Google Domains pitches new TLDs with Q&A post - See a new TLD in action by searching for “coffee club”, company suggests.
It’s not from Google’s search team, but a new blog post today from Google Domains seeks to clear up any misunderstanding about new domain names and search.
The post answers common questions about new domain name endings, such as will they affect my website’s search ranking (no) and can I move my site to a new domain name (yes).
Google uses Coffee.club as an example of how new domain names show up in search. It suggests ... read more ...
Tag Archives: registrars
Thu 10th December 2015
Automattic.com Owner of WordPress Acquires JetPack.com -
Automattic.com which is the Owner of WordPress.com appears to have Acquired the domain name JetPack.com
Jetpack is built into the WordPress Platform and also serves as the stat program for WordPress sites like TheDomains.com
Automattic.com has been using the domain name Jetpack.me for the service, but yesterday the whois records updated and the domain names is now registered by Mark Monitor with WordPress name servers.
It appears that the domain name that was formerly owned by Jetpack Design of ... read more ...
Tue 8th December 2015
CentralNic Buys Registrar Instra.com & Stock is Down Almost 20% - CentralNic (LON:CNIC) is buying privately-owned domain name registrar, Instra Group, funded in part from a £10mln placing of stock with investors at 40p a share, for almost £16mln (A$33mln).
According to the press release “the purchase will extend CentralNic’s capabilities and “significantly increase” its retail offering.”
According to the press release Instra in the year to June 30 posted pre-tax profits of just over £1mln (A$2.1mln) on turnover of £7.11mln (A$14.8mln).
CentralNic ... read more ...
CentralNic acquires Instra for $24 million, sells $3.6M in domains, and skeleton to lift $15M - CentralNic buys another domain name registrar.
CentralNic is buying Instra for USD $24M.Publicly traded domain name registrar and registry CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) has agreed to acquire domain name registrar Instra Group for AU $33 million (USD $24 million), the company announced today.
The purchase price includes AU $30 million in cash and AU $3 million in stock, with AU $5 million held in escrow and paid out over the next five years.
To fund the acquisition, CentralNic plans to issue 25 million ... read more ...
Thu 3rd December 2015
.Club Has Record Month Selling Over $1.6 In Premium Domains -
.Club announced today on its blog, that they had a record-setting month in November selling $1,622,164.13 in premium domain names.
In all .Club sold 326 premium domains in November.
.Club continues to be fully transparent in its sales activities:
November was a record-breaking month for both regular .CLUB registrations and premium name sales. It was our first month with more than $1 million in Premium Name sales, with strong deals coming from two auctions, our registrar channel, registry direct ... read more ...
The Latest .Com Winners and Losers - Uniregistry and China continue to show good transfer results.
ICANN has published Verisign’s registrar data for .com from August. As I do every month, I crunched the numbers to see which registrars performed best.
Keep in mind that these reports are published after a three-month delay. So this post is about August’s results.
Let’s start by reviewing which registrars added the most new .com domain name registrations:
1. GoDaddy* 891,979
2. eNom** 213,291
3. HiChina 146,490
4. PublicDomainRegistry ... read more ...
Wed 2nd December 2015
Frank Schilling invests another $1 million in Rightside - Domain name investor buys more shares, and has made a small profit.
A company connected to domain name investor Frank Schilling has purchased another 150,000 shares of Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) stock, increasing his interest in the company to 6.1% of shares outstanding.
An SEC filing reveals that Schilling has paid a total of $8,387,181, including brokerage commissions, to acquire his stake. That means he has paid an average of $7.24 per share. Shares are trading for about $8.00 right now, so Schilling ... read more ...
Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales expostulate 35,000 Radix domain name registrations - New TLD company reports holiday sales drove increase volume.
Deep discounts and added exposure helped new top level domain name registry Radix get 35,000 registrations over four days.
The company deeply discounted prices on its domain names, with many registrars offering its domain names for as little as 99 cents, from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.
Many registrars offered .Tech and .Online for about $5.00, with $1.00 pricing for .website, .space and .site.
The company also benefited from added exposure ... read more ...
Tue 1st December 2015
Is Amazon.com Getting into The Ticket Biz? Checkout These 3 New Domain Registrations - Amazon.com registered three very interesting domain names yesterday that may indicate a new business for the company.
