Domain Masters : domains

DiscoveryDNS Offers Greater Control Over DNS Systems

'Net Features : wm-domains — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:35:00 GMT

Last October, ARI Registry Services announced plans to expand its line of DNS services, and on Sunday, at ICANN’s 46th public meeting in Beijing, ARI took the next step by unveiling its new DiscoveryDNS brand. DiscoveryDNS is a managed DNS service meant to help customers handle the challenges, risks and opportunities available in modern, dynamic business and technical environments. According to the CTO of ARI Registry Services, Chris Wright, “Our mission is to change the way the market perceives outsourced DNS services by providing predictability, transparency, superior technical capability and trust.” In order to give top-level domain (TLD) operators greater control and transparency when managing their DNS system, DiscoveryDNS offers them access to the raw packet capture (PCAP) files for all of their DNS queries. However, at first, DiscoveryDNS will only be providing services for new TLD applicants and country code TLD operators; eventually, ARI plans to expand the service with a new product intended for Registrars, ISPs and hosting providers. At present, DiscoveryDNS boasts over 475 new TLD applications as its foundational clients, which already makes it one of the world’s largest DNS providers, per TLD, once delegation is completed....(read more)

Domain Name Appraisal with DomainMongrel

'Net Features : wm-domains — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:36:00 GMT

What's that domain name worth in the reseller market? A new tool, DomainMongrel , aims to help you find out. The domain name estimation tool provides a "rough indication" of a domains worth by analyzing the Alexa monthly ranking, the global monthly searches, the regional monthly searches, the estimated keyword cost-per-click, the dictionary worth (if the domain name contains keywords that are in the dictionary) and historical domain sales (of similar domains). While domain name appraisals have historically been woefully inaccurate, it's still fun to receive a general idea of what, in a perfect world, your domain name might actually sell for in the reseller market. As you can see in the image below, WebsiteMagazine.com is appraised at just over 2 million dollars - I'd say that's pretty close!...(read more)

The Perks of Owning a .CO Domain

'Net Features : wm-domains — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:15:00 GMT

Here’s one more reason to consider adding a few .CO’s to your domain name portfolio – PERKS! .CO Internet, the registry which manages the .CO extension, has launched a membership program that offers some serious perks to registrants. The program focuses mainly on startups (as does .CO) but the benefits will prove attractive if you’re in the market for a new domain. Program perks include free passes to Startup Weekend events worldwide, free tickets to educational events and conferences (e.g. Lean Startup Conference and 500 Startups’ Warm Gun Conference), free access to co-working spaces, free SEO consultations, discounts on General Assembly courses, and a $100 Adwords credit - and all for owning a domain name. “While we’re definitely excited by our fast growth, we’re not here to build ‘just another domain extension,’” said Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO. “We’re here to support the thriving community of innovators, entrepreneurs, startups, developers, investors, marketers and big dreamers who are building the world’s next great businesses and brands on .CO with the fuel they need to take action on their plans – and to succeed.”...(read more)

Afternic Gains Endurance

'Net Features : wm-domains — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:46:00 GMT

Premium domain marketplace Afternic has teamed up with the Endurance International Group in a partnership that will bring Afternic a noteworthy collection of fast transfer-enabled domains. Endurance is one of the top ICANN-accredited registrars and providers of domains, as well as Web hosting and other online services for small- and medium-sized businesses. It also happens to offer the fastest transfer domains worldwide for sale through its various brands, which include Domain.com and Dotster. Now, the customers of Endurance’s businesses can see the AfternicDLS inventory of domains whenever they do a domain search. Plus, they will now have the opportunity to list their domains in Afternic’s system, which puts them in a huge marketplace and makes them available to many more potential customers. After combining the number of domain registrations made by its hosting companies and registrars, Endurance International Group is actually the third largest domain registrar on the Web, largely because it works with a number of very large hosting companies, like HostGator, BlueHost and Fatcow. For now, Afternic domain listings are live on Domain.com, and they’re expected to appear on other Endurance brands over the next few weeks....(read more)

.XXX Domains Get Their Own Search Engine

'Net Features : wm-domains — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:00:00 GMT

A recent email sent out by ICM Registry announced next week's launch of a new search engine “dedicated to developed .XXX websites and .XXX content." The purpose is apparently to help bring real value to these unique domain extensions by providing users with “highly relevant search results” that give the domain owners additional traffic for no extra cost. This search engine, conveniently named Search.xxx, will only crawl .XXX sites that already feature developed content, so sites that are hosted at a parked service provider won’t be included in the searches. Any .XXX website that can be found in a user’s browser can also be found by ICM’s search engine, but since it specifically looks at that particular domain extension, if any content links to a site or sites with other TLDs, the crawler will stop following it. The crawler will also respect the robots.txt file, which can be used to restrict access to a site, and if a .XXX domain is forwarded to another domain, the search engine will continue to follow the search results of the URL, if it is being masked. Otherwise, the site will only be crawled if it ends with a .XXX domain. And, if an owner uses multiple domains (including other TLDs) for the same site, they must make sure that their relative links within the site allow the crawler to navigate through them. Among the many factors that play a role in adding to the relevance of a site’s search rankings are the appearance of the...(read more)

Saudi Arabia Trying to Ban New gTLD Extensions

'Net Features : wm-domains — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:30:00 GMT

