PALM BEACH – What do you do when another company possesses a sought after three-character domain name that you want, wish you had, or wish you would had thought to register for your business many, many years ago? You file a nonsensical UDRP proceeding of course - and shoot for the best. That’s what appears Royal Caribbean Cruises has decided to do with the domain name “RCC.COM”, a relatively cool and extremely diluted acronym with a wide range of uses for companies … [Read more...]
Relaunch of Domain Name Auction for NAMESCON 2019 Closes May 14-15th
PALM BEACH – A final chance remains for domains included in the NAMESCON GLOBAL live auction which was held this past January in Las Vegas. According to an email send out last week, the auction will end between Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Names that are listed for sale include premium domain names such as the two character .com, "XU.COM" and other premium names “IBF.COM”, “COLLEGELOANS.COM”, “SENIORDATING.COM”, “SINGLEMEN.COM” and of course, many … [Read more...]
Multi-Million Dollar Domain Portfolio Owner Says, “Don’t Bother” with Domain Parking
PALM BEACH – A multi-million-dollar domain portfolio owner has given some personal advice on domain name parking, and it’s not good. If you had not yet heard, Brent Oxley, the guy behind the creation of one of the largest and most successful [in my opinion] web hosting providers, HostGator.com, has recently put his entire and very extensive domain portfolio up for sale using the platform, Efty.com. What I found most interesting, more than his unique and super … [Read more...]
Increasing The Cost of Doing Business by $2k/yr Starts Today With .INC Domains
PALM BEACH – Get ready for a whole new batch of opportunity to boost your entrepreneurial spirits as you’re not going to be able to contain your excitement – or keep your wallet in your pocket when I tell you about this new exciting development just announced today by the .INC domain registry. Businesses across the Globe can now increase the cost of doing business by a whopping $2,000 per year simply by registering a new .INC domain name for their business. That’s right, … [Read more...]
Google Promotes Alternative Uniregistry URL in Keyword Planner “How To” Video
PALM BEACH – Google is a massive giant in promoting things - and it looks like they’ve decided to include some interesting advertising for Uniregistry in one of their search advertising videos called “Get Started with Google Ads: Pick The Right Keywords”, a how-to video about setting up your Google Ads. This video, which was created in 2017, about two and a half years after general availability of the .flowers URL, teaches people how to use the Google Keyword Planner tool … [Read more...]
.Club Registry Reports 2019 Domain Sales; Let’s Look at What’s Parked vs Developed
PALM BEACH – It’s always interesting to see what people are purchasing in the domain space, and then even more interesting is to look at how much they've spent and what they’re doing with that acquisition, especially when it comes to the controversial new gTLD space. According to OnlineDomain.com, the “.Club” domain registry folks have reported their 2019 domain sales including a big one namely, "Business.Club" - all of which sales are listed at sold.domains. Let’s … [Read more...]
Vast List of Premium GEO Domain Names For Sale Grows by Two Major Cities
PALM BEACH – Within the last few weeks I pointed out that now is a good time to purchase your GEO domain dream as many once super-premium "untouchable names" are now for sale. You may or may not have noticed that within the last year or so, many premium domain names which would have been rejected for near 'any price', now sit, many as vacant wastelands, for sale waiting for their potential future owners / buyers. The typical answer you may well have received in … [Read more...]
NamesCon 2019 Domain Auction Returns from Explosive Year of $2.4 Million is Sales
PALM BEACH – What do you do when a live and online auction produces lackluster results? Why, you re-run it again a couple of months later (Just kidding - As soon as I saw the title of the email, Back by “Popular Demand”, I thought, yea right – but NUMBERS my friends, do not lie, and those numbers show that Domaining, is indeed very much alive and well; at least at NamesCon it is.) Yesterday, NameJet.com and RightOfTheDot.com announced via email and a formal press release … [Read more...]
U.S. State Domain ILLINOIS.com For Sale
PALM BEACH – According to Above.com’s latest Domain Name Marketplace Report, the exact match domain “ILLINOIS.com” is for sale; a state name I missed and wasn’t aware of in my previous GEO domain article earlier this month titled “Premium GEO Domain Name Shakeup with High Number of Sales and Offerings”. The domain name was originally registered in 1995, around the same time many state and major city names were scooped up. According to some internet chatter it appears a … [Read more...]
Seven Days Remain to State Your Case on Price Cap Removal for Legacy Domains
PALM BEACH – ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and PIR, Public Interest Registry, are considering the removal of current ‘price caps’ on legacy domain extensions such as “.org”, “.biz”, and “.info”; if you have an opinion on them doing so, you have limited time to make your comments and opinions heard as the window for public comment proceedings will close in seven days on April 29, 2019. The current Registry Agreements expire soon and they … [Read more...]
Coconspirator Faces 20 Years in Prison Over Scheme to Steal Domain Name at Gunpoint
CEDAR RAPIDS – A man who owned a social media company and planned to steal an Internet domain name by force was convicted last week and faces 20 years in prison. According to CNN, a jury found Rossi Lorathio Adams II guilty for hiring his cousin to break into a house in Cedar Rapids and force the transfer of an Internet web address by its current registrant at gunpoint. Adams cousin, Sherman Hopkins Jr., was charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery and … [Read more...]
Hallmark Continues to ‘Cash-In’ On Premium Holiday Web Name “Easter.com”, Or Does It?
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. A good question to ask, if even … [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...]
One Less Way to Monetize Your Domains As Chitika Network Plans Shut Down April 30th
WEST PALM BEACH – A popular alternative to Google Adsense has announced it will be shutting its virtual doors on April 30th 2019. Chitika, an online advertising network that grew quickly in popularity after hitting the market in 2004 is shutting down. On Wednesday, April 17, the company sent all publishers an email announcing the pending shut-down: After 15+ years in business and millions of publisher relationships, Chitika is hereby shutting down and closing its business. … [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...]