Amazon registered the domain names AmazonConcerts.com AmazonConcertTickets.com and AmazonTheaterTickets.com yesterday through the brand protection company and domain name registrar, MarkMonitor.com.
This might indicate that Amazon might be getting into the ticket business to maybe take on Ticketmaster.com and/or StubHub.com
Interestingly the domain name AmazonSportsTickets.com is ... read more ...
Tue 24th November 2015
Namecheap Holding Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale With "$10 Million in Savings" -
Namecheap, a leading ICANN-accredited domain registrar and web hosting company, announced their major annual Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale. The two-day event offers over $10 million in savings and the lowest prices available for the year. Customers can save big not only on domain names and hosting, but SSLs, website builders, email hosting, and more.
Rick Kirkendall, Namecheap CEO is quoted in a press release as saying:
“There is literally no better time to buy what you need to set up a web presence ... read more ...
Plan now for these Black Friday domain name specials - Registrars are discounting domain name registrations, and some of the sales have already started.
People in the United States are getting ready to unplug for a couple days to eat copious amounts of turkey. As soon as they’re finished digesting turkey legs and pumpkin pie, the holiday shopping season is officially underway.
I’ve made a couple posts on twitter soliciting information from domain name registrars and registries that are offering discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I’m posting ... read more ...
Wed 18th November 2015
Google cranky compelling domain names to existent customers - Company sends $10 discount to some Google Analytics customers.
One of the reasons domain name registrars are keeping a close eye on competition from Google Domains is the search giant’s massive user base of small business customers.
It already has customers plugged into its email, apps and analytics services. It’s easy to cross-sell a domain name to them.
Here’s one example. Google sent this email to some of its Google Analytics users this morning:
$10 off isn’t quite free at Google Domains, ... read more ...
Wed 11th November 2015
GoDaddy Fixes "Make Offer" listings in hunt results - Listings will not longer show as auctions in the registration path.
Last week someone emailed me asking for assistance buying a domain name. They told me they already tried to buy it after finding it was on auction at GoDaddy.
They let me know that it had a $250 starting price, so they placed a bid. Then the auction ended and it was relisted, and they placed another bid.
Anyone familiar with how Afternic listings integrate with GoDaddy knows that the domain was never really in an auction. Instead, ... read more ...
Mon 9th November 2015
Rightside turns in record income in Q3 - Rightside posts record revenue, positive adjusted EBITDA.
Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME), parent company of eNom, Name.com and owner of dozens of top level domain names, released earnings this afternoon.
The company generated $54.1 million in Q3, a record for the company. It had a net loss of $(3.4) million for the quarter, but an adjusted EBITDA of $0.9 million. Rightside now expects an adjusted EBITA of $2.0-$3.0 million for the year, up from a break-even forecast.
Rightside also received a net $1.7 ... read more ...
Web.com changing ticker pitch from WWWW to WEB - 10 years after listing, Web.com gets matching ticker symbol.
Web.com is ringing the closing bell on the NASDAQ today to celebrate its 10 year listing anniversary. The company is also making a big change to its stock — its changing its ticker symbol from WWWW to WEB.
The symbol change will be effective tomorrow morning.
While Web.com isn’t a household name to many in the domain name investing community, you’ve probably used its products and services. The company acquired SnapNames last year ... read more ...
Fri 6th November 2015
GoDaddy obvious app describes mobile domain name send system - A faster, more secure way to transfer domain names for in-person transactions?
Picture this: you’re at NamesCon in January when you strike a deal with a fellow domainer to sell a domain name to them. You both pull out your phones, activate an app, keep the phones near each other, and then click a few buttons to instantly transfer the domain name to them.
That’s the basic idea of a patent application (pdf) by GoDaddy that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published yesterday.
The application ... read more ...
Thu 5th November 2015
GoDaddy sole $1.4 million of domain names from Marchex portfolio final quarter - Company getting early results from domain name portfolio.
GoDaddy released its Q3 earnings yesterday, and its 10-Q filing with the SEC gives some insight into how it is doing with the Marchex domain name portfolio.
The company paid $28.1 million to acquire the portfolio of about 200,000 domain names in April.
It’s also paying an earn-out. GoDaddy acquired three companies this year and discloses in its 10-Q that it recognized a liability of $0.9 million for earn-outs from these acquisitions. It’s ... read more ...
