PALM BEACH, FL - A four-letter “.com” domain name has been purchased for the staggering price of $15 million dollars. NFTS.com was first registered approximately 18 years ago, likely for $10.00 or $20.00. Who knew that the letters “NFTS” would become a four-letter acronym for “non-fungible tokens,” - unique cryptographic tokens? Four letter domains, often referred to as "LLLL" domains, are relatively scarce. There are roughly 457,000 possible four-letter combinations and … [Read more...]
The Weaponizing of A Domain: “Antifa.com” Redirects to Presidential Campaign Website
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - For the last couple of months, the website Antifa.com has been redirecting traffic to Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign website JoeBiden.com. It's caused quite a stir with more than a few stories being published by major outlets since people started associating the two due to the misunderstanding of the simplicity of redirecting domain names. Below are some major news websites which have published stories about it. USA TODAY: Fact … [Read more...]
How Expired Domain Names Have Been Used to Redirect to Malicious Websites
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - Expired domains or domain names which have not been renewed by their previous owner are encountered by all of us often – most times we just don’t notice it. When we do, we open a website only to find out it no longer exists. We are redirected to a site with links on it, or it showcases a sales page for auction of the domain name. These types of websites are generally considered harmless, but recent research proves otherwise. In a report released by … [Read more...]
It’s Only A Matter of Time Until You Need to Be Licensed to Operate A Web Server
PALM BEACH, FL – I have been thinking about this off and on for a few years now, but I have never really posted or written about it. That is because it is an awful prediction that I hate the idea of, but I think it is going to eventually happen. Here it goes…. I predict that to operate a web server sometime in the near future, you will be required to have a license, or have passed a basic course in IT security or Cybersecurity intrusion mitigation. Not at the single site … [Read more...]
Email Phishing Campaign Using Legitimate Top-Level Domain to Evade Spam Filters
PALM BEACH, FL – A sophisticated email phishing campaign is making the rounds while evading email filters by using a Google domain redirect. According to ThreatPost.com, a leading source of information about IT and business security, the campaign uses percentage-based URL encoding to deceive users. The campaign makes use of what’s called percentage-based URL encoding – a basic URL-encoding technique in which normal ASCII characters (i.e., “abc” and “123”) are converted … [Read more...]
Say What? $60,000 Per Week Redirecting Traffic with “Domain King” Rick Schwartz
PALM BEACH, NY – It was another good show from Domainer.com.au run by Robert Kaay and Ed Keay-Smith, whom previously interviewed industry visionary Michael Castello from CCIN.com and Ron Jackson from Domain Journal. This latest show, another with lots of great advice and lots to learn was with Rick Schwartz, widely known as the “Domain King” for his immense experience and success in the domain business; Schwartz has … [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...]
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...]
Redirecting Domains with Backlinks Helps SEO; Google Doesn’t Want You to Know
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...]