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.

Fri 16th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Holdings reports $3.4M domain name sales in Q1 - Company releases sales data for first time ever. Domain name broker Domain Holdings has released statistics about its sales for the first time ever. The company plans to release data every quarter going forward. While not disclosing specific sale prices, the company reported aggregate numbers. The company says it sold $3,381,634 worth of domain names last quarter. The average price per sale was $36,756.89. While averages can be misleading, this does help generate ... read more ...
Thu 15th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Chicago Cubs among those shopping domain names final week - MLB buys domain name for Cubs and other end user domain name purchases. The Chicago Cubs (technically MLB Advanced Media, L.P.) were among those companies buying domain names last week. The team and Major League Baseball paid $1,700 for MyCubs.com. This is the name of their season ticket holder portal. It looks like MLB uses this same name for more clubs (e.g. MyBrewers) , which means MLB might try to acquire the other domain names. Here are other domain names sold ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
4 engaging things Tucows pronounced on the discussion call yesterday - Selling domains, letting some expire, and the impact of new top level domain names. Domain name registrar Tucows released its first quarter 2014 earnings yesterday. The investor conference call included four interesting comments/facts about the domain name side of the business. 1. Tucows is testing ways to sell more domains through parked pages. The company says it has launched an “aggressive program of experimentation” on landing pages for its domain names to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Booking.com launches Villas.com to contest in vacation let market - Site launches after company goes on domain name buying spree. Travel booking company Booking.com has launched Villas.com to offer vacation rental properties. This answers the question I’ve been asking for almost a year: who has been registering dozens of country code domain names for villa and villas? I first noticed the “villa” registrations in July 2013 when a (then) mystery company got villa.me, villa.am, villa.sh and villas.biz. Since that time I’ve noticed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
See Tucows’ new sales-focused parked page landers - Tucows pushes the envelope on sales-focused domain name landing pages. Yesterday domain name registrar and portfolio holder Tucows told analysts it was trying something new to generate more aftermarket domain name sales. CEO Elliot Noss said the company is undertaking an “aggressive program of experimentation” on landing pages for its domain names in an effort to sell the domains. When I tested a half dozen Tucows-owned domain names this morning, they all went ... read more ...
Wed 14th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Recruiter Harry Joiner buys CMOJobs.com from IDG - Joiner adds to his collection of valuable job domain names. Harry Joiner, who has acquired a number of job related domain names to help his recruiting business, has acquired CMOJobs.com from media giant IDG for a five figure pricetag. Joiner told Domain Name Wire he used a few brokers to try to acquire the domain name. Acquiring a domain name from a large company is never easy and the first couple brokers were unsuccessful. Then he received a fortuitous call from ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domain names Procter & Gamble and others bought final week - PG among end users that bought domain names via Sedo last week. Sedo sold 473 domain names for a total of $1.4 million last week. Here are some that were purchased by end users. (View previous end user lists.) Flipkart.co.za and Flipkart.com.au 5,000 EUR each – FlipKart, similar to Amazon.com for India. Last week they bought a couple other ccTLDs. StuffSacks.com $1,995 – Motorcycle clothing company Schampa, which sells “stuff sacks”. OpenArcade.com $1,995 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DNPric.es has a good lead list for profitable new TLDs. Unfortunately a registries also have it. - You’ll find good ideas for new TLDs on this list, but many will be priced at a premium. I’m going to let you in on a secret strategy I’ve been undertaking with new TLDs. Every time one heads to general availability I go to DNPric.es to look for domains including the top level domain that have sold in recent years. For example, when .center came out recently I went to the site and searched for “center”. For each high value domain that popped up I went to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company sues to overturn UDRP decision - Company turns to courts (again) to try to overturn adverse UDRP ruling. Technology Online, LLC has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Nevada to overturn a UDRP against the domain name Jeffers.com. Veterinarian supply company Jeffers, Inc. filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization earlier this year and won the case. Technology Online argues that the panelist in that case erred because she considered the date Technology Online acquired the domain ... read more ...
Tue 13th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
50 Cent goes .Club with new site, will be during launch party - 50InDa.Club to launch during invite-only party later this month. Rapper 50 Cent is starting a new website on a .club domain and will help kick off the site and .club at a launch event later this month. Mr. Cent will launch 50inDa.Club later this month. He will launch the site at an invitation-only launch party for the .club domain in Manhattan on May 22, 2014. This is a huge anchor tenant for .club, one of the top three new top level domain names in terms of registrations. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TRAFFIC discussion heads to Las Vegas in dual weeks - Domain name conference returns to Vegas later this month. This year’s TRAFFIC conference in Las Vegas is quickly approaching. The event will formally kick off May 28 and conclude with breakfast on Saturday, May 31. TRAFFIC in Vegas is being hosted at The Bellagio for the second year in a row. Conference registration is still available for $1,595. The Bellagio room block is now closed. I just searched for a room checking in Wednesday May 28 and checking out Saturday ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How many new TLDs will domainers register? - Most domain investors expect to register some new domains this year. The current rollout of new top level domain names is a slow and steady process that will take years to complete. A lot can and will happen during this time frame. This year’s Domain Name Wire survey asked for opinions on new TLDs now, as in early 2014. The result is a pretty good snapshot of how people involved in several aspects of new TLDs — domainers that buy them, registrars that sell them, ... read more ...
