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...]
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 that the Super Reseller provided the ability to “resell” the “reseller” opportunity and put companies underneath you, earning a small portion of your acquired re-sellers sales, sort of like a sub-affiliate or MLM (multi-level-marketing) … [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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
Why You’ll See Me at the MERGE Digital Asset Conference Again This Year
NEW YORK, NY – I’m happy to report that I will again be visiting beautiful and sunny Orlando Florida this September 14-19 for the Merge Domain Conference, rightfully dubbed the “Merge Digital Asset Conference”. MERGE serves as a five day multi-conference event focused on Digital Assets, Domains, Hosting, E-Commerce, Content Management, Security, Intellectual Property, Stock Photography, UX, Design, Blockchain and Crypo-Currencies and more. To me it’s just another … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Weekly Domain Sales List Includes .App at $14k, .Me at $8,500
NEW YORK, NY – Recently 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 Ivypay.com at $22,000 USD, the top ccTLD as Hola.me at $8,500 and the top other as Host.app at 12,000 EUR ($14,020.20 USD). Here is the entire list for Sedo.com sales from 07/16/2018 – 07/22/2018. Domain … [Read more...]
Three Letter Blockbuster Domain Sale, ICE.com Trades Hands for $3.5 Million
NEW YORK, NY - According to a press release, the three letter Internet domain name ICE.com has been sold via a private, confidential transaction in the amount of $3.5 million. The sale is expected to be the largest publicly disclosed domain name sold in 2018. The sale was handled by two domain and Internet business brokerage firms Brannan’s and Grit Brokerage and the purchase price and value was defined in a statement as a long-term benefit at the cost of a single … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Releases Weekly Domain Name Sales List 07/09/2018 – 07/15/2018
NEW YORK, NY – Recently 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 BTCExchange.com at $55,000 USD, the top ccTLD as Park.co.us at 22,500 GBP ($29,508.19 US) and the top other as KYG.org at $8,800 USD. Here is the entire list for Sedo.com sales from 07/09/2018 – 07/15/2018. Domain … [Read more...]
It’s a Miracle: Straight-Shooter on Forbes Gives Real Advice on Exact Match Domains
NEW YORK, NY – Nowadays, I read some much down-right bad advice and marketing hype spun-off as news that I actually feel it necessary when someone knows what in-the-world they’re talking about and actually offers ‘real’ advice to business owners. For instance, I came across an article in Forbes by columnist Michael Gargiulo, someone who obviously knows what he is talking about and is looking to give small business owners not just real advice, but real good advice. What a … [Read more...]
Top 100 .com Domain Name Sales of 2016 Verses 2017 Suggests Market Stabilization
NEW YORK, NY - Last year about this time (June) I compared the highest valued .com sales of 2015 to 2016 which were publicly available at that time via NameBio.com (the list changed slightly today effectively creating a $2M difference and 30% decline rather than 35% indicated at that time[provided that 2015 remained unchanged]). It's also important to note that 2015 contained two blockbuster sales for $8M each. Today, comparing numbers for 2016 to 2017, from what data is … [Read more...]