Sedo Ranked as Top Domain Name Parking Service - Domain aftermarket and parking service Sedo took top honors for parking in the 2007 Domain Name Wire survey. Sedo is a pioneer in domain parking and recent enhancements have made it a favorite of domain name owners. 32% of respondents in the 2007 Domain Name Wire survey selected Sedo or SedoPro as the top domain name parking service. Last year the survey broke out Sedo and SedoPro. Both services combined for only 19% of the vote last year, so Sedo is clearly picking ... read more ...

SedoPro Partner Forum Offers Discount for TRAFFIC Hotel - Domain industry professionals attending both SedoPro forum and TRAFFIC will save $200 on NYC hotel. The second annual SedoPro Partner Forum will be held at the Mohonk Mountain Resort in New Paltz, New York directly before the TRAFFIC New York City conference. The event kicks off June 17 and concludes June 19. Sedo is picking up most of the cost for the event, but attendees are required to pay $149 per night for accomodations. If you register by April 23 you will ... read more ...

Ocean Tomo Intellectual Property Auction This Week - IP Auction to include patents, trademarks. I just arrived at the Swissotel in Chicago for a two day conference and auction organized by Ocean Tomo. The auction will take place Thursday afternoon and include dozens of patents and trademarks. The most recent auction netted $26M in sales, although only one domain name was sold. The auction typically includes domain names from large companies like IBM. The last auction included Alerts.com, but buyers weren’t bidding. ... read more ...

NameDrive Launches Spring Incentive Programs for Domain Parking - NameDrive is offering up to a $300 bonus to domain name parking customers. Domain parking company NameDrive is offering new customers a $100 bonus and existing customers a $300 matching bonus through June. New customers must sign up by the end of April to qualify. New customers must earn at least $100 through June to qualify for the $100 bonus. Existing customers will have any increase of at least $50 per month (compared to March) in revenue over the next three ... read more ...

Adam Dicker: Changes entrance to DNForum - DNForum.com owner Adam Dicker promises changes to ensure the site remains a “business forum”. DNForum.com owner Adam Dicker announced a few days ago that changes are coming. In a post on the site, Dicker said: I feel we have quite a few unprofessional people that are about to [be] banned in order to keep this a business forum. Please feel free to pop me up your top offenders list, remember the goal is to get rid of trash talkers and buy and sell domains, Personal ... read more ...

How to Get Control of Your Domain Name Empire - Lack or organization can result in reduced profits and lost opportunities. I’m frazzled. So much going on. Just completed a big domain sale. Is the escrow wire in the bank? Just got an offer on another one. How should I respond? I know I have a bunch of domains coming up for renewal, but they’re all at different registrars. Consolidate with all of those EPP codes or just renew? I’m getting about 10 renewal notices a day from GoDaddy, Dotster, Moniker, ... read more ...

Wall Street Journal Profiles .mobi - Article in Today’s Wall Street Journal discusses .mobi domain names and web sites. On page B1 of today’s Wall Street Journal is an article “Mini Web Sites Target Users of Mobile Phones“. The article discusses the domain name and new tools that help consumers build mobile web sites with ease. It profiles Johannes Tromp, owner of a bed and breakfast that uses kilburnie.mobi. Tromp claims to get 30-40 new calls per month as a result of his .mobi site. The ... read more ...

Oversee.net Plans Future DOMAINfest Conferences - Oversee.net’s popular conference will hit Amsterdam in May, back to L.A. for 2008. Oversee.net, parent company of domain name parking company Domain Sponsor, has announced its next DOMAINfest conference will be in Amsterdam May 16-17, 2007. The agenda and speakers have not been set, but people interested in speaking may complete a submission form. The DOMAINfest web site also refers to another conference in L.A. in 2008. The most recent DOMAINfest conferece ... read more ...

New Parking Pages on TrafficZ – will they help? - Leonard Holmes of ParkQuick.com updates us on the latest in domain name parking. TrafficZ recently rolled out their new Website 2.0 templates. These templates look much more like a real website than anything I’ve seen so far. They also have two new travel templates and a real estate template.  Will these pages result in increased income?  That part is not clear. See examples of the Website 2.0 template at: wholepsychology.com healingsteps.com localherbs.com healingtrails.com Examples ... read more ...

Sedo Announces Second Annual SedoPro Partner Forum - Domain aftermarket and parking company’s partner forum will be in New York this June. Sedo announced that its next SedoPro Partner Forum will be held in beautiful Mohonk Resort in New Paltz, New York directly before the TRAFFIC New York City conference June 17-19, 2007. This is an interesting approach — holding a conference just before the TRAFFIC conference in a close location — as Sedo describes in a recent release: The SedoPro Partner Forum is intended as ... read more ...

February Was Tough Month for Domain Name Parking Companies - TrafficClub, Afternic hit setbacks in domain name parking. I usually start each month by giving my results for domain parking for the previous month. This will be difficult for February’s results. First, TrafficClub lost its DomainSponsor and Google Adsense for Domains channels. TrafficClub automatically optimizes your domains across various parking programs. Now all of my domains are only being sent to Skenzo. Although this defeats the general purpose of TrafficClub, ... read more ...

