WEST PALM BEACH – Originally registered in 1998, the domain name “Easter.com” redirects visitors to the Hallmark.com website where conveniently Easter cards and gifts are highlighted. This is a good use of a premium domain name, outside of development of course. Hallmark has owned this domain name since at least 2010 when it was highlighted by Domain Name Wire. Out of curiosity, I decided to visit it this morning to see what’s there. Screen-grab from Easter.com … [Read more...]
Yet Another Proper UDRP Decision Gets Highlighted In “The News”, WTF Is That?
WEST PALM BEACH – There are two main places my Internet travels will take me when I have some extra time to keep up with domain name newlines. These two places are, 1) Domaining.com, where I can find commentary on pretty much anything meaningful that is going on in the domain name space, and if I don’t find something that grabs’ my interest there, I’ll move on over to 2) Google News. If something in the domain space is not happening in at least one of these two places … [Read more...]
‘Pointless’ Concern Could Become Domain Investor ‘Reality’ in AU Top Level Domain
WEST PALM BEACH – Back in 2017, I wrote about the likelihood of growing regulation aimed at domain names; the article was titled, “Could Domain Investing Industry End with Legal Provision for Domain Hoarding”. That writing stirred some discussion, with one domainer going as far as considering such a possibility as ‘pointless’ or as he put it, “like planning for when an asteroid hits your house”. Well, such pointless concern is exactly what is being considered by AuDA (the … [Read more...]
Google “Adds” Additional Layer of Domain Validation Before Monetizing Websites
WEST PALM BEACH – Google AdSense, once the greatest and easiest way to immediately monetize your domain or website, has added an additional layer of validation to the game, by requiring your domain name be approved before allowing you to run ads on them. One of the greatest things about Google AdSense, was, that in the past you could slap your ad code scripts on any web page, and relevant - targeted ads would immediately appear, assigning each click on an ad, to a … [Read more...]
.Inc Domain Set to Be Next New gTLD ‘Flop’ Accompanied by Ridiculous Price Tag
NEW YORK, NY – If you have been waiting to get your hands on a new .inc domain name, you might as well just keep waiting; that is, until the price comes down somewhere between ‘reason-ability’ and ‘reality’. I’ve been interested in one of these domain names for quite some time now, however, checking the availability of a specific name, I’ve noticed that it will cost a whopping $3,500.00 to secure it during the early registration period. When the name becomes available for … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Releases Inside Look at New Expired Domain Search Functions
NEW YORK – Sedo, the worlds real estate listing service for digital assets, has released a new section dedicated to helping both novice and expert users find and acquire expiring domain names. The new section is hosted at the following URL: https://expiringdomains.sedo.com The tool provides multiple ways to filter, sort and search through domains and includes information about a domain names indexed pages in Google while using the popular Majestic backlink checker to … [Read more...]
Biggest Threat to .COM Dominance Is Google’s Involvement in New gTLDs
NEW YORK – According to industry news website, DomainNameWire.com, Google’s launch of “.dev” domain names is off to a prosperous start with the zone file representing over 64,000 registrations just one day after it entered general availability. That’s amazing even for a bearish believer of nGTLDs. I guess it is only a matter of time until more and more people begin accepting the fact that all of the good .com domain names are long gone, and there are these new sort of odd … [Read more...]
A Domain Resellers Best Benefit Might Be In Domain “Savings”, Not Sales “Revenue”
NEW YORK, NY – In early 2005 I became a reseller for Wild West Domains Inc., a subsidiary of the GoDaddy, signing up for their Reseller opportunity, and at that time, their “Super Reseller” opportunity. The difference between the two was (at that time) that the Super Reseller, which I don’t believe they offer anymore, provided the ability to “resell” the “reseller” opportunity and put companies underneath you, earning a small portion of your acquired resellers sales, sort of … [Read more...]
How Google Became the Most Popular Search Engine; Eyes on Innovation
NEW YORK, NY – In the early 1990’s, the Internet was in its infancy. At that time, a great majority of information on this new and interesting "World Wide Web" was from colleges and universities. With the growth of this vast amount of information came interest in a better way for finding things which birthed some of the webs very first search engines, many of which you’ve likely never even heard of. Some who used the Internet at that time might be more likely to remember more … [Read more...]
What Is Web Site Hosting and Why Do I Need It? Seems Like A Monthly Rip Off
NEW YORK – Once in a while I come across a person, customer or prospect that doesn’t understand what website hosting is and why they might have to pay for it. They seem to feel that hosting is some unknown, unexplained add-on which seems confusing at best or a rip-off at worst. The particular people seem to think a website just 'exists' out there on the Inter-webs or are somehow part of the World Wide Web; they have trouble understanding what website hosting is and why … [Read more...]
My Single Long Tail, Exact Match Domain Name Grab at NamesCon Global 2019
NEW YORK, NY – This year I purchased just one Internet domain name at NamesCon, and although a little long in length, I feel it’s a good match and good domain name that reflects exactly what my business does, so this name I acquired as an “end user”. I also purchased it at a very good price – Just $800 measly dollars; for that little I couldn't see not grabbing it. The domain name is InternetMarketingServices.com, which reflects exactly what my newer spin-off business … [Read more...]