Mon 12th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A glance of what will occur when new TLDs strike their initial renovation date? - Joseph Peterson considers what will happen when new TLDs come around for renewal. 2014 will be remembered — by those conscious of the domain industry at least — as the year of the TLD experiment. To what extent extensions such as .GURU, .PHOTOGRAPHY, .RICH, .LONDON, or .中文网 catch on with the general public remains to be seen. For a year, the question has been hotly debated. But it’s not a question; it’s hundreds of distinct questions, since hundreds ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
People caring about one thing when picking a domain name escrow company: Reputation - Reputation first. Everything else is just details. What matters to domain name investors when they select a domain name escrow company? The biggest factor by far is reputation, according to participants in this year’s Domain Name Wire survey. Survey-takers were asked to select the “primary reason” they use the escrow service they use most often. Asked to choose between eight factors, 46% said reputation is most important. That’s a strong number made even more ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sega buys a video diversion domain name and 24 other finish user sales - Sega among notable domain name buyers over past week. There are several notable end user domain name sales on GoDaddy/Afternic’s sales list from last week. First, Sega bought DawnofWar.com for the video game title. Video game companies often buy names of existing games when they’re ready to ramp up the franchise. Second, two departments of U.S. states paid fairly notable prices for four character domain names. You can see previous end user domain name sales lists ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DropCatch.com enters a lapsed domain business with a bang - As it expands its private beta, DropCatch.com is off to a fast start: it caught and auctioned off Bespoke.com for $18,805 today. When the team behind HugeDomains launched its domain name registrar NameBright last year, it quickly became clear that a lot of people felt animosity toward the company’s expired domain business. Here’s just one of the comments submitted on Domain Name Wire: When they stop taking all the decent domain names on the drop I may consider ... read more ...
Fri 9th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Only one new TLD “auction of final resort” to take place in June - Other auctions deferred until later months. ICANN’s first official auction to resolve a new top level domain name contention set will take place on June 4…but with only one TLD. Participants in at least six TLD contention sets eligible for the first auction have postponed them. These auctions can be postponed for two reasons: First, by mutual agreement of both parties. Second, if any applicant in the contention set wants to wait for the finalized framework for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How many registrations can GoDaddy’s home page expostulate to a new TLD? Here’s a answer. - .Club picks up 2,500 registrations with prominent promotion on GoDaddy.com. How many domain name registrations can GoDaddy generate by placing a TLD on top of its website for a day? Here’s one case study. All day yesterday (and still today) GoDaddy has featured .Club at the top of its website: If you click the “Find your .club” button you’ll be taken to the .club overview page with a search box. Comparing first day zone files with the second day, it appears ... read more ...
Thu 8th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club domain name debuts during #6, here are a Top 10 - .Club goes clubbing with over 25,000 registrations. As a follow up to yesterday’s story about .club, the first day zone file has been released showing a solid 25,776 domain names. That’s good enough to land the domain at #6 on the new top level domain name charts. Here’s a look at the top ten new TLDs by registration volume (based on the zone*) as of today: 1. .guru 54,868 2. .berlin 46,734 3. .photography 34,499 4. .在线 (.xn--3ds443g, Dot Chinese Online) ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
After 15 years of trying, association uses UDRP to get HoldOn.com domain name - Hold on just a minute… Amicus Trade AB has been trying to get the domain name Holdon.com for its Holdon brand of fasteners since at least 1999. That’s when the company sent a letter to the (then) owner of the domain with an offer to buy it. Ownership of the domain has changed multiple times since then according to Whois record. In 2013 the whois changed to Dharshinee Naidu. According to DomainTools, Naidu’s email address is associated with 36,544 domain names. Amicus ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Microsoft, HBO and others bought final week - HBO buys a potential show-related domain other end user domain name sales. Sedo sold $1.2 million worth of domain names last week. That seems to include about $200k from the Chinese IDN auction it held in China a while back. Here are some of Sedo’s sales to end users. You can see previous lists here. RDH.com $29,000 – RDH Building Engineering Ltd. in Vancouver. They’ve been using the longer acronym domain name RDHBE.com. RiverSoftware.com $25,000 – this domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
EDR: Weird lapsed domain sales (partially) explained - This week’s Expired Domain Report (EDR) explains why some domains sell for what they do, plus a preview of domains you might want to backorder. Why do people bid on expired domain auctions? The number of bidders and the prices are often surprisingly high; so it’s a fair question. FingerYoga.com is a case in point. Who bought this 12-year-old domain isn’t yet clear. But there were 83 bids as high as $2,227. Were those bidders looking to create a new website? ... read more ...
Wed 7th May 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
4 reasons domain name registries should consider twice before renting premiums - Holding back premiums for resale might not be in the best interests of domain registries. Last month there was quite an uproar about Uniregistry withholding thousands of premium domain names. Some people believe Uniregistry founder Frank Schilling misled them with prior statements about premiums. Others just think registries shouldn’t reserve lots of domains on principle. Admittedly, most readers of this blog look at the issue from a domain investor’s standpoint, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company loses UDRP opposite 20-year-old-domain, though maybe is shouldn’t have. - Panel believes registrant registered domain name over 20 years ago. It didn’t. German company Softway AG has lost a UDRP it filed against the 20-year-old domain name Softway.com. On the surface, it appears to be a particularly egregious case. Although Softway AG claimed it’s been around since 1989, it didn’t set up a web presence until 2007, at which point it registered Softway.de. It’s at that time that Softway AG started asking the owner of Softway.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ParkingCrew integrates Bounce.io email monetization - ParkingCrew customers could get more revenue with Bounce.io integration. Domain name owners have been monetizing web traffic to domain names for a long time. But few monetize e-mails sent to their parked domain names. ParkingCrew announced today that it has integrated email monetization in its platform. Domain name owners can now make money whenever an email is sent to their domain names, whether it’s spam or a legitimate sender. Data about spam emails are compiled ... read more ...