PALM BEACH, FL – This is an interesting topic by itself, although I covered something very much like it just the other day in "Panels Consistently Find That 'Domain Investing' Is Legitimate Bona Fide Offering". A lawyer named Tamara Kurtzman wrote an article that appeared on the website of the American Bar Association which details her opinion that “Domain Name Investing” should really be considered “Domain Name Hoarding” and labeled as “Anticipatory … [Read more...]
.NET Year in Review (2018): Top 100 Highest Reported .NET Domain Sales (NameBio)
PALM BEACH, FL – This is another follow-up from last years list; .NET Year in Review (2017): (It's been a busy year and it looks as though I got to it late this year) According to NameBio, as of now there are 2,430 total domain sales are on the books for the .net domain name in 2018. (Compared to the 4,325 .ORGs) The value of these top 100 totals just $946,689 - much worse than the .org domains did ($1,698,630.00) last year - looks bad for .net. We can add this … [Read more...]
.ORG Year in Review (2018): Top 100 Highest Reported .ORG Domain Sales (NameBio)
PALM BEACH, FL – This is a follow-up from last years list; .ORG Year in Review (2017): Top 100 Highest Reported .ORG Domain Sales (NameBio) According to NameBio, as of now 4,325 total domain sales are on the books for the .org domain name. The value of these top 100 totals $1,698,630.00, about 500k higher than the year prior, however, it is later in the year and some straggling sales could appear when they are finally reported. These lists seem to change slightly if and … [Read more...]
GrubHub’s Aggressive Customer Micro-Site Domain Strategy Makes Bad Situation Worse
PALM BEACH, FL – Most of the dust has now settled, but back in late June/early July of this year, restaurant ordering service GrubHub, found itself boiling in hot water when a domain name strategy of building ‘micro-sites’ or 'landing pages', using what you could call, confusingly similar domain names of its customers, was called out in media headlines far and wide across the Internet. Grubhub Inc. GRUB (NYSE) is a Chicago-based online and/or mobile food ordering service … [Read more...]
Domain Industry Takes Note of ICANN Update to Public Comment Guidelines
PALM BEACH, FL – On October 9, 2019, ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit corporation that sets policy for the global Domain Name System (DNS), updated its “policy guidelines” for how it collects and takes into considering feedback from the ICANN community or the general public. The update was posted on the organizations website by David Olive, Senior Vice President of Policy Development Support. The ICANN site states the … [Read more...]
NYT Highlights Sealed Auction of Domain “Democracy.com” Via Heritage Auctions
PALM BEACH, FL – What could possibly be better than being the auctioneer of a generic, super premium .com domain name like Democracy.com? Having that same opportunity with it being covered by the New York Times. https://www.ha.com/information/democracydotcom.s That’s what’s happening with Democracy.com, a super premium generic domain name which is being offered for sale in a sealed bidding contest held by Heritage Auctions, which specializes in the sale of … [Read more...]
Panels Consistently Find That “Domain Investing” Is Legitimate Bona Fide Offering
PALM BEACH, FL – Upon reading recent news from “Neus News”, I stumbled onto an interesting find where Howard Neu, a long-time attorney for the domain name industry, was representing a domain owner in a case where Oath Inc. (now Verizon Media), the company that purchased Yahoo! related assets in 2017 for $4.83 billion, claimed the domain name “YMobile.com” was infringing on Yahoo! related trademarks such as “Y”’ and “Y!”, as well as “Y Mobile” (although Y Mobile is only held … [Read more...]
Generic Domain Name “Cola.com” For Sale
PALM BEACH, FL – Most people who hear the generic dictionary word “Cola” more than likely associate it with the Coca-Cola beverage manufacturer, mostly known from its flagship carbonated soft-drink “Coca-Cola”, invented well over a hundred years ago in 1886. However, the 4-letter generic word represents a slew of Cola manufacturers and carbonated soft-drink brands - over 100 of them, including some which are considered “Cola-like” brands. It seems safe to assume … [Read more...]
Buyer of Record-Breaking Domain Sale, “Voice.com”, Ordered to Pay $24M SEC Fine
PALM BEACH, FL – On May 30, 2019, the domain name “Voice.com” was sold in a record-breaking all-cash transaction that has officially gone down in the history books as the highest valued domain name sale ever on record when Blockchain company “Block.one” purchased the .com web address from MicroStrategy Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR) for $30,000,000.00. The sale lit-up the domain industry when it was announced in June of this year in a MicroStrategy press release. Domain … [Read more...]
Investor Land Grab Opportunity Arises from Donuts Registry with Reduced Price gTLDs
PALM BEACH, FL –An interesting opportunity has arisen from new domain name registry company Donuts Inc., which operates roughly 240 new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Although I am less than a huge fan of new gTLDs, there are industry veterans who do in fact use them in certain scenarios of ‘super premiums’, and you’ll have an opportunity to filter through a list of over 1.1 million names (previously on hold) now being released in a price-drop by the … [Read more...]
Top 100 Domain Sales of First Three Quarters of 2019 via NameBio.com
PALM BEACH, FL - Two very notable sales which took place this year (2019) include Voice.com, for a record-breaking $30 million (largest domain sale in history) and GEO domain name California.com, which sold for $3 million, the largest U.S. GEO domain sale in history. Here is how the rest of the batch looked for the first three quarters. The domains sales are those listed at NameBio.com, a site which keeps track of, and records publicly reported sales. Keep in mind that … [Read more...]
