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.

Wed 11th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Email domain name owners YoYo sues 3 Banks over UDRP - YoYo.email asks UK court to reverse UDRP decision. YoYo.email has sued RBS Bank (Royal Bank of Scotland), Natwest Bank and Coutts Co in the United Kingdom in an effort to overturn an adverse UDRP decision. YoYo registered about 4,000 .email domain names when they came out, almost all of them reflecting brand names. The company plans to use the domain names for a certified email service. But the registration of these brand names has drawn the ire of trademark holders, and YoYo has the distinction ... read more ...
 
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GoDaddy justification IPO filing - GoDaddy updates S-1, but it doesn’t include final 2014 financials. GoDaddy filed an amended S-1 statement with the Securities Exchange Commission today. I’ll save you a couple hours of combing over the new document for changes…there aren’t many, unless you’re fascinated by GoDaddy’s corporate and shareholder structure and its investors’ plans to minimize taxes. Using Intelligize’s Smart Compare feature, I compared the current S-1 to the previous one filed November 17. Essentially, ... read more ...
Tue 10th February 2015
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Glitter & Hemp among final month's prohibited .com domain names - Throw some glitter and order some hemp oil. That’s what domain name registrants did last month. Verisign has started a monthly feature of the top 10 “trending” keywords used in new .com and .net domain name registrations. The trending keywords are calculated based on the biggest growth in that keyword in new registrations, thus avoiding having “online” be the number one keyword each month. Last month’s trending .com’s include glitter because of ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com getting lots ... read more ...
 
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Why we purebred .Casa and .Work domains - Inexpensive domain names are worth the risk. I can count on both hands the number of new domain name extensions I’ve registered domains under, and this week I added two more: .casa and .work. Minds + Machines launched both domain names today. So why .casa and .work? They were price inexpensively, which limited the risk you take registering new top level domain names. I paid about $4 per landrush .casa domain name, and less than $2 per .work launch day registration. At these prices, my attitude ... read more ...
 
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NameJet Expired Domain Report: CarAds.com, MyDealer.com and more - Joseph Peterson reviews recent expired domain name sales at NameJet. My first thought when seeing NameJet’s $5.4k auction for CarAds.com was of a road luxuriously winding along sea cliffs and the convertible traversing it filmed from a helicopter conveniently muted for the voice over. But used-car classifieds or dealership ad distribution are more likely business models for this domain. Speaking of dealers, MyDealer.com ($2.8k) was the second-highest expired auction at NameJet to chart. Who ... read more ...
 
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Domain registrars should supplement confidence check for transfers to eName - Registrar has become a haven for stolen domain names. Over the weekend I received an email from the (former) owner of ShadesDaddy.com, an online sunglasses seller. He said his domain name had been stolen. I didn’t have to read on to make a prediction: the domain name was transferred to domain name registrar eName. Indeed, it was. How did I make this prediction? Well, a couple months ago someone in Austin was connected to me after their domain name was stolen. It was stolen from their eNom account ... read more ...
Mon 9th February 2015
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Web.com strikes understanding with investors, Rightside extends understanding with NameCheap - Web.com and Rightside reveal deals. Here’s some news about two publicly traded domain name companies. Web.com has struck a deal with Okumus Fund Management, which owns about 15% of the company’s shares, to add two new members to the board of directors. John Giuliani, the former CEO of Conversant and Rick Rudman, the former CEO of Vocus will join the board. Shares in Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) are down about 2% today, slightly above their 52 week low. In other news, competitor Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) ... read more ...
 
