PALM BEACH, FL – According to several reports, the 2 letter gTLD “My.Life” has been sold in a transaction valued at $175,000.00 (according to the registry), with $100,000.00 paid up front in cash, and $75,000.00 to be paid by the end of the year. The sale was confirmed by a tweet from the Donuts Twitter account and by Elliot Silver who reached out to Matt Overman, Senior VP of Sales at Donuts. The buyer of the unusually short domain asset is believed to be … [Read more...]
ICANN, PIR, Ethos Capital “Circus” Continues with Yet Another Letter from California AG
PALM BEACH, FL – The trio making a mockery of the definition of “public good” are probably hoping for another worldwide catastrophe to deflect the unwanted attention off their sour deal of transferring the .org registry from a non-profit (PIR) “Public Interest Registry” to a for-profit entity called “Ethos Capital” because the current one just isn’t enough. In a letter dated April 15, 2020, the attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra, has written yet another … [Read more...]
How Am I Supposed to Find A Good Domain Name When They Are Already All Gone?
PALM BEACH, FL – Finding a good, short, “.com” domain name nowadays is much harder than it was in the past, but it certainly isn’t impossible. What you don’t want to do, is listen to bad advice from someone who tells you to go ahead and register an alternative, such as “.net”, “.biz”, or “.info”. Whatever you do, don’t make that mistake, because you will very likely regret it at some point in the future. Unless your business is an ‘organization” you could get a “.org” … [Read more...]
Global Epidemic Will Lead To Unusually Good Time to Buy Domain Names
PALM BEACH, FL – If you have been sitting on the sidelines wishing you had gotten into domain names sooner, now will be a very good time to jump in. Why? Because its going to be a very good time to buy domains – even better than it’s been these last few years. Yes, many know that it has been a buyers’ market for a while now and it’s going to get even better (for new comers and buyers). Here are just a few reasons why it’s been a buyers’ market: Parking revenue … [Read more...]
Nonprofit “ICANN” Exists to Serve the Public Good, Or Does It? What Say You?
PALM BEACH, FL – An important awareness message came out of The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) today, and it should make, even the least interested shopper, question whether or not price increases to consumers are justified when an item or service is purchased from a company with specific oversight from an authoritative body. Whether it is over domain names, or anything else, the question should be, when does a company - any company, which is permitted to … [Read more...]
Must Be Nice To Be “THE Sheriff” with “Sheriff.org”… URL Branded Vehicles
PALM BEACH, FL – Sometime back in 1996 someone had a pretty decent idea down in Florida; to register the Internet domain name “Sheriff.org” for the Broward County Sheriff's Office. I’m often reminded of this ‘solid decision’ as I live one county North and often see these URL branded police vehicles Wizz by me with “Sheriff.org” branded on the back bumper. Photo credit: https://www.allpar.com I always think, there’s probably a lot of Sheriff’s offices around the entire … [Read more...]
5 Years In, Where Are “.NYC” Domains Now? Landrush Registration Opened Oct., 2014
PALM BEACH, FL – “.NYC”, it’s called “The Official Web Address for New Yorkers”, and a top level domain name which is restricted to being registered only by “lawful” residents and/or businesses within the New York City area (the five boroughs). The slogan of being the “Official” web address of the City its named after isn’t just fluff marketing material either; it actually is, The Official URL, according to NYC.gov. The legal entity-registry is recorded as “The … [Read more...]
CVS Pharmacy Files WIPO Against “CVS.inc” Domain; Reg Fees Headed Towards Earth
PALM BEACH, FL – It looks like CVS Pharmacy, Inc. isn’t too thrilled with the recent registration of the nGTLD domain name “CVS.inc” which looks to have been registered in May, 2019. The pharmacy company has filed a WIPO dispute (WIPO D2019-2615) which will likely result in a TRANSFER as the majority of their complaints follow that trend. The “CVS.inc” domain name is listed on the get.inc website under “Who's Buying” in the ”recent registrations section” for companies … [Read more...]
If Google Removes URLs From Search Results, Who Exactly Stands to Benefit?
PALM BEACH, FL – Last week I ran a story about Google’s obvious intent to remove URL’s from search. The story was titled “Google Determined to Remove URLs from Search Results; Replace with Breadcrumbs” and published on October 18, 2019. It was a follow up to “EVIL: Will Google Do Away with Domain Name and Extension Entirely Anyway?” There has been wide reaction from both the SEO and Domain community on the coming change and it warrants added thought and hopefully, added … [Read more...]
Exact Match Domain Names Yielding “Free Ticket to Ride” Long Over on Search Giant
PALM BEACH, FL – Exact match domain names, URLs which are spelled exactly how a top search term is used in popular verbal expression still work to help boost search rankings well when it comes to Bing.com and Yahoo.com, but on Google.com, it doesn’t seem to matter unless there are powerful “brand signals” in play, such as high numbers of inbound links, frequent references to the URL whether linked or not, and other popular signals such as social media activity with matching … [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...]
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...]
Say What? $60,000 Per Week Redirecting Traffic with “Domain King” Rick Schwartz
PALM BEACH, NY – It was another good show from Domainer.com.au run by Robert Kaay and Ed Keay-Smith, whom previously interviewed industry visionary Michael Castello from CCIN.com and Ron Jackson from Domain Journal. This latest show, another with lots of great advice and lots to learn was with Rick Schwartz, widely known as the “Domain King” for his immense experience and success in the domain business; Schwartz has … [Read more...]
Chrysler Corp “Stops the Bleeding” With Release, Cancellation of Branded Domains
PALM BEACH, FL – Better days are ahead for the Chrysler Corporation, who according to Domain Name Wire, has terminated its [unfortunate] “obligation” to continue “flushing money down the drain” with the drop/release of the following “dot brand” domain names: .Uconnect, .SRT, .Mopar, .Dodge, .Chrysler, all of which, according to DNW, were owned and administrated by what is now known as FCA US LLC, (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles). Just one “gamble” remains, “.Jeep”, which, … [Read more...]
Why Verisign ‘NASDAQ:VRSN’ Will Inevitably Get Its .COM Domain Price Increase Sought
PALM BEACH – There has been a lot of talk in tech and domain circles lately about the company “Verisign” (NASDAQ:VRSN), its obvious monopoly in the .com domain game, and it’s long list of subsidiaries, but things really started to heat-up back in October 2018 when the company managed to renew its “cooperative agreement” with the United States Government through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), minus long-standing pricing caps on one of … [Read more...]