Domain Name Biz Uniregistry Scores on Domain Name “DomainNames.com”
NEW YORK - A few weeks ago at NamesCon Global 2019 one of the industry’s best domain names, in my opinion, was acquired by Uniregistry, the brainchild of founder Frank Schilling, who operates the company from its Cayman Islands headquarters. As many in the domain industry were, Schilling was in attendance and won the highest bid on DomainNames.com for $370,000, one of the largest sales in the live auction. The remainder of domains which were not sold at the live event, … [Read more...]
Lights Out for Broadway Ticket, GEO Domain Site NewYork.com Over Legal Dispute
NEW YORK, NY – While researching some GEO domain names last night I discovered that NewYork.com has now disappeared. It was a huge site I was quite familiar with as I had some past affiliate dealings with them, but today it appears its gone offline and parked at Godaddy.com. This was initially very hard to believe as last time I visited the site it seemed bustling with traffic and activity similar to its New York City streets in which it ‘virtually’ represented. This … [Read more...]
Domains and Divorce, Are You Prepared for Your Domain Assets to Come Under Fire?
WEST PALM BEACH, FL – This is a very personal post today with thoughts you might find surprising, however, one thing that readers of my site will always get is honesty, good, bad, or ugly; you’re going to have the opportunity to read through the details of my experience on the web – with whatever it may be – and those who read these articles have come to expect and respect my honesty and thoughts where sharing my real world experience on the Internet and within circles of … [Read more...]
Industry Event, NamesCon 2019, Comes to Tropicana Las Vegas, Saturday, January 26
NEW YORK, NY – In another month or so, just after the holidays, domain name professionals, enthusiasts and others in the Internet industry will begin getting ready for another round of the world’s largest domain name conference, NamesCon 2019 in Las Vegas. This year it will again be hosted at the Tropicana Las Vegas, on Las Vegas Boulevard, right where the busy area of the strip begins, but word in and around the Industry is that this will be the final year of the venue being … [Read more...]
From $132 to $100M: Was YellowPages.com The Smartest Domain Name Grab Ever?
NEW YORK, NY – Back in April of 1996, Dane Madsen registered YellowPages.com, an idea that popped into his mind after being demanded to come up with ad-copy for one of his firms clients, Sprint, who was rushing to be included in the next issue of the print Yellow Pages book; back then if you missed the deadline, you needed to wait an entire year for your business to seemingly exist. At about the same time, Dan was told about a company called “Network Solutions”, which … [Read more...]
Domain Name ‘Bill of Rights’ Proposed by Global Domain Name Registrar Uniregistry
NEW YORK, NY – This past week, the man who virtually created the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, spoke about his “Contract for the Web” initiative; something he believes is fundamental to ensure a protected, free and open Internet for all of society. Early backers of the initiative, which can be viewed at ContractForTheWeb.org, include notable support from some of the webs largest innovators such as Google.com, Facebook.com, Craig Newmark (Founder of Craigslist.org), the W3C … [Read more...]
Verisign Receives Regulatory Approval to Raise .COM Prices; Restrictions Deleted
NEW YORK, NY – Although many had hoped it wouldn’t happen, Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the company behind the registration and creation of .COM domain names, has been given the virtual green light by the US Government to raise the price of .com domain names by 7% in each of the last four years of a six-year incremental contract. Late Thursday, news broke that the “Cooperative Agreement”, an agreement between the National Telecommunications and Information Administration … [Read more...]
Alphabet Releases App to Prevent DNS Manipulation, Deter Online Censorship
NEW YORK, - Google’s Alphabet has released a new Android app called “Intra” which prevents “DNS manipulation”, a process used often by ISPs to redirect invalid domain name resolution to their own version of branded search results, usually accompanied by search engine ads – when used nefariously, it is also a tactic of hackers who steal and redirect users to phishing sites or to otherwise dupe them into downloading viruses and spyware. The app is made available by a company … [Read more...]
Attorney Suggests UDRP Process as “Clear Cut”, “Quick” and “Relatively Inexpensive”
NEW YORK, NY – If you’ve been keeping a watchful eye on UDRP cases lately, you’ve likely noticed some real over-reaching land grabs in action, especially those based on three character acronyms, and like me, have been watching is disappointment. I’ve always said that one of the greatest challenges in the domain space in coming years will be growing regulation and corporate theft by those who seek to own the assets of others; assets they did not have foresight to acquire … [Read more...]
Radio Host with Estimated 6.5M Listeners Talks Buying and Selling Domain Names
NEW YORK, NY - Kim Komando, a syndicated radio host to over 435 radio stations in the United States and heard internationally in 177 different countries, is dubbed “America’s Digital Goddess”. Her weekly three-hour call-in show covers anything and everything ‘digital’ from tech-gadgets, websites, smartphone apps, and internet security. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office her company Komando Corporation and associated owned and operated radio network, … [Read more...]
Gargiulo Reiterates Necessity for .COM in New Forbes Domain and Branding Article
NEW YORK, NY - Michael Gargiulo, owner of VPN.com, a group of virtual private network consultants, is also part of what Forbes Magazine calls its “Forbes Technology Council”, an invitation only community for senior technology executives. Gargiulo, who I have begun to follow for his ‘straight-shooter’ domain advice, writes periodically for Forbes Magazine and certainly believes in the value of a great domain name, indicated by his decision in 2017 to purchase VPN.com for … [Read more...]