The war against porn is still being waged in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the latest casualties are a slew of new generic top-level domains (gTLD) that have been applied for in recent months. Claiming that they will “encourage pornography” Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 – among other complaints Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 – the Saudi government has officially objected to 163 new gTLD applications registered with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Some of the extensions that raised the ire of the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission are .virgin (applied for by Virgin Group) and .baby, which Johnson & Johnson applied for (among others), presumably to market their baby-oriented health care products. Other gTLD strings that made the list were .hot, .sex, .porn (obviously), .sexy and even .dating, because who knows where that may lead. Not every complaint was sex-related, however. The Saudi government took umbrage with any extensions that are related to alcohol or gambling on apparent moral and health-related grounds. This includes .wine, .bar, .vodka, .pub, .casino, .poker and many more. Religious extensions (.bible, .catholic, .islam, etc.) also caused consternation among Saudi officials, as well as the especially grievous .wtf, .sucks and .tattoo. ICANN, for its part, foresaw objections and complaints being a major aspect of the new gTLD expansion process...(read more)

Protect Your Brand and Save a Headache

'Net Features : wm-domains — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:35:00 GMT

On the Web, the most valuable part of your business is your brand, and branding always starts with the name of your company and website. Thus, it’s critical that you protect that identity to safeguard all of the assets you have wrapped up in it...(read more)

Sedo Domain Market Study Q2 2012

'Net Features : wm-domains — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:00:00 GMT

The more things change, the more they stay the same – at least as it relates to domain names. Sedo, a domain name marketplace and monetization platform, has released its Domain Market Study for the second quarter of 2012. While the digital world...(read more)

Dot Org Hits 10 Million Domain Milestone

'Net Features : wm-domains — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:55:00 GMT

While most domainers are laser-focused on the potential in the new generic top-level domains, don’t rule out acquiring a tried-and-true extension like .ORG. Public Interest Registry , the operator of the .ORG domain, this month announced a major...(read more)

GoDaddy Adds "Request Price" Domain Inventory from Afternic

'Net Features : wm-domains — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:38:00 GMT

Domain name marketplace Afternic announced an enhanced partnership with Godaddy that will make available Afternic's "Request Price" domain names to Godaddy customers - presumably within the registrar's auction environment. Godaddy, which...(read more)

The Real Value of Domain Names

'Net Features : wm-domains — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Have you ever wondered just how much that prized domain name of yours is really worth? Well, you may never have to wonder again thanks to Sedo. The domain name marketplace and monetization platform recently launched a new feature that provides "quantitative...(read more)

Defensive Domain Name Registration Strategies

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:23:00 GMT

The practice of reserving domain names that are "hostile" toward a company (or its staff) is not uncommon. The most recent case has been that of investing company Blackstone Gruop and its CEO Stephen Schwartzman.

Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times reported that Blackstone Group has been purchasing web domain names such as blackstonesucks.com and schwarzmansucks.com. This kind of "defensive registration" is common for large companies and there are many vendors serving the market to support a company's defensive domain registration initiatives.

Some of the premier vendors in the space include MarkMonitor, SafeNames, MelBourne IT and others. These vendors typically offer some variation or mix of domain portfolio managment, brand monitoring, trademark protection, and domain recovery services.

Domain Name Registration Down Under

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:40:00 GMT

According to a new report from Deloitte Access Economics, Australian domain names (using ‘.au’) contributed $474.7 million to the economy last financial year.

Deloitte’s investigation found that 60,000 new domain names are being registered each month, compared to just 6,552 back in December 2002. Back in August of 2011, there were just 2.18 million domain names registered in Australia. The sector now employs 4,330 people in full-time work, and pays out $275.7 million each year in wages.

The majority of domain names were registered by companies, with 53% of all registrations, followed by personal websites (in the ‘other’ category) with 18%, sole traders with 14%, registered businesses with 11%, partnerships with 2% and non-profits with 1%. The industry with the weakest web presence was agriculture, forestry and fishing, with only 11% of businesses in that sector having a domain. Transport, postal and warehousing also posted a poor result with 22%.

Large corporations were more likely to have a website, according to the report, with 90% of companies with over 200 employees having a presence on the internet. This was followed by businesses of between 20 and 199 employees, with 71% having registered a domain. Smaller businesses posted worse results, with 51% of those with 5-19 employees having a website and just 29% of businesses with 0-4 employees having registered a name.

EuroDNS offers Afternic DLS access

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:37:00 GMT

Domain name registrar EuroDNS announced that it has deployed Afternic's "Instant Transfer" technology for domain sales.

EuroDNS customers are now be able to purchase a secondary market domain directly from the domain listing service (DLS) of Afternic. Customers of the domain name registrar will also be able to sell directly on Afternic's DLS.

“Through our partnership with Afternic’s DLS and the launch of the new Instant Transfer technology we are delighted to offer our customers immediate and direct access to premium domain names,” said Lutz Berneke, the recently appointed CEO of EuroDNS. “All buyers and sellers will benefit from the new platform, which represents for domain buyers a ‘one-stop-shop’ to the world's largest domain portfolio, and for domain sellers access to the best global platform for listing their name for sale."

Big Domain Name Discounts at 34SP

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:30:00 GMT

Don’t you just love it when you find a domain name deal?

Domain name register and hosting company 34SP.com this week announced it is offering domain names at 50 percent of its regular retail price in the month of January. 34SP.com will offer .CO.UK domain names during the month of January for just GBP 2.50 per year for the first 2 years.

The offer is available on new domain name purchase (not renewals or transfers) and there is no limit on the number of domains that can be purchased.

"Here at 34SP.com we have been very fortunate to have weathered the recent economic downturn and are now in a position to give something back to both our new and loyal clients who have contributed to our success,” said Stuart Melling, Co-founder of 34SP.com