Wed 4th November 2015
GoDaddy shares burst after hours on earnings, guidance - Wall Street applauds GoDaddy’s Q3 results.
Shares in GoDaddy are up sharply after the company reported earnings this afternoon.
GoDaddy shares are trading at $30.00 per share in after hours trading, up around 10% from its closing price today.
The company reported a 15% jump in revenue year-over-year for the third quarter, while adjusted EBITDA was up 22.5%. The company bumped annual revenue guidance up as well.
In other good news, annual revenue per customer was up 6.8% compared to the same quarter ... read more ...
.Com's latest winners and losers - Registrar results with .com are in for July
ICANN has published Verisign’s registrar data for .com from July.
Here’s Domain Name Wire’s monthly look at how registrars performed with .com.
Keep in mind that these reports are published after a three month delay. So this post is about July’s results.
Let’s start by reviewing which registrars added the most new .com domain name registrations:
1. GoDaddy* 893,043
2. eNom** 218,457
3. HiChina 152,135
4. PublicDomainRegistry 117,568
5. Tucows ... read more ...
Mon 2nd November 2015
Endurance International acquires Constant Contact for $1.1 billion - The acquisition machine continues.
Endurance International Group (NASDAQ: EIGI) has acquired email marketing company Constant Contact for $1.1 billion in an all-cash deal.
Shares in Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT) closed Friday at $26.10, for a market cap of about $840 million. Endurance is paying $32.00 per share, and shares in Constant Contact have jumped in pre-market trading.
Endurance is paying for the acquisition with debt financing of up to $1.085 billion from Credit Suisse AG and an affiliate ... read more ...
Fri 30th October 2015
Web.com: New TLDs are not relocating a needle - Contribution from new top level domain names isn’t significant, CEO says.
Web.com CEO David Brown was asked about new top level domain names on yesterday’s investor conference call. Brown said the company isn’t doing “back flips” over the results, and says it’s not moving the needle for the firm. He suspects new domains aren’t moving the needle for competitors, as well. Here’s what he said:
So in the gTLD space, that continues to be positive, but we’re not doing back flips here. ... read more ...
Tue 27th October 2015
Domain phishing: Why it's function & How to strengthen yourself - Use these tips to avoid being the next victim.
Yesterday an unknown perpetrator started a massive spamming campaign against owner of domain names, which is continuing today.
The emails told recipients that a specific domain name they owned had been suspended, and asked them to click a link to download the complaint(s) against their domain names. Clicking the link downloaded a file, most likely packed with malware.
The perpetrator sent the emails to clients of numerous registrars, including eNom, ... read more ...
Mon 26th October 2015
Warning: domain name phishing email blast going on right now - Emails try to get you to download file.
A Domain Name Wire reader has received 4 phishing/malware attempts within the past hour, and web searches show that the scam is widespread.
Here’s a copy of one of the phishing emails:
From:
Date: Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 5:04 PM
Subject: Domain [redacted] Suspension Notice
Dear Sir/Madam,
The following domain names have been suspended for violation of the DYNADOT LLC Abuse Policy:
Domain Name: [domain redacted]
Registrar: DYNADOT LLC
Registrant Name: [name ... read more ...
Verisign v. XYZ set for jury hearing subsequent week - Verisign’s false advertising case about .xyz top level domain name is scheduled for jury trial next week.
[Update: the judge has granted summary judgment to XYZ.]
.Com registry Verisign is scheduled to present its case against .XYZ next week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
Verisign filed a false advertising suit against .XYZ and its founder Daniel Negari in December. At the center of Verisign’s argument is that .XYZ gave away free .xyz domain names and then used these “inflated” ... read more ...
Tue 20th October 2015
Afilias is Likely "One and Done" with 101Domain Acquisition - Company doesn’t expect to acquire other domain name registrars any time soon.
Last Friday, domain name registrar 101Domain disclosed that it had been acquired by domain name registry Afilias.
It’s Afilias’ first acquisition of a domain name registrar. An Afilias spokesperson told Domain Name Wire that the company does not plan to acquire any other registrars in the near future, so don’t expect a big roll up from the company.
Although it is the company’s first acquisition, Afilias already ... read more ...