Gobble, Gobble: Google Wants To Steal Your Website’s Local Event Calendar Traffic Too
PALM BEACH, FL – No, its not quite Thanksgiving yet; there are still several weeks to go. I wasn’t referring to [that] type of “Gobble, Gobble”, with a turkey or thanksgiving or any of that. But Gobble, Gobble seems to fit the bill. Because if you were to ask Google, every day is like a feeding frenzy. I’m talking about Google’s insatiable appetite to steal all of your content so that there is little traffic left for you. In fact, I bet Google would much prefer if your … [Read more...]
Google Says: “Always Be Link Building”
PALM BEACH, NY – If that little-soft-wet melon in your head is working properly, you're very likely - not going to get much benefit out of this piece.... but in case you’ve never thought of this before, it could be quite compelling and helpful. It also could serve its purpose well if there is someone you have been trying to "convince", but they are that type of thick-headed person that doesn’t trust your intuition when it comes to SEO and always needs to hear it from the … [Read more...]
Holiday Sites Start to Climb In Traffic As Shoppers Get Set for End of Year Spending
PALM BEACH, NY – It’s just about that time of year and before you know it, “Halloween” will pass, and America will officially enter into its early stages of the “holiday season” when ordinary business begins to slow, and recreation, time with family and friends becomes the focal point of many. You have probably noticed that it seems the holiday decorations are being setup in stores earlier and earlier - and for good reason. Retail sales are expected to top $1.1 trillion … [Read more...]
Edmonton Police Seize Three Canadian Domain Names from Fake Job Scam
PALM BEACH, FL – Three more domain names have vanished from the Internet due to a fake job scam; something frequently being used to steal money from unsuspecting victims. According to Canadian Yahoo News, Edmonton police have seized three Internet domains as part of an investigation involving fake job ads posted on the employment site Indeed.com. Police say the scam has cost victims over $240k. Visitors of the Canadian sites (which were not disclosed) are now … [Read more...]
LGBT Domain Registration Service, PrideLife LLC, Announces Relationship With Afilias
PALM BEACH, FL - A new domain name registration service is hoping its partnership with Afilias and its "LGBT" theme will help spotlight its business, which caters to the LGBT community and offers domain name registrations such as the new ".lgbt" domain name. The service, PrideLife LLC (getpridelife.lgbt), also suggests other alternative Afilias sponsored gTLDs such as ".red", ".pink", ".black" and others. The .lgbt TLD was delegated by ICANN in 2014 and shows just under … [Read more...]
Savvy Business Owners Know That Great Domain Names Can Grow Your Business
PALM BEACH, FL – I enjoy seeing great use-cases for domain name acquisitions where an end user recognizes the power of a great domain name and how they can help you grow your business. There has never been as much noise and competition to break-through on the Internet than there is right now, and a great domain name can be the ‘differentiator’ in how you stand out in a sea of consumer choice. For example, in reviewing the DNJournal.com year-to-date sales list, you’ll find … [Read more...]
German Police Raid Hosting Facility Dubbed “CyberBunker”; Seize Domains, 200 Servers
BERLIN – Thirteen people were arresting during a raid in Germany on September 27, 2019. According to Brian Krebs, a security journalist and investigative reporter for Krebs on Security, the raid targeted the physical premises of a Dark Web hosting operation that described itself as a “bulletproof” hosting provider that was willing to provide web site hosting services to any business, no matter how illegal or unsavory. This past Friday, 600 military equipped officers … [Read more...]
Amid Declining Revenues And Tenant Bankruptcies, Simon Taking Malls Online
PALM BEACH, FL – It seems that one of the biggest mall owners in the U.S., Simon Property Group, is getting ready to take their physical shopping mall and real estate business online, likely before their physical malls completely empty out. Simon, which owns 235 malls and premium outlet centers across the globe has been testing two ‘beta’ sites called “PremiumOutlets.com” (SIMON PROPERTY GROUP, L.P. ) and “ShopPremiumOutlets.com” (SHOP PO, LLC.) since about March; they … [Read more...]
Email Phishing Campaign Using Legitimate Top-Level Domain to Evade Spam Filters
PALM BEACH, FL – A sophisticated email phishing campaign is making the rounds while evading email filters by using a Google domain redirect. According to ThreatPost.com, a leading source of information about IT and business security, the campaign uses percentage-based URL encoding to deceive users. The campaign makes use of what’s called percentage-based URL encoding – a basic URL-encoding technique in which normal ASCII characters (i.e., “abc” and “123”) are converted … [Read more...]
22 Year Old Adult Domain “Orgasms.com” Sells for $19,000 on Flippa Marketplace
PALM BEACH, FL – Someone just ‘scored’ an easy entry point into the adult webmaster business with the acquisition of premium adult domain name Orgasms.com for $19,000 when it sold on Sunday, September 29, 2019. The domain name Orgasms.com shows a 'best-guess estimate' of $143,000 US on domain appraisal site Estibot.com. The domain name was listed for sale with a description including: Here is your chance to own the ULTRA premium adult domain name: Orgasms.com! The … [Read more...]
Joe Biden Still Not Sure About Domain Names, What They Are, How They Work
PALM BEACH, FL - Apparently, Presidential hopeful Joe Biden still doesn’t have a decent grasp on what exactly web site addresses are, how they work - or when to forgo them entirely while trying to give out SMS short codes for text messaging purposes. Turns out ole “foot-in mouth” Joe did it again when he confused an entire nationwide audience by telling them, 'If you agree with me, Go to Joe 30330' which he appeared to barely get out properly, when he should have told … [Read more...]
