Author Archives: The Domains

About The Domains

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 5K domain names . Michael is also a Director of RightoftheDot.com which is a consultant in the new gTLD space and a broker of super premium domains. Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest this year.

Sat 19th September 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Pre-bidding open for Namepros Live Auction #3 - The third live auction for Rami Steitieh will take place on Namepros on Monday at 12 noon Eastern. This auction will strictly be 4 letter domain names, .com and .net. The turnout Friday was very good with over 300 people in the chat which lasted over 5 hours.  Pre-bidding was put in place for auction #2 and the auction raised over $5,000. Below is the list of names for live auction 3 that will take place in the Chatroom on Namepros. You can prebid now,URL: http://goo.gl/forms/FqRzyWgzup Lot Number ... read more ...
 
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.XYZ Is Back Over 900,000 Registrations & Netsol Regs Once As High as 85% Are Under 15% - The new gTLD is back over the 900,000 domain mark in the zone file. The first time the .XYZ new gTLD crossed the 900,000 domain registration mark was in May of 2015.  At that time the percentage  .XYZ domain names registered at NetworkSolutons.com was over 41% The extension which had as many as over 1.13 million registrations according to https://ntldstats.com/tld/xyz, fell below 800K registrations as the “free” .XYZ domain names given to Network Solutions customers expired and started going ... read more ...
 
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George Hong of Guta.com Brokers DD.com Domain Name Sale - In what very likely is another strong 7 figure domain name sale IMO, the domain name DD.com has been sold. Two letter .com domain names are rare with only 676 of them but Double repeating two letter .com’s are even more scarce with only 26! I reached out to George Hong, founder of Guta.com and he has confirmed the sale of DD.com but was not able to share any details of the domain name sale due to a non-disclosure agreement. Guta.com was the exclusive broker of DD.com, which was owned by WebMagic ... read more ...
Fri 18th September 2015
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Apple Inc. Getting Ready To Use New .apple gTLD Domain Extension? - Apple Inc. has applied for the new gTLD .apple and the status is currently delegated. Apple Inc. also is going to own the new gTLD .beats since it acquired Beats Electronics, LLC. On September 17, 2015 Apple Inc. has purchased 29 new .com domain names according to whois records and IMO, these domain name registrations appear to relate to what “will be” URL’s using the .apple gTLD as a typographical cover! IMO, these following 29 new domain name registrations maybe domain names used by Apple ... read more ...
 
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Anheuser-Busch Buys BestDamn.com Domain, Registers BestDamn.Beer For Apple Ale - Anheuser-Busch, LLC has purchased the domain name BestDamn.com with the help of domain buy service The Treadstone Group, Inc. / Ross Bulla about July 27, 2015 according to whois records. The domain has been registered since June 23, 2000 and prior whois records showed the domain owned by “Best Damn Dot Com” and a registrant email address of “jsullivan@gpac.net” To go along with the BestDamn.com domain name, Anheuser-Busch also registered the new gTLD domain name BestDamn.Beer in an apparent ... read more ...
 
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ZenPayroll.com Rebrands To Gusto.com! Secures Domain 8 Days Prior To Launch - Early last week (about September 9, 2015) I started noticing “Gusto” domain names on the move from MarkMonitor to GoDaddy under whois privacy but I was holding off announcing anything because I simply wasn’t sure the reason behind the movements. I felt they likely changed ownership but didn’t have any confirmation or who the potential buyers were. Well, on September 17, 2015 ZenPayroll.com made an official announcement that they were changing names to Gusto.com and now offering health benefits ... read more ...
Thu 17th September 2015
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Alibaba Teams Up With China's 2nd Largest TV Station To Launch Hitao.top -   According to the .TOP registry the biggest IT/E-commerce company in China, Alibaba.com, together with the second biggest Chinese TV Station Hunan TV, (second to only CCTV) combined to launch a website on a .Top domain name for its new B2C website, 嗨淘全球, which targets female customers aged between 18 to 35 with imported cosmetics and mother baby products. The sublinks of their .com website are all redirected to .top links. According to the .Top registry this is the biggest company using ... read more ...
 
