Tag Archives: registrars

Tue 17th June 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CentralNic to Acquire Internet.BS In A Deal Worth Up to $7.5 Million - CentralNic plc,(AIM:CNIC) acquired Internet.BS, a top 30 domain name registrar for a maximum consideration of USD 7.5 million. CentralNic said it will pay $5.2 million when the deal closes, with $2.7 million due in cash and $2.5 million to be paid in the form of 2.1 million new CentralNic shares. An additional $1.8 million payment is deferred. It is to be paid over 12 months and can be adjusted higher or lower depending on the acquisition’s performance. The maximum amount that can be paid is $2.3 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Free Domains Anyone? .Berlin Adds 70K Domains & Tops 116K; .XYZ Adds 27K & Tops 145K - A huge day in the new gTLD program as .Berlin in its first day of offering free domain names,  added some 70,000 domain names, more domains than were registered in the extension in the three months since .Berlin was launched. .Berlin passed .Club to become the 2nd most registered new domain extension (new gTLD). .Berlin which had been hanging around 48,000 registrations for weeks, shot up to 116,638 registered domains .Berlin launched around March 19 and got some 32,000 registrations in its first ... read more ...
Mon 16th June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will .Berlin be #1 this week? Domains are giveaway for subsequent 5 days. - Free domains will boost total .Berlin registration numbers. .Berlin got off to a nice start thanks to a free .Berlin promotion. A new promotion may propel the domain name to the #1 slot on the new top level domain name charts. Officially, 20 registrars are offering .Berlin domain names for no more than 5.55 euros from June 16-21. But that max is just a max, and some registrars are giving the domain names away for free. InternetX, for example, will let you register ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CentralNic buys domain name registrar Internet.bs (IBS) - CentralNic gobbles of up large domain name registrar in $7.5 million deal. Publicly traded CentralNic (LSE: CNIC) has purchased Bahamian domain name registrar Internet.bs (IBS). The move gives CentralNic, currently positioned as a registry, a strong entry in the retail registrar market. CentralNic is traditionally known for offering third level domain names, but it is the technical registry services provider powering dozens of new top level domain name applicants. ... read more ...
Wed 11th June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sorry, Moniker. It’s Over. - My long relationship with Moniker is coming to an end due to irreconcilable differences. I’ve been a Moniker customer for a decade. Probably longer. I haven’t been a completely satisfied customer, but I have been a content customer. Until a week ago. That’s when Moniker flipped the switch on its new system. It completely scrapped the old Moniker we all knew. It replaced it with KeyDrive’s reseller platform. Unfortunately, the transition has been an unmitigated ... read more ...
Tue 10th June 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Network Solutions Promotion For .Events; 2 of 3 Featured Domains Are Reserved and NA - NetworkSolutions.com has done it again. A new promotion going out to all of their customers is marketing the new gTLD  .events. The promotion features three domains, two of which are reserved by the registry thereby not available. We have written about this issue before.   If registrars are going to email their customers to get them to register, or pre-register a new gTLD domain by highlighting  three domain names they should at least make sure the domains are actually available to be registered ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy gets obvious for “Domain name steal protection” - Patent is mostly about whois proxy email services. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 8,751,685 (pdf) to GoDaddy for “Domain name hijack protection”. The patent, applied for in 2010, is actually a divisional patent of an application I wrote about in 2008. The earlier patent application hasn’t been granted yet. The majority of the patent is about whois proxy services (e.g. DomainsByProxy) rather than domain theft prevent; It’s a ... read more ...
Mon 9th June 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New York Times Reports On Godaddy IPO: Its Go Time - The New York Times is reporting that talk of a Go Daddy IPO is  just like their new slogan states, Its Go Time, as it filed it S-1 with the SEC today. According to the New York Times, Godaddy had 57 million domains under management as of Dec. 31. GoDaddy reported $1.1 billion in revenue for 2013, a 24% increase from the previous year but  continues to lose money as it reported a $199.9 million loss for 2013, which is narrower than its $279.1 million loss in 2012. Blake Irving appears to have a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy files to go open (again) - GoDaddy says “It’s Go Time” for IPO. GoDaddy has filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This will be the company’s second attempt at an initial public offering. It originally filed to go public in 2006, but later shelved its plans. The company found another way to exit in 2011 when it found an investor in KKR, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures. Parsons remained the individual single shareholder in the company after the investment. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
8 Things We Learned from GoDaddy’s IPO filing - GoDaddy filed its S-1 today to go public. I’ve skimmed the 250 pages to compile these seven data points that weren’t previously known. 1. GoDaddy has a lot of customers: 11.548M, to be exact. 2. The company had 2013 revenue of $1.13B. It breaks down like this: $672M from domains (and add-ons like privacy), $381M from hosting and $77M from business apps. Oh, and 24% of the revenue comes from its Customer Service reps selling to customers. 3. Its GAAP loss was $199.9M ... read more ...
Thu 5th June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker CEO Bonnie Wittenburg discusses botched transition - Wittenburg discusses what went wrong and what the company is doing to fix it. It’s been a long week for Moniker and its customers. The company transitioned its entire platform over to Key-Systems’ reseller platform over the weekend and it didn’t go as planned. Domains not set to renew were renewed, domains were missing from accounts, pricing was erroneous and other features didn’t work correctly. Moniker took the entire site down for 24 hours starting Tuesday ... read more ...
