PALM BEACH, FL - Being that I'm involved in both the marketing and domain industries, I enjoy seeing creative uses of domain names. The other day I snapped this shot from the car when I noticed a company called “Simply Health Care” using a creative domain name “Simply Enroll Now” (SimplyEnrollNow.com) as a landing page. The company, which appears to be called “Simply Healthcare Plans” at (SimplyHealthcarePlans.com) provides consulting services for Medicaid qualified … [Read more...]
Stupid Question: “Why Not Just Stick With .io?” 10 Years Later, Answer Remains Clear
SOUTH FLORIDA - A startup I never heard of caught my attention when it appeared on DomainInvesting.com for its strategic and necessary (in my opinion) acquisition by ownership of their “.com” domain name, YouForm.com, a business that had been using the popular - while not as good, io domain, YouForm.io. Youform is a free form builder that provides unlimited forms and responses. It is an alternative to Typeform and Formidable. Youform’s features include a drag-and-drop … [Read more...]
Google Now Displays Wallet Balances for Ethereum Name Services (ENS) Domains
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - Google has recently integrated native support for wallet balances of Ethereum Name Services (ENS) domains in its search results, a move that should simplify the process of sending and receiving funds on the part of cryptocurrency holders by substituting standard – and, thus, easier to remember – domain names in the place of the complicated wallet addresses commonly associated with blockchain-specific domains. ENS translates computer identifiers into … [Read more...]
JM Bullion Now Owns Two Most Valuable Domains In Industry; Gold.com & Silver.com
DALLAS, TX - JM Bullion, a Dallas, Texas-based online bullion dealer founded in 2011 that extensively deals in precious metals such as gold and silver, announced this week they have acquired the “ultra-premium” Gold.com domain name, adding it to an extensive array of high-profile domains that also includes Silver.com. A subsidiary of publicly traded A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc., JM Bullion’s purchase of Gold.com – brokered by Andrew Miller of ATM Holdings, Inc. in … [Read more...]
Popular Question: “If I Build My Website on Shopify Who Owns My Website?”
FLORIDA: I get this question quite often and it's pretty important to know the difference. I've discussed a bunch of similar issues with domain and site ownership in my book Mastering Your Website. If I build my website on Shopify who owns my website? Technically, you will own the website you build on Shopify, even though Shopify provides the platform and tools to create and run it. The keyword here is platform. Here's a breakdown: It's important to distinguish … [Read more...]
World’s Biggest Ransomware Group Shut Down, Domains Seized in Global Operation
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The operations of infamous ransomware group LockBit have been shut down, their domains seized, and several high-ranking members placed under arrest as the result of a recent digital takedown carried out by an international law enforcement operation. Operation Cronos, the code name of a joint effort made up by agencies representing 11 countries – Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United … [Read more...]
10 Billion Connections to Malicious Domains Blocked by NSA in 2023 via “PDNS”
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Security Agency (NSA) noted that 10 billion user connections to known malicious or suspicious domains were blocked over the course of the past year as part of the agency’s efforts, according to its 2023 Cybersecurity Year in Review report released on Tuesday. The NSA‘s annual report is a public account of the agency’s work with government partners, defense industrial base (DIB) entities, and foreign partners to help keep the nation secure, … [Read more...]
Shiba Inu Developers Planning on Launch of First Crypto Top-Level Domain “.shib”
NEW YORK, NY - The development team behind the Shiba Inu cryptocurrency – inspired by the Shiba Inu, a Japanese dog breed which also serves as the mascot for Dogecoin – is planning on launching the first ever crypto top-level domain in partnership with domain company D3. Shiba Inu are currently waiting for approval of the new domain, “.shib,” which is slated to be utilized for websites and email for what is being described as a “decentralized identity project for internet … [Read more...]
Experts: 23andMe Hack Is DNA Catastrophe; Leaked Millions of Genetic Profiles
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Earlier this week, in a startling revelation, 23andMe conceded that a hack in October was significantly worse than initially reported. Affecting nearly 6.9 million people, the scale of this data breach was shockingly larger than the initially stated figure of 14,000 users. Regrettably, the stolen data contained not only sensitive information such as full names, but genetic profiles. Yet, the severity of the situation was met with indifference by some … [Read more...]
New Service to Assist with WHOIS Lookups Launched by ICANN for Authorized Users
LOS ANGELES, CA - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the nonprofit organization that oversees the domain industry – has launched a new centralized online service to assist researchers, law enforcement, and others to request personal data from all public domain registration records. This new service comes after ICANN had instructed all registrars in May 2018 to redact personal data – such as a customer’s name, address, phone number … [Read more...]
Examining Past Alternative Dots Helps Predict Future Adoption of New Ones?
NEW YORK, NY – Sometimes to predict the future, it is as easy as simply examining the past. Based on a comment from one of my readers, this simple graph shows movements and numbers of registrations for some of the ‘original’ alternative dots and what is happening with them. Alternatives such as .BIZ, .INFO, .MOBI, .PRO, .NAME, .XXX for example, verse the originals. What good are or were these alternative URLs availability and how have newcomers adopted these into branding … [Read more...]
How To Build an $8.7M Business Capturing Just 1% of the Marketplace or Competition
NEW YORK, NY - According to a financial statement uncovered by Domain investor, George Kirikos, the Cars.com web site address was recently valued at a staggering $872,320,000. If you were ever going to try and mimic a successful online business model, this could be a fantastic place to start (The entire business itself was valued at $2.5 Billion Dollars). Think about it like this, if you could make a business that was valued at, or worth, even just a tiny, tiny, percentage … [Read more...]
List of 650 Accredited Domain Name Registrars Operating in the United States
Below is a list of accredited ICANN domain name registrars who operate within the United States. Registrar Name Country/Territory ! #1 Host Australia, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Canada, Inc. United States ! #1 Host China, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Germany, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Japan, Inc. United States ! #1 Host Korea, Inc. United States $$$ Private Label Internet Service Kiosk, Inc. (dba "PLISK.com") United … [Read more...]
Measuring New gTLD Growth and Market Share via The DNS Zone File System
NEW YORK, NY - As should be no surprise, new gTLD growth and usage is on the rise exponentially. There are several tools available for measuring gTLD growth and market share which are ‘fairly accurate’ as they use the DNS Zone File system which maps domain names and IP addresses. One such tool which I originally thought was new is ntldstats.com, although the owner Stefan Meinecke was interviewed back in 2014 by TheDomains.com - so it is far from … [Read more...]
Domain Suspension – Registrant Information Verification Failure; It Could Happen to You
REMINDER: If you change either the first name, last name or email address on one of your domain registrations, you’ll need to verify the new information via email within 15 calendar days or you will be met with a page similar to this one in the below screenshot. This new policy took effect back in January of 2014 but this is how long it took for me to actually see one of these pages in action; it happened today. Not paying attention to those email verification … [Read more...]