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HBO Buys 9 "Outcast" Domains For Upcoming Cinemax TV Series Outcast - Robert Kirkman’s “Outcast” which is a paranormal drama has been ordered as a series by Cinemax. The show Outcast was featured during Comic Con 2015 with OutcastCinemax.com which was registered November 24, 2014 and owned by HBO. The domain name is in use as a redirect to HBO.com featuring information from SDCC in July 2015. They are also using #outcastcinemax on Twitter. Both HBO and Cinemax are subsidiaries of Time Warner. Home Box Office, Inc. registered 9 new domain names related to “Outcast”. ... read more ...
Wed 16th September 2015
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Verisign: There are 296 Million Domains Up 5.9% Year to Year: Only 2% Are New gTLD's - Verisign released its latest Domain Name Industry Brief, as of June 30th 2015: The total number of registered domain names rose to 296 million worldwide across all top-level domains Two million domain names were added to the Internet in Q2 2015, equates to a growth rate of 0.8% over Q1 2015 Worldwide registrations have grown by 16.4 million, or 5.9%, year over year. The .com and .net TLDs reached a combined total of approximately 133.5 million domain names in the domain name base in Q2, representing ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Q2 ’15 DNIB Report – Internet Grows to 296 Million Domain Names - Verisign is out with their latest industry brief, they also published an infographic to go along with the report. The infographic is in pdf format so you can view it here. Highlights of the report include: The total number of registered domain names rose to 296 million worldwide across all top-level domains Two million domain names were added to the Internet in Q2 2015: This increase globally equates to a growth rate of 0.8% over Q1 2015 Worldwide registrations have grown by 16.4 million, or 5.9%, ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Sells Around 800 Two Character New gTLD's Domains In The Early Access Program - According to Donuts they sold around 800 Two Character New gTLD’s domain names in its Early Access Program (EAP) which ended yesterday. Donuts released around 200,000 Two Character New gTLD’s domain names last week,  meaning domain names that are two letters (LL), a letter and a number (LN), a number and a letter (NL) and two numbers (NN). The Early Access Program allowed customers to register domain name head of General Availability for an extra fee. General Availability of two Character New ... read more ...
 
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Pepsi Launches "Unlock The Tailgate" Trailer Giveaway Sweepstakes - Pepsi Co, an official sponsor of the NFL has launched a new sweepstakes called  “Unlock The Tailgate” but registered the domain name UnlockTheTrailer.com to get sweepstakes entries. Inexplicably Pepsi did not register the domain matching the name of the contest UnlockTheTailgate.com No one has. As of publication the domain name matching the domain of the contest, UnlocktheTailgate.com is available to be registered by anybody and I’m sure will be register once this story publishes. Pepsi named ... read more ...
 
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Nice Try But Givkwik Failes To Get GiveQuick.com in UDRP - Givkwik Inc.just lost its bid to grab the domain name givequick.com in a UDRP Nathalie Dreyfus was the sole panelist who found although givequick.com was confusingly similar to Complainant’s GIVKWIK IMPULSE PHILANTHROPY mark the domain holder did not act in bad faith in registering or using the domain that they bought from BuyDomains.com in April 2014. givequick.com was registered on February 13, 2009, and purchased by the domain holder form buydomains.com April 3, 2014. Here are the highlights: “Respondent ... read more ...
 
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Rick Schwartz Sells 899.com For $801,000: Now Has 1st & 3rd Largest Reported Sales Of 2015 - Rick Schwartz, the Domain King, has sold the domain name 899.com for $801,000 which becomes the 3rd largest reported domain name sale of 2015.  (DnJournal. com is the official keeper of all reported domain name sales) Earlier this year Rick sold the domain name Porno.com for $8,888,888 which is the highest reported domain sale of 2015. The 2nd highest reported domain sale is PX.com which was sold by MediaOptions to ReviMedia for $1 million just last week. Before the PX.com sale the 2nd highest sale ... read more ...
Tue 15th September 2015
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Sedo Weekly Transactions Total $1.4 million led by Wine.co during $25,000 - Sedo completed 512 transactions on their marketplace and via SedoMLS. The total of all transactions was  $1.4m. 56% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings.  .Co topped all sales this week with Wine.co selling for $25,000  Highlights of public sales are: Top .com: weplus.com at 20,000 USD Top ccTLD:  wine.co at 25,000 USD Top “other” TLD: bb.org at 15,500 EUR New gTLD sales: vaticancity.club 1,492 USD wetten.jetzt 1,100 EUR vinci.casa 789 EUR     ... read more ...
 
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Sarah Michelle Gellar Launching "New" Foodstirs.com Kids Food Kits Brand - Foodstirs.com is being launched by actress Sarah Michelle Geller, who is best know for staring in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Co-Founder Chief Mom) in October 2015 according to a People.com Exclusive article published on September 8, 2015. The Foodstirs.com current website states: “Our premium baking mixes and foodcrafting kits inspire creativity and curiosity, while emphasizing the importance of a healthier lifestyle.” Interestingly, the company’s brand name as a domain name has been registered ... read more ...
 
