million of domain name transactions last week, and the .TV domain name Astrology.tv led the way at $25,000 for public sales. That domain name is protected by whois privacy and currently lands on a GoDaddy placeholder page, so we’ll have to wait to see who the buyer is. Below are 16 end user domain name sales at Sedo from the past week that were purchased by end users. (You can view previous ... read more ...
Wed 20th May 2015
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Recapping NameJet's prohibited domain name sales month - NameJet had another strong month in April. Here’s a look at its results. As measured by the number of domain name sales closing at or above $2,000, so far 2015 is shaping up to be NameJet’s best year. Out of 47 months on record, just 8 have racked up 100 or more $2k+ sales. During 2014, no month saw 100 sales; yet 3 of the past 4 months are among those 8. March totaled 94, which is just shy. February set the all-time record. April’s high sale $32,220 is not as striking as we’ve often ... read more ...
 
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Flippa acquires Domain Holdings - Flippa bulks up sales engine with Domain Holdings. Website and domain name marketplace Flippa has acquired domain name brokerage Domain Holdings for an unspecified price. The combined companies expect to generate $70 million in revenue over the next 12 months. Flippa, originally created to sell existing websites, has expanded its domain name sales business in recent years. It also started hiring brokers to help move domain names, a role that Domain Holdings will now fill. Domain Holdings, founded ... read more ...
 
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Awareness still a plea for new tip turn domain names - Even at a webhosting conference… Leaders from five domain name companies took the stage at yesterday’s WorldHostingDays conference in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. The most interesting moment was during QA. Someone in the back of the room said he’d never heard of .Club before, and registered a few domains during the session. He had a question about an error message he got from a registrar about not being able to register a domain name — it sounded a lot like this 11 “illegal” message. What’s ... read more ...
Tue 19th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
This week: .Tennis, .One, .Bingo and more - Donuts launches a handful of good domain names this week and hosting provider One.com releases .One. The company behind One.com is shifting the dot to the left with .One. Donuts gets back into the game with four domain names exiting Early Access and now available at regular prices starting on Wednesday: .bingo, .chat, .style and .tennis. The company is also launching .apartments in early access this week. If you want to get a popular term, you can pay extra beginning Wednesday to secure it ahead ... read more ...
 
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WorldHostingDays kicks off in Pennsylvania - WorldHostingDays‘ first stateside conference kicked off in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania last night. Rain made it difficult for some attendees to make it in time for Monday evening’s opening party, but hundreds of people crowded the exhibit hall and conference venue by this morning. As a “destination conference” a couple hours from Pittsburgh, the event is heavy on fun social and networking events. At lunch each day, attendees can go down a 1,980 foot slide, take the chairlift, go for a segway ... read more ...
 
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Donuts to start releasing collision and 2 impression domains subsequent month - Names will be released in batches over two months. Top level domain name company Donuts will begin making domain names from collision lists, along with certain two character domain names, available next month. The domain names will be released in batches related to categories of domains, such as photography domains and financial domains. This industry-batching should allow the company to market the availability to their target audiences. Most of the names that will be released are on the name collision ... read more ...
 
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Kellie Peterson joins Neustar - Domain name industry veteran moves to Neustar, where she’ll develop channel partnerships for domains sch as .co and .nyc. Kellie Peterson has left the President’s post at DNC Holdings (DirectNic) to join Neustar’s registry services team. At Neustar, Peterson will be responsible for growing the North American and Australian registry services markets. She will focus on growing Neustar’s managed domain name extensions (.Co, .nyc, .biz and .US). Kellie Peterson will team up with another Peterson ... read more ...
Mon 18th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
2 thoughts on Schilling/Negari domain name tie-up - Two long time domain name investors partner to release three automotive top level domain names. XYZ (Daniel Negari) and Uniregistry (Frank Schilling) have teamed up to launch three automotive top level domain names: .car, .cars and .auto. .Car was acquired from Google. Here are my thoughts on this deal. Negari and Shilling partnering on domains isn’t a huge surprise. They’ve both found success with low cost generic domain names. This weekend, Schilling tweeted how .click is selling well thanks ... read more ...
 
