LONG ISLAND, NY – This is a theoretical opinion and is far from fact, but I thought about it today and I’m going to share it with my readers, as I ordinarily do here on this site, a place where my thoughts about the Internet, meet the Internet itself - and my ramblings are meant, not just to entertain, or act as some therapeutic outlet, but to help form options, influence discussion, create dialog and educate. Today, we will touch on something that is a growing problem for … [Read more...]
Will .COM Domains Get More Expensive with Expiration of “Cooperative Agreement”?
LONG ISLAND, NY – The “Cooperative Agreement” between NTIA (The National Telecommunications and Information Administration ) and Verisign includes a price-cap on .com domain names, however, this agreement must be renewed by November 30, 2018. This means that sometime very soon the price you pay for all of your .com domain registrations and their renewals may be raised, and there is no telling how much this increase might be. The NTIA, an agency of the U.S. Department … [Read more...]
New Facebook Data Breach Effecting 50 Million Accounts; Doubling Security Staff
NEW YORK, NY - On Friday, September 28, 2018 Facebook said that an attack on its computer network had affected the personal information of nearly 50 million users. The attackers exploited the "View As" feature that allows users to see their Facebook page the way someone else would. This could allow the attackers to take over Facebook accounts. Facebook has fixed this issue and informed law enforcement. They also do not know if the affected accounts were misused or if user … [Read more...]
Yellow Pages Goes Green® Offers Annual Scholarship to High School Seniors Pursuing Environmental Careers
EAST NORTHPORT, NEW YORK - YellowPagesGoesGreen.org (“YPGG”), a telephone directory at the forefront of the environmentally-conscious “Green” movement, has announced that beginning in 2019, the company will be offering a $1,500 College scholarship annually to a distinguished graduating high school senior whose career path is slated to take them into any fields related to environmental science or preservation. The goal of this scholarship, which will be awarded to at least … [Read more...]
SHOCKER: Two More “Dot Brands” Throw in the Sponge on Future of Alternative URLs
NEW YORK, NY – According to DNW.com, another two dot brands are letting go of their sweet dreams of running their very own .BRAND URL. The two companies are “Blanco GmbH” and “SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG”. I’ve never heard of these companies before, but surely these special URLs such as “.blanco” and “.spiegel” would have made them both Uber famous and internationally known. Nonetheless, they have notified ICANN that they are throwing in the towel on … [Read more...]
EVIL: Will Google Do Away with Domain Name and Extension Entirely Anyway?
NEW YORK, NY – Our best friends at Google are quietly scheming behind the scenes to through yet another curve ball misconstrued as a benefit to all web users, especially us domain name owners, brokers, investors and enthusiasts. They’re always up to something neat aren’t they? According to Wired.com, Google has been working, at least since 2014, on replacing the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) we use as web addresses with something a little less complicated. After all, … [Read more...]
Ebay.com to Begin Collecting Internet Sales Taxes Regardless of Physical Presence
NEW YORK, NY - Back in June of this year, the US Supreme Court made a ruling on Internet sales tax that overturned the long-standing physical presence requirement which prevented sales tax to be collected from certain online sellers. This change means that regardless of where you’re physically located, if you sell to buyers in certain states, those states may require you to collect applicable taxes on your transactions. For Ebay.com sellers, the service will begin to … [Read more...]
Internet Isn’t for Sharing: More Disastrous EU Legislation Coming Down the Pike
ORLANDO, FL – The European Union has become a bigger threat to the Internet ‘as we know it’ then nearly anything I’ve seen in the past, including Net Neutrality. Even Internet inventor Tim Berners-Lee and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales say that the web could not have developed as it has if these new EU rules were in play 25 years ago. For instance, recently Europe created the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which we all know has had wide reaching effects on the … [Read more...]
Why You’ll See Me at the MERGE Digital Asset Conference Again This Year
NEW YORK, NY – I’m happy to report that I will again be visiting beautiful and sunny Orlando Florida this September 14-19 for the Merge Domain Conference, rightfully dubbed the “Merge Digital Asset Conference”. MERGE serves as a five day multi-conference event focused on Digital Assets, Domains, Hosting, E-Commerce, Content Management, Security, Intellectual Property, Stock Photography, UX, Design, Blockchain and Crypo-Currencies and more. To me it’s just another … [Read more...]
Premium .Green Domain Names Acquired by YELLOW PAGES GOES GREEN®
Innovator in digital telephone directory listings and advocate for staunch environmentalism, announces acquisition of new gTld Internet domain names. NEW YORK - Yellow Pages Directory Inc., which operates its Yellow Pages Goes Green ("YPGG"), an environmentally-conscious "Green" telephone directory, has announced the acquisition of Internet domain names "YellowPages.green" and "WhitePages.green" as a part of their ongoing effort to support "a greener Internet", and build … [Read more...]
UK Print Yellow Pages to Cease in 2009; Are US Based Yellow Pages Soon To Follow?
NEW YORK, NY – Yell, publisher of the UK’s Yellow Pages, announced that, due to consumer demand and general lack of need or use, they will cease production of their print phone books as of January 2019 after annually releasing them for over 50 years. The shift in business strategy, Yell officials said, is due to a corresponding shift in consumer use of online phone directory options over print, as well as a growing concern among the general populace over the negative … [Read more...]
