NEW YORK – Morgan Linton’s blog caught my eye this morning as it discusses the redirecting of domain names for SEO, an often hotly debated topic. I find this topic especially interesting as it appears to me that Google often dances around the truth with explanations of what works and what doesn’t. Google’s new webmaster PR guy is John Mueller who basically replaced Matt Cutts in a publication relations capacity with webmasters around 2015 when Cutts was on leave. I’ve always … [Read more...]
Near $200,000 Missing from “Ordinary” Domain Sales Market, So Far This Year
NEW YORK – There is an old saying “Follow the Money”, popularized by the 1976 drama-documentary motion picture “All the President's Men” which was about the Watergate scandal (I’ve yet to see the movie, but plan to). However, in this case, I prefer not to follow the money, because it looks like it's disappearing into a region of space-time; one exhibiting strong gravitational effects that nothing - not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light can escape … [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...]
Might Be Good Time to Revisit That .Org Portfolio; Which to Hold, Which to Grab
NEW YORK, NY – According to industry news website DNJournal.com, the registry behind .org domain names, Public Interest Registry, or otherwise known as PIR, has got itself a new CEO. Although personally I had never come across the name before, DNJournal describes incoming Chief Executive Officer Jon Nevett as a well-known and widely respected domain industry veteran - and this domain enthusiast has no reason to doubt it, especially since Nevett is one of the founders of … [Read more...]
Will JP Morgan’s Launch of Cryptocurrency Further Squeeze Domain Name Sales?
NEW YORK, NY – It’s been a very interesting few years recently hasn’t it? As if there weren’t enough reasons for your typical domain name investor to diversify his online bets, here comes another big one. Financial powerhouse JP Morgan Chase has announced it will be launching its own cryptocurrency called "JPM Coin" with a fixed rate value of $1. The move solidifies a [sort of] ‘questionable’ industry with instant validity in my opinion as JP Morgan acts as the first major … [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...]
Google Say’s Don’t Buy Domains for Past Rankings; Knows When They Change Hands
NEW YORK, NY – In an article that came out in Search Engine Roundtable the other day, long-time search marketing expert Barry Schwartz points out that a Google employee named Aaseesh, tasked with monitoring Google’s Webmaster Central Help Forum, posted a comment which suggests that Google zaps a domains ranking juice, not only when the domain expires (which most have already suspected), but also when the domain merely changes hands or is sold. This adds a new layer of … [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...]
SHERPA: “Wow, So This Is, Really, Maybe, It Would Be Fair to Say, The Biggest Auction The Domain Industry Has Ever Seen?”
NEW YORK, NY - I took the time to watch another Domain Sherpa show today - this one called "Domain Handcapping" since it was related to the upcoming NamesCon show next week from January 26, to January 30, 2019 - including “the main event” – the live auction which is held once a year. I’m very much looking forward to attending this year and I will certainly sit in on it and maybe even purchase something, so I wanted to hear what Monte Cahn and Drew Rosener had to say about … [Read more...]
What’s Next? Could Eminent Domain Be Used to Steal Your GEO Domain Name?
NEW YORK, NY – This will be a controversial subject for many if not all domain name owners, however, in light of the France.com domain seizure, every Geographic domain name ‘taking’ could be imminent. Sound insane? Read on. What’s Next? Could Eminent Domain Be Used to Steal Your GEO Domain Name? While researching how in the world this atrocity could have happened to the owner of France.com, (Jean-Noel Frydman), as a GEO domain name owner, I wanted to research the … [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...]
Uniregistry Moves to Rebrand as “UNI”, Without Ownership of UNI.com???
NEW YORK, NY - If you had not heard yet - domain registry, parking and portfolio management company “Uniregistry” has launched a re-branding effort changing its popular brand name from “Uniregistry” to simply “UNI”. Two things immediately came to mind upon seeing this news. Does the company own the UNI.com domain name? The answer: Surprisingly it does not. The domain name UNI.com has been registered since 1993 and is currently owned by an Italian company which according … [Read more...]
Did DuckDuckGo Just Acquire Premium Domain “Duck.com” from Google?
NEW YORK, NY – Popular privacy search engine DuckDuckGo.com, might just be quacking all the way to the bank with its latest [potential] acquisition, Duck.com, according to name server and domain registrar details pointed out by domain industry website DotWeekly.com. It is important to note that this is just speculation at this time, but knowing that the privacy based search provider has been eyeing the domain for some time, specifically saying that it creates confusion … [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...]
“Global Internet Crash” Diverted As ICANN Implements DNS Security Enhancements
NEW YORK, NY – Early last month, The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is responsible for maintaining the registry of domain names and IP addresses, was preparing to implement the very first change to the “cryptographic keys” which help protect the Domain Name System (DNS) - the Internet's address book. The change had been delayed for over a year as ICANN reviewed last-minute data about the change and accessed any potential risk to the … [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...]
Two New Alternative URLs Hit Superhighway
NEW YORK, NY – If you’re looking around for a few good ways to confuse new prospective customers, you’ve got two new great opportunities to completely derail even your best marketing efforts; .LUXE and .PAGE new gTLDs have just worked their way into the mix. Minds + Machines, the company behind .LUXE domain names, which are intended to serve the Ethereum, blockchain and security industry, has released the .LUXE domain which opens for general availability on November 6, … [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...]