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Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie – DNW Podcast #33 - Freelancer.com just bought Escrow.com. Here’s what it plans to do with it. Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, explains why his company paid $7.5 million for Escrow.com and what’s in store for the company. Matt also says buying the Freelancer.com domain name (a transaction handled by Escrow.com) was a huge inflection point for his company and has paid huge dividends, which he explains on the show. Freelancer.com is a big marketplace for work, such as logo design, copywriting, and even manufacturing. Also: ... read more ...
 
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Panelist asks complainant to cgange the box to obstacle domain purebred in 1995 - Domain wasn’t registered in bad faith, but panelist asks complainant to make a different argument. I’m dumbfounded. A single member UDRP panelist with National Arbitration Forum has ordered the domain name VideoLink.com be transferred — after, apparently, asking the complainant to modify its argument to the panelist’s liking. VideoLink, Inc. said it started using the VideoLink term in commerce in 1999. Xantech Corporation registered the domain name in 1995, so the respondent could not have ... read more ...
 
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Stolen domain GPZ.com recovered by cybersquatting claim - National Arbitration Forum panel orders stolen domain name be returned to its longtime owner. An allegedly stolen three letter domain name has been returned to its previous owner through a UDRP cybersquatting claim. Mountain View, California software company GPZ Technology, Inc. registered GPZ.com in 1996. The domain name was apparently stolen from its 11 domain name registrar account earlier this year and transferred to Registrar of Domain Names REG.RU LLC. GPZ provided a police report to the panel. Although ... read more ...
Fri 15th May 2015
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Doh! UDRP complainant admits domain name not purebred in bad faith - Complainant tries to argue that domain name owner forfeited rights to domain name by not using it. A simple call to a lawyer could have prevented a Minnesota dog charity from being labeled a reverse domain name hijacker. Can Do Canines, which owns the domain name can-do-canines.org, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name candocanines.org. The respondent didn’t have to do much to persuade panelist Nathalie Dreyfus. After all, the complainant admitted ... read more ...
 
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Had your eyes on a domain during Marchex? Might wish to give GoDaddy a call - GoDaddy pricing the domain names at a more reasonable level. One of the reasons GoDaddy acquired Marchex’s domain name portfolio (which was recently being sold under the Archeo brand) was that Marchex had steep prices on the domain names. A friend tried to buy a domain name last year. He was initially told it would cost something like $30,000. Marchex later offered to sell it for something like $10,000, but my friend had moved on to a different domain. GoDaddy said it would attach prices to many ... read more ...
 
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Barclays starts regulating .Barclays and .Barclaycard tip turn domains - Big bank transitioning to .brand top level domain names. Barclays is using its .brand top level domain names, but its transition strategy might need a re-think.Barclays, the huge bank based in Britain (market cap $77 billion), has begun using the .barclays and .barclaycard top level domain names. According to a story in FinExtra, Barclays group CIO Troels Oerting says the domain names will create “a simplified online user experience, making it crystal clear to our customers that they are engaging ... read more ...
Thu 14th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
6 domain name bonds are adult during slightest 10% this year - Domain name stocks are reversing their fortunes. Domain name stocks were a bad bet last year, but 2015 is turning out much better so far. Companies can thank GoDaddy for shining some more light on the industry. This has likely helped Web.com and Endurance International Group. Six companies have a 10% or greater return so far this year. Here’s a list of domain name companies, ordered by highest return this year. GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) shareholders have been treated to a fairly stable stock price since ... read more ...
 
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Was Google Mobilegeddon overblown? - I’m not seeing a big change in results. Are you? Last month I eagerly looked forward to April 21. This was the day, Google told us, that it would start favoring mobile-friendly content in search results. It would have a “significant impact” on search results. Has this had an effect on your mobile-friendly site? I can’t find much (if any) of a change on Domain Name Wire and in general searches. Google said it might take a few weeks for the results to be seen. It’s been a few weeks, and I ... read more ...
 
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Expired domain name results: Wangan.com $13k, Floridian.com $11k and more - Joseph Peterson reviews the past week of expired domain name sales at NameJet. The usual suspects are at it again – China and the USA. During the past week, NameJet saw a $13.9k auction finish for Wangan.com, which formerly belonged to a Chinese manufacturer of electrical fire places that managed $9 million in assets, a 646,000 square-foot factory, and 380 employees. Said the company: “We are powerful in manufacturing and researching”. Aye, but less so in paying $10 renewal fees. Although ... read more ...