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Roasting Coffee & Selling Flowers with Bill McClure – DNW Podcast #19 - Bill McClure explains his web business strategy. Bill McClure has run a number of successful online businesses, including a couple he sold to FTD for millions of dollars. In this episode, learn about how he develops businesses on great domain names…and whether owning the .com domain name matters. Bill has also passed along a coupon code that you can use on his sites Coffee.org, Bouquet.com and Coffee.club. Just use coupon code DNW by Valentine’s Day to save. Also: Record breaking domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: .LGBT and dual inexpensive domains - LGBT will be the most talked about, but don’t overlook these others. Domain Names are sure to get a lot of press this week as .LGBT “comes out” on Tuesday. Although many of the target buyers are still miffed over the current status of .gay, .LGBT offers them the opportunity to get a domain name with a related meaning and purpose. Also this Tuesday, Minds + Machines is taking a different approach than before with the launches of .casa and .work. The big difference? They’re cheap. Very cheap. Many ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HA.com domain name auction is currently & 8.co will sell for $100k+ - 8.co tops six figures and has met its reserve. Heritage Auctions is holding a domain name auction today at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, simulcast on HA.com. The auction begins at 11 am EST. As of the time of writing this morning, the most expensive domain name to meet its reserve is 8.co. One of the few non-.com domain names on the list, the domain has already hit $115,000 (with buyer’s premium). Other domain names have attracted higher bids — including NL.com, Quick.com, Mouse.com, ... read more ...
Fri 6th February 2015
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ICA responds to ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé's "Hogging" remarks - ICANN boss made questionable comments in Davos last month. Internet Commerce Association has sent a letter (pdf) to ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé, following remarks Chehadé made at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. In a video interview with Huffington Post, Chehadé said: The reality is, the more there are names, the less people will actually be hogging names in order to charge a lot for them. Because if somebody took your name on dot-x, you can go get another name on dot-y now.” ... read more ...
 
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Expired Domain Report: iiiii.com and more - Joseph Peterson looks at the past week of expired domain name sales at NameJet. Market value for repeating-character domains (on average) undergoes a stepwise descent as length increases. CCs outsell CCCs, which outperform CCCCs, which outclass CCCCCs. So, for instance, last week NameJet sold 4 LLL.com domains above $5k. However, as they weren’t part of the expired auction cycle, they’re not reported in this article. Instead what tops the chart at $5k is a repeating 5-letter domain: iiiii.com. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Web pattern association sues GoDaddy over "It's Go Time" slogan - Company says it was using the slogan first. A small web development company is suing GoDaddy over its “It’s Go Time” slogan, arguing that it started using the moniker well before GoDaddy adopted it. Plaintiff The Easy Life, LLC runs GoWeb1. The company says it is actually a reseller of GoDaddy’s domain name services. It alleges that it has had the same account manager at GoDaddy and has been emailing newsletters to that account manager — including the It’s Go Time slogan – since at ... read more ...
 
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How is .Com? Verisign discusses, and signs 11 IDN contracts - Verisign signs transliteration TLD contracts, discusses the state of .com. There was a lot of interesting information in yesterday’s Verisign quarterly investor conference call. First, the company said it signed 11 contracts for its IDN transliterations of .com and .net, meaning that investors of IDN.com domain names might be close to getting their hands on IDN.com-as-IDN domains. I say might because Verisign isn’t willing to put a date on it and hinted that the end is not near. The company ... read more ...
Thu 5th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
8.2 million .com/.net registrations in Q4 - Verisign reports Q4 results. Verisign reported earnings for the 4th quarter of 2014 today. 8.2 million .com/.net domain names were registered in the quarter, the same as in the 4th quarter of 2013. When you take out deletions, the combined zones grew by 0.59 million names in the quarter. In the 3rd quarter of 2014, Verisign handled 8.7 million new registrations. The 4th quarter was obviously down from that, but the 3rd quarter was a record one for it. Verisign ended the year with 130.6 million .com ... read more ...
 
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Google: Become mobile friendly, or else… - Google sends warnings to website owners. Google has a message for you: it’s time to make your website mobile friendly or suffer the consequences. The search giant has started sending notices out to Webmaster Tools users notifying them if their site doesn’t work well on mobile resolutions. The emails warn that “These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.” In other words, if your site doesn’t ... read more ...
 
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GoDaddy wants to obvious domain suggestions formed on geography, business type - Patents reflect techniques for better targeting domain name search results. GoDaddy has filed three patents for targeted domain name search results based on the user’s location or business type. Two of the patent applications were filed in August 2013, and the third (continuation) patent (embedded below) was filed in September 2014. All three applications were published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today. The patents explain methods of determining the location, language and business ... read more ...
 