Wed 4th June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Try Uniregistry’s sharp bulk domain name search - A simple, yet powerful, bulk searching tool. “Bulk search” for domain names is very useful when you’re scavenging for domain names to hand register. I recently used Uniregistry’s search to look up both individual keywords across multiple TLDs and multiple keywords across a single TLD. Type in any keyword and Uniregistry quickly checks its availability against multiple TLDs. You don’t even have to press a button before the results are returned: 6 results ... read more ...
Tue 3rd June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XYZ section record nears 15,000, 30k after 24 hours - Nearly 15,000 domains in zone file and over half of them are at NetworkSolutions. 30,000+ domains registered after 24 hours. The latest batch of zone files has been published, and .xyz had what looks to be a good first day. The zone file includes nearly 15,000 domain names after the initial hours of launch. Zone files only include registered domains that have nameservers, so it usually undercounts domains by a bit. .XYZ’s Daniel Negari told Domain Name Wire that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oh, crap: Moniker is down - Moniker has taken its website offline to fix numerous problems with its new system. [Read this update with responses from Moniker CEO Bonnie Wittenburg] Domain name registrar Moniker switched its interface to a reseller platform over the weekend. It didn’t go so well, as evidenced by the 100+ comments on my post about the change. Issues include being billed for renewals on domains set to cancel, incorrect pricing, inability to execute order, domains disappearing ... read more ...
Mon 2nd June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The new Moniker: Love it or Hate it? - One thing is for sure: it’s going to take a while to get used to this new account interface. [Read this update with responses from Moniker CEO Bonnie Wittenburg] Moniker released its upgraded interface over the weekend. The interface is based on the RRPproxy reseller platform. This isn’t just a modification to Moniker’s interface. It’s a completely new one. That means a learning curve. Most people hate change, which means the grumbling will begin. Is it warranted? ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An critical doctrine in pre-ordering new tip turn domain names - Hint: don’t count on just one registrar. Registering domain names under new TLDs when they hit the market is similar to dropcatching expired domain names. From the registrar’s perspective, it involves prioritizing domains and hitting pinging the registry as quickly as possible. Some registrars are better than others at this. There’s some general know-how involved, plus a lot of technology. Registrars will also perform differently with different registries based ... read more ...
Fri 23rd May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Interpol Takes Down Over 10,000 Websites and Targets Rogue Registrars - Interpol takes down over 10,000 websites and targets rogue domain name registrars. In what was the largest global operation ever for taking down bad pharmacies, Interpol included rogue registrars as one of the main areas used by those involved in illegal pharmaceuticals. Here is the full release: LYON, France – Nearly 200 enforcement agencies across 111 countries have taken part in Operation Pangea VII targeting criminal networks behind the sale of fake medicines via illicit online pharmacies. ... read more ...
Thu 15th May 2014
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 ...
Fri 9th May 2014
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 The Domains in EN and tagged
Did Two Domain Sherpa’s Change The New gTLD Registrar Market? -   As most domain investors know myself, Adam Dicker, Rick Schwartz and Page Howe have had a weekly show on DomainSherpa.com for many months were we discuss news and other things going on in the domain industry.   On last Thursday’s DomainSherpa.com show, Adam Dicker said that he had just a few days before found the domain name registrar Hexonet.net and told the audience that he loved the customer service, support and that Hexonet was going to be his go to registrar and highly recommended them ... 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 ...
Thu 1st May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Namecheap Debuts “State-of-the-Art Domain Search Functionality” - Namecheap, announced today the launch of our new, more efficient, more responsive search functionality. The new “tailored” search capabilities is described in a Press Release from the comapny t as being “leading-edge technology.” “Designed to streamline the process of finding, tracking and purchasing internet domain names; Namecheap’s updated domain search is clean, user-friendly and intuitive. With the new search, users can customize their display with simple drag-and-drop options and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Namecheap hunt “favorites” is cool. I’m still watchful for improved new TLD search. - Namecheap’s interface is a nice upgrade for domain discovery. It could do better with TLD context, though. Namecheap unveiled a new domain searching interface this morning. The highlight for me is the ability to pick favorite TLDs for future searches. For example, I “hearted” .com, .zone, .guru and .in. When I search for domains in the future I can see results for these favorite extensions by clicking on the Favorites tab. This is a nice upgrade as I no longer ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker to switch to DomainDiscount24 interface - Moniker’s interface is being retired. A big change is coming for Moniker customers. The registrar will soon switch it user interface to one very similar to DomainDiscount24.com, another registrar within the KeyDrive family of companies. KeyDrive acquired Moniker in 2011 but has barely touched the site design. In fact, Moniker.com’s interface hasn’t been touched in years, and frankly it’s time for a change. When you transfer domain names out of Moniker you ... read more ...
Tue 29th April 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy eliminates email support in preference of phone, chat - Company says customer satisfaction is higher with phone and chat support. GoDaddy has stopped offering support by email for U.S. customers, instead pushing them to phone and chat support options. Nick Fuller, Communications Manager at GoDaddy.com, told Domain Name Wire that the company made the switch after reviewing customer behavior and satisfaction scores: We’ve seen a shift in the way our customers engage and while talking to a ‘real person’ on the phone ... read more ...