PALM BEACH – My son’s car arrived this morning and delivery has been confirmed via email. We had an agreement that I was sending the car as a gift from South Florida to Georgia, but mom was taking care of the transport fee and choosing the shipper and scheduling it; she chose Ship.Cars, a vehicle transport “marketplace” which is using a new and different domain name ending, likely to improve the chances of being found online. Ship.Cars is what would be considered a … [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...]
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...]
Quick Glimpse Inside NamesCon Global 2019 at the Tropicana, in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS, NV – NamesCon Global 2019 is well underway with just one day remaining. While here since Sunday I’ve had just enough time to visit a few panels and keynotes of choice, all of which were great and well worth attending as listening and learning, if it creates just one new idea or new potential, can help steer direction in one’s career; not to mention all of the great networking opportunities the event provides while keeping your current industry relationships alive. … [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...]
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...]
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...]
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Purchase an Ngtld Domain Simply for Search Rankings
NEW YORK, NY – Many who read this site will be familiar with the out-of-the ordinary sales of a few new gTLDs recently, one of which was Vacation Dot Rentals. I stumbled onto an old post about it over at Ricks Blog [I enjoy Rick's ramblings and story telling as I am sure many others do: The post was called "Fake site on a Fake GTLD Sale? The tale of “No Results Found” at Vacation.Rentals" - I'm sure you all read it.] I wanted to see where the site was ranking today … [Read more...]
Single Word nGTLD Domain Names That Have Expired Within Last 24 Hours
NEW YORK, NY - Here is a list of single word English dictionary nGTLD domain names that have dropped (expired) within the last 24 hours (according to ExpiredDomains.net). One thing I do not understand is why a new domain registry would charge premium fees on domains that someone has already decided to let expire. For instance, love.xyz is $1,299.00 at Godaddy. If registries want to off-set their registry losses as much as possible, they would allow buyers to register these … [Read more...]
Donuts Acquisition of BudURL Makes Good Use of New Top Level Domain Names
NEW YORK, NY – Donuts Inc, the company behind hundreds of new domain name extensions has acquired a link shortening service formally known as BudURL, and rebranded it as BL.INK. The service had been around for ten years and was founded by Andy Meadows. The acquisition took place sometime in 2017 according to a company press release, yet Donuts had been operating it in “stealth mode” quietly building in key features which will enhance the services ability to customize URLs … [Read more...]
Uh Oh: 400,000 Less gTLD Registrations First Quarter of 2018, Vs Previous Quarter
NEW YORK – New gTLD proponents will be less than excited to learn that according to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief, new gTLD domain registrations, despite there being more awareness :) and more names available for registration, such extensions experienced a decline of 400,000 registrations or loss of 2% within the first Quarter of 2018 (Q1) when compared to the last Quarter of 2017 (Q4). Verisign creates these industry briefs to include quarter-over-quarter … [Read more...]
Founding Chair of ICANN: New gTLDs Will Make Lawyers, Registrars, Registries Rich
NEW YORK – This past week, another new gTLD domain name bit-the-dust when Richemont, the company behind Cartier jewelry and Mont Blanc pens, terminated its fifth dot-brand gTLD. Reading over some backscatter comments on the issue I was enlightened with the below video, from Esther Dyson, former Chairman of the ICANN Board and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who held back very little while she reminded people that she is clearly on record with her negative thoughts and … [Read more...]
Will Internet Remain Safe Place to Invest and Conduct Business in Years to Come?
NEW YORK – Back in 2016, the ICA, (The Internet Commerce Association) asked me a very important question; they asked what I thought would be some of the biggest challenges the domain industry would face in the coming years. While some might answer that question with suggestions about the difficulties new gTLDs may bring toward branding, or monetization strategies with domain parking from declining CPCs, my answer was likely very - very different than most domainers. This … [Read more...]
Is Dominion Registries Having Trouble Selling Their New Alternative Dots?
NEW YORK - According to a press release by Dominion Registries, a division of Dominion Enterprises, the company is removing a long list of previously implemented registrant eligibility verification restrictions for its new gTLD industry-specific domain extensions which consist of .AUTOS, .BOATS, .HOMES, .MOTORCYCLES and .YACHTS. The changes will be made this year, beginning first with .BOATS, which is now available to anyone at all, for just about any reason, defined … [Read more...]