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40 End User Domain Name Sales - A fashion blog rebrands, a Chinese real estate company pays 6 figures and another company spends €5000 to drop a hyphen from its domain name. Last week Sedo scored a brace of 6-figure sales, one mid-5, and an additional 7 transactions ranging from $10k to $15k. That surpasses their $49k high reported last time – namely, SuperSeats.com, which now resolves to a developed site for concert, theater, and sports tickets. Below is a list I’ve compiled of 40 sales where an end user can be ... read more ...
Wed 4th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
January's Top 5 Domain Name Stories - Super Bowl commercials and a two letter domain name registration attracted eyeballs in January. Between NamesCon and GoDaddy’s Super Bowl plans, there was a lot going on in the domain biz last month. Here are the top five stories on Domain Name Wire from January. 1. GoDaddy’s Super Bowl switcheroo – when GoDaddy released its planned 2015 Super Bowl ad, I called it the “most controversial yet”. Apparently, I was correct. GoDaddy decided to yank the ad from the big game. 2. 27 End User Sales ... read more ...
 
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What a DNA news about new TLDs tells us - Few people know about them, but they like the idea of more choice. The Domain Name Association (DNA) released results of a survey this morning designed to understand consumer sentiment toward domain names, and especially new top level domain names. DNA is very much an advocacy group for the adoption of new top level domain names, yet I found its survey to be fair about the challenges to collecting data about new TLDs and its question methodology. A lot of the questions were hypothetical about which ... read more ...
 
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Neustar grossed about $2 million income from new TLDs in Q4 - Company is “cautiously bullish” about new TLDs over next few quarters, but I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what that means. Domain name registry and telephone services company Neustar (NYSE: NSR) reported 4th quarter 2014 earnings yesterday after the market closed. On the company’s conference call, CFO Paul Lalljie reported that the company pulled in about $2 million in revenue in the fourth quarter from new top level domain names, and much of that came from the .NYC launch. The ... read more ...
Tue 3rd February 2015
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My thoughts on $9 million Porno.com domain name sale - A mammoth domain name sale sends shock waves through the domain name business. Rick Schwartz, aka the “Domain King”, has done it again. As first reported by TheDomains yesterday, Schwartz sold the domain name Porno.com for $8,888,888.88. Here are my thoughts on the sale. 1. First, a hat tip to Schwartz. He’s a polarizing figure, and you might not agree with everything he does or says. But this latest sale solidifies him in the halls of domaining. And, regardless of what you think of his antics, ... read more ...
 
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Moniker mislaid over 60,000 .com domain names in October - Registrar plunges below 900,000 .com registrations mark. Verisign’s latest .com monthly report has been published by ICANN, and Moniker’s woes from its platform switch over the summer appear to have finally caught up with it. Moniker lost 61,191 .com domain names to transfers in October 2014. After its disastrous platform switch in June, it lost at least 17,500 .com domains to transfers each month, peaking at 26,681 in September. The October jump is huge. (ICANN publishes the reports after a ... read more ...
 
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See .Buzz domain name on Wheel of Fortune - Sydney.buzz first of many .buzz websites to be featured on Wheel of Fortune. Last night marked the start of two weeks of Wheel of Fortune shows with prizes sponsored by domains ending in the .Buzz top level domain name. The promotion is not being undertaken by the .buzz registry. Howard Lefkowitz, who is developing about 400 domain names, is behind the promotion. Talk about an end user evangelist! Last night’s prize was sponsored by Sydney.buzz. There are some unofficial Wheel of Fortune fan sites ... read more ...
Mon 2nd February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Now Open: 2015 Domain Name Wire Survey - The 10th annual survey is now open. It’s that time of year again…time to complete the 2015 Domain Name Wire Survey. This is the 10th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey: Click here to complete the survey This year’s survey is very similar to last year’s. It takes about 10 minutes to complete and will ask you about: Domain name registrars and their most important features Domain name marketplaces and selling trends New top level domains Domain parking Escrow services ICANN and internet governance Results ... read more ...