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 16th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts' new TLD renovation rates operation from 55% to 72% - Company releases updated figures for renewal rates. New top level domain name company Donuts has released updated renewal rates for the first 25 top level domain names it launched. Rates range from about 55% to 72%, well under the company’s predicted 80% renewal rate. (The company now says it expects rates to trend toward 80% later in the year.) The highest renewal rate belongs to .technology at 71.7%. The lowest is .directory at just 54.7%. .Guru, which received more first year registrations than ... read more ...
Wed 15th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Sneeze.com: good code with an engaging history - A chain of allergy doctors uses a fantastic domain name. Great brand for an allergist.The other day I got out of my car at a retail center and noticed this great domain name on the building next to me: Sneeze.com. This is a fantastic name for an allergy doctor! I looked up the company and found that they have multiple allergy centers in Central Texas as well as one in the Los Angeles area. The domain name has a bit of history, too. Remember Gazoontite.com, the .com company that filed for bankruptcy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Verisign: China is trending - Chinese terms dominate trending words in .com registrations last month. Much of .com’s growth has been fueled by Asia recently, and the top trending keywords in .com and .net from last month bare this out. Verisign released numbers on March yesterday: It appears that 7 of the top 10 trending terms in .com are in Chinese or related to China. Verisign creates this list by looking at the fastest growing terms from one month to the next. This prevents the list from being full of terms that are always ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which new TLDs are behaving best on a resale market - .Club is a top seller. NameBio, a domain sales data site, published details this morning about which new top level domain names are selling best on the aftermarket. Here are the top 5 based on publicly-reported sales, ranked by dollar volume: You can see the full chart here. NameBio’s Michael Sumner provides a number of caveats, and I think it’s worth reviewing them. A key one: NameBio’s database only includes public sales it gathers from Sedo, NameJet, Flippa and other marketplaces. I’d ... read more ...
Tue 14th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google's mobile deadline one week away - Search results on mobile devices to change one week from today. Most people in the United States are making a last minute push to complete taxes, but another deadline is quickly approaching for website owners. April 21 — just one week from now — is the date that Google will change its search results on mobile devices. The “significant” change will promote mobile-friendly content over content designed only for full browser screens. Given the growth on mobile search and browsing, this is a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: .Fashion, .Garden and .FRL - Minds + Machines launches two more domain names and another geo domain name goes live. Three top level domain names enter general availability this week, including a geographic domain. .FRL launches on Tuesday. This domain name stands for Friesland, a part of the Netherlands. The domain is targeted to the Frisian people as well as their culture, heritage, and companies located or associated with Friesland. Minds + Machines also launches two domain names this week: .Fashion and .Garden. Both domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Promo and other TLDs headed to auction - Auction group hopes to sell .Promo and other TLDs at June auction. Innovative Auctions Ltd. is holding another auction to “resell” already-contracted top level domain names. The next auction will take place June 4 and will feature .Promo. Play.PROMO Oy has entered into a contract with ICANN for the top level domain name but has not yet launched the domain name. .Promo was an uncontested application. Innovative Auctions previously auctioned .reise as a resale domain. That domain name had already ... read more ...
Mon 13th April 2015
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Bring out a Piñata: Fiesta.com UDRP fails - Panel rules domain name not registered in bad faith. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found in favor of the owner of the Fiesta.com domain name in a UDRP, although just one of three panelist found the complainant to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. Dean Simmons, Sàrl and Heintz Van Landewyck S.à.r.l. filed the UDRP against Fiesta.com. The company appears to have recently launched an e-cigarette under the Fiesta brand, but it also pulled up some old (and questioned) ... read more ...
 
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Domain investing success story with Michael Castello – DNW Podcast #28 - Michael Castello’s twenty year journey in domain names. Michael Castello, CEO of Castello Cities Internet Network, discusses the amazing story of how he got into the domain name business and picked up great domains like Nashville.com and Whisky.com. Like many early domain name investors, he stumbled upon domain names when life wasn’t going quite as planned. In this episode, he tells the story of how he sold Whisky.com for $3.1 million about a year ago. He also discusses the past, present, and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO row finds chemical association intent in RDNH - Panel determines that company submitted “selective and incomplete story”. A three person WIPO panel has found NH Resources LLC of Texas to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name No-Heat.net. It’s a bizarre case in which the parties have already been embroiled in lawsuits, there are allegations of bribery and a host of other issues. Without going down that rabbit hole, the panel determined that the complainants were not completely forthcoming in the UDRP. Because ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Brands blank a symbol with .Sucks defensive registrations - Knee-jerk reaction doesn’t make sense and leaves companies vulnerable. I’m not a fan of .sucks business model. I’m not a fan of charging big brands a premium to protect their brands with the veiled threat of someone creating a gripe site against the company. At the same time, I’m a bit flummoxed at the knee-jerk reaction some companies are taking with .sucks compared to other domains. They’re paying thousands of dollars to protect their brand.sucks domain name, but leaving many other potential ... read more ...
 