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Foundation Fitness Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking on Stages.com - Foundation Fitness LLC of Portland, Oregon, United States of America (“US”) represented by Dorsey Whitney, LLP, US was just found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking on the domain name Stages.com The domain holder was represented by ESQwire.com The three member panel of John Swinson, Timothy Casey and The Honorable Neil Brown Q.C. really hit the COmplaintnants hard on all fronts. The domain owner could have hoped for a better decision Great job by the folks at ESQwire.com Here are the highlights: The ... read more ...
 
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TSLA.com Lost In UDRP Decision Although Domain Holder Was Willing To Give It Up - Tesla Motors, Inc. just won the rights to the Domain name TSLA.com is a one member UDRP panel decision although it was willing to give up the domain name to Tesla. It’s a shame that the case had to go to a decision. “”Respondent, via its formal Response, consents to having the at-issue domain name transferred to Complainant.”” Many domainers have the opinion that they will always have the option of just giving a domain name to a trademark holder but this once again shows that is not always ... read more ...
 
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Sweden Is #1 In Global Broadband Study; Canada is #2; US 8th, India 24th - Ovum just published a 35 page detailed study,(pdf) entitled the ” the Global Broadband Experience Scorecard” which analyzed  fixed line broadband use by consumers in the top 30 countries Sweden scored the highest level of broadband experience (with a score of 88%) of the 30 countries researched. The United States has a Score of 8 well below its neighbor to the north, Canada which had a score of 3. India was ranked 24th among 30 countries with a score of 44%. Egypt is ranked 30th with a score ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Publishes "An Analysis of New gTLD Universal Acceptance" Finding They Are Not - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), in conjunction with the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) announced the results of a study: “An Analysis of New gTLD Universal Acceptance“, Universal Acceptance (UA) is the concept of removing all technical barriers that might hinder a user from accessing any name in any top-level domain (TLD) from any web browser, email client, or other Internet application on any computer or electronic device. The report is sponsored by ICANN. APNIC ... read more ...
 
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CentralNic Profit More than Doubles in 1st Half of 2015 - CentralNic (LON:CNIC) reported today that its profits more than doubled in the first half of 2015. CentralNic, which is a technical partner and wholesale distributor for web domains, saw a 213% rise in bookings to £7.9mln in the six months to June 30, compared with £2.5mln in the corresponding period of 2014. Booked revenue was up 171% at £4.4mln versus £1.6 last year, while gross profit increased 125% to £2.1mln from £0.95mln in the first half of 2014. Chief executive Ben Crawford highlighted ... read more ...
 
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CentralNic Appoints Mergers & Acquisitions Specialist Mike Turner As Non-Executive Chairman - Internet domain group CentralNic (LON:CNIC) has appointed tech mergers and acquisitions specialist Mike Turner as the internet domain firm’s new non-executive chairman. Turner, a partner and head of technology media and communications at law firm Taylor Wessing, joins the company immediately Chief executive Ben Crawford says Turner’s “deep expertise and vast network” will be invaluable to the company as it pursues organic and acquisition-led growth. “Mike Turner is one of the best-known ... read more ...
Mon 14th September 2015
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How To: Free & Easy Contact Form For Domains For Sale - All Domainers should take advantage of a FREE option to use at your disposal by adding a responsive contact form directly on your domain name. Sedo, Flippa, Domain Name Sales, Afternic, GoDaddy and many allow to sell your domain names, but I often think the BEST place to sell your domain names is right on the domain name itself. A simple contact form can be all you need to gain interest and sell it (at least start the process) and save some $$$ in commission. One thing I have noticed in all my years ... read more ...
 
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Domain Data on a tip 1,000 Websites - WHOAPI produced an infographic that took a peek inside the top 1,000 websites. They delve into things like preferred extensions, how many websites have one number in their website and where the top 1,000 host their websites. ... read more ...
Sun 13th September 2015
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Namepros Live Auction Starts Tomorrow, here are a initial 50 lots - As Rami Stietieh looks to liquidate his portfolio to help raise funds for medical treatments for his wife, there will be a series of live auctions on Namepros to help him out. Here is a list of everything going on both live and threaded auctions. The first live auction starts tomorrow in Chat at 12 noon, Eastern time. Lot 1 Metric-System.com Lot 2 NudeLipstick.com Lot 3 kids-entertainment.com Lot 4 History-Books.com Lot 5 table-games.com Lot 6 trendy-clothing.com Lot 7 smallish.com Lot 8 NudistHoliday.com Lot ... read more ...