NEW YORK, NY - Regardless of what your position is on new gTLD domains "Big Brands" are buying in hook, line and sinker while ICANN is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars on new gTLD fees. Each new application cost its applicant $185,000.00 and with it, an annual maintenance fee of $24,000.00 (yearly recurring). This doesn't include potentially hundreds of generic domains that were applied for and went to auction (I didn't count each one [Full statistics here] … [Read more...]
Audio Arguments for ‘Calculated Theft’ Attempt of HeidiPowell.com Domain
NEW YORK, NY - For those who are unaware of the backstory behind the failed cyber-squatting attempt by Arizona Heidi in her effort to steal the online identity of the original Heidi Powell, the effort continues via opening of an old bankruptcy case to acquire the domain name HeidiPowell.com. UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE before Honorable Marc Barreca, Chapter 7, Hearing Date: March 22, 2017, Hearing Time: 10:00 a.m. Even if … [Read more...]
iCloud Ransom: Will Hackers Wipe 627 Million Apple Devices on April 7th 2017?
NEW YORK, NY - Apple products have changed our lives incredibly over the last several years. IPhones, iPads, Macs, and all the rest provide many benefits making our lives a little bit easier and more enjoyable in general, but a couple of weeks ago, a hacking group calling themselves the “Turkish Crime Family” began contacting media outlets claiming that they had breached the Apple iCloud, and had access to millions of user accounts and would remotely wipe the accounts (and … [Read more...]
Basically: How to Make a Good Website from a Domain Name; Layman’s Terms
NEW YORK, NY - Sometimes a simple explanation of how to do something can go a very long way. That is what we are doing this evening, we're going over how the heck to build a website from a simple domain name address. The basics; in layman's terms. First. The first thing you want to do with your project is to pick a good domain name. You want to pick a domain name with keywords related to whatever it is that you are building. For instance, if you were building a … [Read more...]
New gTLD Success Will Be Measured Only by Use; Not Sales, Not Registrations
NEW YORK, NY - This week a new gTLD sale made the news, not because of its great keyword, but due to its high price and its ending extension. The domain name casino.online recently sold for over $200,000.00 at SEDO. This might seem like a domainers dream-sale turning a lucky registrant into an instant success, but it was far from a general availability registration; it was actually a domain name reserved by the registry. So basically, it was, for the most part, a planned … [Read more...]
The Disappearing Act of the Web’s Best Web Directories; Where Are They Going?
NEW YORK, NY – Last week, news began to circulate the search optimization-spear that DMOZ.org, one of the oldest and most trusted web directories ever online, was discontinued forever (as of Mar 17, 2017). DMOZ was considered such an incredible resource, that Google itself mirrored it at directory.google.com, as did thousands of other sites across the net. However, Google discontinued the mirror on July 20, 2011, less than a year prior to announcing its “Google Penguin” … [Read more...]
Episode 128 of Domain Name Wire Features Internet Commerce Board Member
NEW YORK, NY - This week, listening to the Domain Name Wire podcast (Episode #128), not only will you find out all about what’s happening in the domain space recently, but you’ll also have the opportunity to listen to a board member, Zak Muscovitch, discuss what exactly the Internet Commerce Association is and why it exists. “For the Interest of Domain Name Investors and Domain Name Owners” That’s basically what the ICA is, according to Muscovitch. DNW host Andrew … [Read more...]
List of 650 Accredited Domain Name Registrars Operating in the United States
Below is a list of accredited ICANN domain name registrars who operate within the United States. Registrar Name Country/Territory ! #1 Host Australia, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Canada, Inc. United States ! #1 Host China, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Germany, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Japan, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Korea, Inc. United States $$$ Private Label Internet Service Kiosk, Inc. (dba "PLISK.com") United … [Read more...]
EFTY: Your Own Domain Store Without Having to Build It Yourself; Seems Good
NEW YORK, NY - About a week or so ago I signed up for an EFTY (https://www.efty.com) 30-day trial account to test the platform as a way to have a domain store for some of the domains I would like to eventually sell. I already tried SEDO to sell names as well as DomainNameSales.com and some other places too but what I found interesting about EFTY was the store portion of the platform - and it is responsive (mobile friendly). As a side-note: Back in the old days when the … [Read more...]
Just 2% of Top 100 Highest Priced .xyz Domains In Use for Bonafide Services
NEW YORK, NY - According to nTLDStats.com, a data provider offering statistics for new gTLDs, the .xyz domain has the highest number of registrations out of all new gtld domains available. Looking at the highest value sold .xyz domains in all reported aftermarket sales, 98% of them are not developed or show any signs by their owners for development in the future. Out of the 100 domains checked, just two (2) of them are developed with one (1), spring.xyz, looking like it … [Read more...]
Who Needs Domains and Websites Anyway? Google Say’s “You’re A Loser”
NEW YORK, NY - It started way-back years ago when business directory owners noticed that Google looked like it may be starting to get into the local directory game. These cool little listings with pointers on helpful maps started to show up on Google with phone numbers, addresses and links to websites. After a while webmasters started to say “Hey, this is diverting traffic away from my business directory… what’s going on here?” Further down the road, Google began to use not … [Read more...]
Schilling Comes Clean on Domain Hike; “Understands Price Increases Unpopular”
The world is in an uproar at the moment – the domain world that is. New gTLD domain names, those under the Uniregistry umbrella (which is a lot of them), will experience “significant” price hikes in the coming years, some of which could be up to 300% higher than originally released at. The domain community is not happy. There are many good reasons why people are in an uproar; for one, you have domain investors who may have purchased large numbers of these domains; second, … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Weekly Domain Name Sales List 03/06/2017 – 03/12/2017
Just 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 PremierModel.com at $10,000.00 US, the top ccTLD as Pool.com.au at 4,999.00 US and the top “other” TLD as Bramble.org at 3,549.00 US. Here is the entire list from Sedo sales from 03/06/2017 – 03/12/2017. Domain … [Read more...]
Show Me The Money: Combined $22M+ in Sales Hiding Behind .com Numeric Domains
I have to admit I know very little about numeric domain names. They never made much sense to me but I know they are very popular in the Chinese market and within the Chinese investment space. The closest I ever came was owning for a short period of time, 7BJ.com which I was able to sell with minimal - minimal effort. What I originally thought was a very unusual domain was desired by many. If I remember correctly I sold it for a few thousand dollars nearly a decade ago. With … [Read more...]
80% of Top 100 Highest .club Domain Buyers Leave Parked, Redirected, or Failing DNS
Next up in a new series of top 100 development potential domains lists is the .club domain. In comparison to top 100 LLL .com Liquid Domains, top 100 .net, and top 100 .org, I wanted to take a look at some gTLDs to see what buyers are actually doing with them and .club comes to mind first. The team at .club has done a fantastic job in marketing their new gTLD and it will be interesting to see. Sales figures are one thing when valuing domains, but actual development shows … [Read more...]