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See that new tip turn domain names are deleting - Check out which domains people are letting go. Want to take a second stab at domains registered under new top level domains a year ago? Curious what types of domain names people are giving up on after a year? Domain Punch has a new section that shows which domain names were deleted from the zone file yesterday. You can sort by top level domain and length, as well as see deletion numbers for each top level domain name. Keep in mind the domains on the list have just been deleted from the zone. This ... read more ...
Fri 10th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Big brands register .Sucks as ICANN asks FTC for review - Oprah, Apple and Microsoft among companies paying to protect their brands. Intellectual property interests and brands owners are upset about the .sucks domain name and its pricing, but many big brands aren’t taking chances even as ICANN asks government regulators to review it. .Sucks registry Vox Populi continues to advertise which companies are coughing up dough to prevent their .sucks domains from being available to the general public. Some of the latest: Oprah (Oprah.sucks), Verizon (Verizon.sucks), ... read more ...
Thu 9th April 2015
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ICANN asks FTC and OCA to examination .Sucks - ICANN asks government agencies for feedback on .sucks plan. ICANN has sent a letter to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA), asking them to consider if Vox Populi’s plans for the .sucks top level domain are violating any laws or regulations these agencies enforce. .Sucks registry Vox Populi has an interesting pricing model that charges some brand owners — including those that have tried to protect their brands in new domain names — a higher fee. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MySchool.com domain name owners fights behind after lawsuit - Domain name owner alleges reverse domain name hijacking. Original Web Ventures has responded to a lawsuit filed against its domain name MySchool.com, and has made claims of its own against plaintiff Joseph Carpenter. Carpenter filed an in rem lawsuit against MySchool.com in February after losing two separate UDRP cases over the domain name. The lawsuit sought to get control of the domain name under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. Carpenter runs a site at MySchool411.com. Original ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainNameSales increases sales commissions - Rate increased to 15%, in line with competitors. DomainNameSales.com is increasing the fee it charges for brokering a sale from 12.5% to 15.0%. The commission applies to existing negotiations for which a deal hasn’t been reached. In justifying the price increase, DNS VP of Sales Jeff Gabriel wrote: Over the past 90 days we have added 5 new Domain Brokers – two are fluent in Mandarin, three have backgrounds in Hi-Technology, Advertising, and Engineering Sales. Our new team members allow us to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Lady Gaga gift switches from .org to .foundation - It’s a longer TLD but shorter address overall. The Born This Way Foundation (BTWF), a non-profit founded by Lady Gaga and her mother, has switched its web address from a .org to .foundation. The charity was using bornthiswayfoundation.org, which now forwards to bornthisway.foundation. Although the top level domain is longer, the entire address is three characters shorter. Born This Way Foundation is named after Lady Gaga’s 2011 album of the same name. Its mission is to inspire youth and build ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameJet lapsed domain name review - Joseph Peterson reviews the past week in NameJet expired domain name sales. 5-digit numeric domains don’t typically sell for $9,120, but one expired NNNNN.com did just that at NameJet last week. 51513.com = 3 x 7 x 11 x 223, in case you care about prime factorization, which the odds are you don’t. Apart from Chinese cryptographers, neither does China, where numbers matter less than numeral strings. These Indo-Arabic numerals of ours belong equally as much to Chinese children, who can rattle ... read more ...
Wed 8th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
16 finish user domain name sales adult to $109,000 - End users buy domain names for up to $109,000. Domain name marketplace Sedo had a banner week, closing 543 transactions for a larger-than-normal $1.8 million tally. The sales were led by Mercari.com, bought by the maker of the Mercari app. Mercari has been downloaded over a million times. A number of other five figure sales are currently still in escrow or have private whois records. Before we get to the list, be sure to check out this week’s Podcast with Sedo CEO Tobias Flaitz. (You can view ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Uniform Rapid Suspension by a numbers - A look at which new top level domain names are getting hit with the most URS cases. Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) was introduced along with new top level domains as a sort of faster, cheaper version of UDRP. Companies can make a cybersquatting claim against a domain name in the abbreviated procedure. If they win, the domain name is suspended rather than transferred like it is in a UDRP. Both National Arbitration Forum (NAF) and Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (ADNDRC) handle URS cases. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts hurdles .Charity decision - Company invokes Independent Review Process over year-old objection decision. New top level domain name company Donuts has filed for an Independent Review Process over a community objection decision for .Charity. The Independent Objector filed community objections against both Donuts and Famous Four Media for their .charity applications. Surprisingly, the panelist ruled that the objection prevailed against Donuts but failed again Famous Four Media. The panelist’s decision was based on a Public Interest ... read more ...
Tue 7th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The 3 Biggest Challenges Facing New gTLDs - In this guest post, Aditya Chauhan of LogicBoxes explains big challenges facing new top level domain name registries. When ICANN announced the nTLD program, thousands of applicants threw their hats in the ring. It seemed pretty straight forward; the existing TLDs were running out of short meaningful options, all that was needed was to create newer options that would be more relevant for specific sets of customers. Years later, the process is well underway; hundreds of nTLDs have hit the market, yet ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Slicing a data: Top 50 "Premium" gTLDs - One more way to look at the top level domain leaderboards. Registries have sliced and diced the new top level domain name leaderboards in many ways: paid registrations, registration years, number of domains used, Alexa rankings, etc. Here’s another one courtesy of StartingDot, the company behind .Bio, .Archi and the forthcoming .Ski. StartingDot has ranked the top 50 “Premium” gTLDs, with premium defined as an average retail price of at least $40. Since StartingDot’s domains are priced high, ... read more ...
 
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Analyzing NameJet and Short Domain Name Sales - Joseph Peterson reviews recent NameJet sales, and takes a deep dive into sales of 3 and 4-character domain names. After a record-setting Winter, NameJet began Spring with a reduced sales volume for March. Even so, given 94 sales closing at or above $2000, March matches the best month out of an 11-month stretch during 2014. NameJet also scored its 4th highest sale of all time with VVV.com being bid up to $136,400. The real story here is the massive preponderance of 3 and 4-character domains. Out ... read more ...
Mon 6th April 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts files engaging heading applications - Donuts files trademark applications, likely for marketing campaign. Top level domain name registry Donuts has filed two interesting trademark applications. The applications are for the marks: I Am.___________ We Are.__________ My guess is this is for a marketing campaign, as it runs nicely with its current video ads that show a number of options to the right of the dot. I can imagine a campaign in which I Am. is followed by everything from .contractors to .dental. The trademark applications were ... read more ...