TrafficClub Loses DomainSponsor, Google - Domain parking optimization service cuts relationship with two large parking companies. TrafficClub, the domain name parking service I use for most of my domains, has dropped support for DomainSponsor and Google Adsense for Domains. That means that all of my domains are now being routed to Skenzo. This removes the main benefit of TrafficClub, which is having your domains auto-optimized across a number of different platforms. However, TrafficClub is providing access ... read more ...

Sedo strike by DDoS Attack, Adds New Listing Feature - Domain aftermarket and parking service Sedo was hit be a distributed denial of service attack on February 12 and 13. The DDoS attack hit many sites parked on Sedo’s nameservers. The attack prevented access to most of Sedo’s Name Server-parked domain names for about 45 minutes on February 12 until Sedo was able to block the attack with the help of its hosting provider. The attack continued on February 13 for 12 minutes. Sedo is compensating its customers accordingly. ... read more ...

NameBio Launches Domain Appraisal Game - Sales database site livens up the numbers with entertaining valuation game. NameBio.com, a searchable database of domain name sales, recently launched a new domain name appraisal game. Here’s how it works: you are presented with ten different domain names. For each one you are given 15 seconds to guess how much the domain name sold for. After guessing for each domain you see the actual sales prices and are awarded points and a rank. Here’s how I did: At ... read more ...

January Domain Name Parking Results - 2007 started off strong for domain name parking revenue. I’m a bit perplexed about how to report my domain name parking statistics for January. Compared to December 2006, my revenue was up. Also, my results with DomainSponsor and Skenzo on TrafficClub were very high. But something weird happened to my Google Adsense for Domains stats on January 1. The number of page views suddenly skyrocketed. My Google revenue was up a bit (about double), but not nearly enough ... read more ...

A new GoldKey, Bye Bye ParkingSite, other news - Leonard Holmes of ParkQuick updates us on the latest in domain name parking. GoldKey is launching their new, renovated site in February. It was supposed to launch 2/1, but was delayed because of some last minute issues, according to Scott Briggs, Program Manager for parking at NameMedia. He is now hoping that the site launches 2/5. According to Scott, the new site incorporates many of the tools that have been available only to ActiveAudience members. ActiveAudience ... read more ...

NameMedia, Fabulous Hook Up - Fabulous will list its domain name portfolio on BuyDomains, Afternic. At first glance, NameMedia and Fabulous seem like competitors. Both NameMedia’s BuyDomains and Fabulous offer a huge portfolio of premium domains for sale. But the two companies have inked an agreement to list Fabulous’ domain portfolio on both BuyDomains and Afternic (the latter was recently acquired by NameMedia). This makes sense. Premium domain names don’t really compete with each other ... read more ...

Yahoo! Pay-Per-Click Rankings to Change in February - Paid listings will no longer by ranked solely on bid. Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced that the rankings of pay-per-click search ads on its network will change February 5. Prior to that date, ads are ranked according to the maximum bid per click selected by the advertiser. Beginning February 5, ads will be ranked by a combination of click bid and ad quality (read: click-through rate and relevance). The graphic below illustrates this change. The change is part of ... read more ...

Domainer’s Magazine Interview - Jerry Nolte tells domainers about Domainer’s Magazine, the new print publication for the domain name industry. Domainer’s Magazine will debut at the upcoming DOMAINfest conference. I recently asked magazine founder Jerry Nolte about the magazine. DNW: Who is behind Domainer’s Magazine? Why did you decide to launch a print magazine for the domain industry — and why now? How long have you been planning this venture? Nolte: My business partners and I have ... read more ...

DOMAINfest Speakers Announced - DOMAINfest announced a great speaker lineup for this month’s conference. Michael Arrington, editor and founder of the web 2.0 blog, TechCrunch, will top the list of the biggest industry names to speak at the first DOMAINfest Global. Prior to founding TechCrunch, Michael’s background in the domain industry is immense, having founded Pool.com and later consulted for domain industry giants like VeriSign and SnapNames. Selected DOMAINfest attendees will be able ... read more ...

Oversee.net Grabs $60M Line of Credit - Domain name company gets line of credit for acquisitions and working capital. Oversee.net, parent company of domain name parking company DomainSponsor, has arranged a $60M line of credit. The revolving line of credit will was arranged by Banc of America Securities LLC. Bank of America, N.A. will serve as administrative agent. A syndicate of lenders and financial institutions is participating in the facility with Bank of America, including Comerica Bank, California ... read more ...

Microsoft Readies Contextual Advertising Network - Beta program shows ads primarily on MSN network sites, could be extended to parked domain names. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) continues to test its contextual advertising network and is inviting many current MSN Adcenter advertisers to join its beta. The program will work similarly to Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Adwords and Adsense programs. Advertisers in Microsoft’s pay-per-click network will be able to advertise on relevant content sites. Advertisers can set different ... read more ...

Marchex Stock Tumbles on Downgrade - Direct navigation company Marchex has been downgraded by JMP Securities analyst William Morrison. Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX) is the largest publicly traded direct navigation firm. The company’s stock was downgraded by JMP Securities analyst William Morrison, who cited weaknesses in the company’s direct navigation business. Morrison sees the weaknesses continuing through the first half of 2008. This isn’t an indication that direct navigation as a business is weak, ... read more ...