California.com Puts GEO Domains Back on the Map with “Mid-Seven Figure” Sale
NEW YORK, NY – According to Industry news site DNW.com, and a press release, the Iconic US State Name, California.com has been acquired, along with a group of related domain names, in the mid seven figure range. Not bad for a parked domain name. What is truly amazing about this sale, and near-every business broker will spin their head around about, is that the sale is for an asset by itself, a possible business at a great address, with NO BUILT IN REVENUE OR … [Read more...]
The Slow Yet Sure Death of LinkedIn: LinkedIn Lead Generation Programs
NEW YORK, NY - A few weeks ago I elaborated on what I believe will lead to the demise of LinkedIn.com as a business related service and as a social network. Today, as well as over the last few days, I received several reminders about this coming collapse; one of which I will detail and share with you below. See Related: Writing on the Wall: LinkedIn to Become Haven for Spam, Scams and Solicitations It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where all of this is … [Read more...]
27 Ways to Increase Website Traffic in 2018
NEW YORK, NY - I remember when Internet marketing was easy. Back then, it did not take 27 things, it took more like three. For me, it was all about: Knowing who I was trying to reach by doing some initial keyword research, then Optimize my web site for particular keywords and phrases my research showed traffic for, and Find links to point to my site including related keywords and keyword phrases in the anchor text of the links. Basically, I could do those three … [Read more...]
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Purchase an Ngtld Domain Simply for Search Rankings
NEW YORK, NY – Many who read this site will be familiar with the out-of-the ordinary sales of a few new gTLDs recently, one of which was Vacation Dot Rentals. I stumbled onto an old post about it over at Ricks Blog [I enjoy Rick's ramblings and story telling as I am sure many others do: The post was called "Fake site on a Fake GTLD Sale? The tale of “No Results Found” at Vacation.Rentals" - I'm sure you all read it.] I wanted to see where the site was ranking today … [Read more...]
LSIGraph: A Free, Yet Limited “Latent Semantic Indexing” Word Research Tool
NEW YORK, NY – You might be familiar with my list of online tools to run, market and manage your Internet business; or you might have just seen it for the first time today. I’m adding something new to the list. It’s called the LSIGraph, and it’s free for a limited number of searches. I’ll give you an example of how it works and how it might help your web pages rank better for online searches. For a quick visual on Latent Semantic Indexing, see this very old post. Note: … [Read more...]
LSI, Latent Semantic Indexing – What Is Google Looking for on Your Website?
Update: I originally wrote this post in 2007 (TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2007) on Google's Blogger platform. I've recently moved it here as I have referenced it so many times and prefer to be located here. NEW YORK, NY - I have discussed LSI, Latent Semantic Indexing, in the past but I have never gone into it in great detail or provided real examples of the science in action so I want to go into it a bit right now. It is nothing short of amazing to see how one word can mean another … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Weekly Domain Sales List Includes .App at $14k, .Me at $8,500
NEW YORK, NY – Recently released is Sedo’s weekly sales list, a weekly list of public transactions above $2,000. This weeks highlights included the top .com sold as Ivypay.com at $22,000 USD, the top ccTLD as Hola.me at $8,500 and the top other as Host.app at 12,000 EUR ($14,020.20 USD). Here is the entire list for Sedo.com sales from 07/16/2018 – 07/22/2018. Domain … [Read more...]
Three Letter Blockbuster Domain Sale, ICE.com Trades Hands for $3.5 Million
NEW YORK, NY - According to a press release, the three letter Internet domain name ICE.com has been sold via a private, confidential transaction in the amount of $3.5 million. The sale is expected to be the largest publicly disclosed domain name sold in 2018. The sale was handled by two domain and Internet business brokerage firms Brannan’s and Grit Brokerage and the purchase price and value was defined in a statement as a long-term benefit at the cost of a single … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Releases Weekly Domain Name Sales List 07/09/2018 – 07/15/2018
NEW YORK, NY – Recently released is Sedo’s weekly sales list, a weekly list of public transactions above $2,000. This weeks highlights included the top .com sold as BTCExchange.com at $55,000 USD, the top ccTLD as Park.co.us at 22,500 GBP ($29,508.19 US) and the top other as KYG.org at $8,800 USD. Here is the entire list for Sedo.com sales from 07/09/2018 – 07/15/2018. Domain … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Win for Online Publishers
NEW YORK, NY - California’s Supreme Court has ruled that online review website Yelp can not be legally forced to take down libellous reviews, signalling a clear win for online publishers who allow user feedback, comments and reviews of businesses on their platforms. The ruling was related to a case on the books known as Hassell v. Bird, where Judge Donald Sullivan ordered Yelp to remove a users review of a law firm from the Yelp website. Yelp appealed to the Supreme … [Read more...]
Another .Brand Discovers Imaginary Land-Grab on Non-Existing Planet in Universe
NEW YORK, NY – According to Domain industry site, Domain Name Wire, as well as an uncovered letter to ICANN, the company brand VistaPrint, a product customization conglomerate, has terminated its .brand URL “responsibility” with ICANN for the .Vista domain. Apparently someone at parent company Cimpress N.V. has decided that rather than opportunity knocking, managing a .brand URL is much more a financial liability and expense than a benefit; that it accompanies a strategy … [Read more...]
