iEstates.com

A week ago we wrote about the domain name DrawSomething.com selling on Afternic for $3,000

As we noted the domain was under privacy at Godaddy and actually still is but the domain is now forwarding to the developer of the App omgpop.com.

Meaning that the developer of the App, which has been downloaded more than 35 Million times, bought the exact match .com from BuyDomains.com for $3k.

Yesterday  Zynga bought OMGPOP for $210 Million dollars.

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According to an article in the New York Times, the city of New York is on the verge of making a deal with a “Virgina based company” that would apply for and operate the gTLD .NYC.

According to the story the city would be guaranteed a to received $3.6 Million over the first 5 years.

“The Virgina based company would pay all costs of the application and the operation of the registry.”

The .NYC registry for the city of New York would be in my opinion a very popular extension and should depending on price, marketing and other factors be highly profitable maybe one of the most profitable of all the new gTLD’s.

While the story does not mention the company, its worth mentioning that Verisign is headquartered in Virgina and for that matter so is Neustar.…

Seems like one of the hottest games in the world is Draw Something.

It seems some 20 million people have already downloaded the App.

Yes 20 Million in only 5 weeks.

BusinessInsider.com has published two stories on the game today alone.

One highlighting that over 4.5 million people played the game in the same hour the previous night, and one showing the growth of the popularity of the game Vs. Zynga’s “Words with Friends”.

The name Draw Something sounded very familiar to me domain name wise, so I went back and checked TheDomains.com and was shocked to see that the exact match domain name DrawSomething.com just sold 2 weeks ago on Afternic.com for $3K

Yes $3K

But the story doesn’t end there.

The Seller was BuyDomains.com owned by the same company that owns Afternic.com.

BuyDomains.com which of course was started by Mike Mann, has one of the largest domain portfolio’s in the world.

I have spoken about pre-pricing domains and the danger of having BIN pricing.

The Internet and the domain market is constantly changing and BIN doesn’t allow you to take a look at the domain on a real time basis and see how that term is currently being used.

This domain was probably pre-priced a year or more ago before the App was released and I would guess bought as a BIN name.

The Story still doesn’t end there and the Seller isn’t the only one to call out.

It doesn’t appear the App developer OMGPOP was smart enough to go out to acquire this domain for $3K which works out to something like $.001 per downloaded app.

Instead the domain name DrawSomething.com,  is currently under privacy at Godaddy.com, and calls itself  “an unofficial fan site for “Draw Something Free”, and “Draw Something by OMGPOP”.” “We are in no way associated with omgpop.” Promo content provided courtesy of iTunes.”

The domain name has an Alexa Ranking of  431,000 in the US.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this domain sale.

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Rick Schwartz has ferociously been on the attack since getting hit with a UDRP on the domain name Saveme.com.

As I’m sure all of you have read by now, Rick registered the domain name Saveme.com in 1996 and now based on a domain name registered in 2010, SaveMe.com.br, owned by Márcio Mello Chaves, and Heitor Chaves filed a UDRP with WIPO to take the .com domain name away.

Of course its outrageous that someone can register a ccTLD 15 years after the .com is registered and try to take to the .com.

Yet outrageous decisions happen in UDRP world, Paul Keating in recent guest posts on TheDomains.com highlighted two such cases recently and you can read about them here and here which led Phil Corwin of the ICA to send a letter to ICANN demanding an investigation into the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) and there handling of UDRP cases.

As outrageous as UDRP decisions are, we already know that Trademark groups are fighting to expand the Uniform Resolution System, one in which if place could have been used by the SaveMe.com.br, folks.

Under the URS, Rick would only get a chance to file a 300 word response, no right to a three member panel, and would only have cost $300-$500 to file not the $4K the owners of SaveMe.com.br paid to bring this action.  Yesterday at ICANN Phil Corwin again representing domain holders interest took issue with the ICANN board on the whole URS issue.

Phil Corwin has over the last few years been a literally a one man army fighting a huge army of trademark interests, as well as congressional members in favor of such bills as SOPA and PIPA.

Phil has represents domain holders at ICANN, in Congress, through lobbying efforts and most recently as an a often cited writer on issues of dire importance to domain name holders.

Actually Phil is  only one to fight for domain holders interest in Congress and at ICANN.

As the domain industry is growing the world is finding out that domains are very valuable.

The new gTLD program regardless on your opinion on its success, its shinning a light on the industry like never before.

Trademark holders were out in force at ICANN from Verizon to Google to Fairwinds, the leader of  CADNA, and many, many more.

We had one representative Phil Corwin of the ICA.

As I previously wrote,  Law enforcement was also at ICANN with a strong show of force, with the FBI, Homeland Security, ICE, Interpol and the rest meeting together, pressuring ICANN to make registrars gather more information on its customers which will led to every domain holder paying more money to register a domain.  There presence was also a great reminder that without SOPA or PIPA they can, and have seized domain names, without notice to the domain holder and certainly prior to the domain holder having a chance to defend themselves.…

Over the last couple of Verisign Domain Industry Brief (March 2012 here, December 2011 here) one ccTLD has seemingly come out of nowhere to become the third largest ccTLD in terms of registration.

The extension is  is .TK and its the ccTLD of the tiny island nation of Tokelau located in the South Pacific, population 1,268.

As of publication the extension has almost 8 Million active domain names, and adding around 1 million per Month.

At the rate of growth it should overtake .Uk which just passed the 10 million domain mark on Thursday to become the worlds 2nd largest ccTLD in less than 3 months and not long after than will pass .De to become the number one ccTLD.

During the ICANN meeting I had a chance to sit down with Joost Juurbier the CEO of Freedom Registry the operator of the .TK registry.

How did this ccTLD from a small island which did not even make Verisign’s Domain Industry Report a year ago suddenly become the 3rd largest ccTLD?

.TK domains are Free.

Although the extension was approved in 2005, Verisign until recently refused to include the extension in its reports because .TK domain names are free.

So the extension didn’t go from zero registrations a year ago to 8 Million overnight but its now growing at 1 million new registrations per month with around 250,000 dropping domains per month

You can go to the .Registry and register a .TK domain for free, no credit card required.

Of course there are strings:

You can registered your domain name for between 1-12 months however you need to have the domain live, with content, not simply parked or  within 72 hours of registration or the domain will be taken away.

You can use a .TK domain to re-direct to another domain but once again there must resolve to a site. Matter of fact according to the Registry approximately 20% of all .TK domains are re-directed to sites residing on other domain names.

The registry by agreement of the country does not allow ANY adult images on any .TK domain name, nor do they allow any of the domains to be used for gambling sites.

The .TK Registry has an immediate take down policy for  abuse including any domain they find engaging in Spam, the distribution of Malware or viruses and doesn’t allow any domain to be used for  phishing.…

A really interesting article was just published by Forbes entitled “Owning a domain name is forever if it has “Google juice”

The article talks about the dangers of re-branding from an existing domain name to another domain and letting the old domain drop.

“”Planning to revamp your branding? Maybe relaunch your company or product line?Then before you say “we’ll just point the old domain name to our new domain and let the old one expire” consider the following tale”

I’ll let you read the entire article but here is “The moral of the story”

” If you decide to refocus your marketing and branding and switch to a new new domain name when you’ve had an online presence that has worked to any degree then never, ever let the old domain name go … you’ll have to plan to own it forever.”…

Yesterday I was having a couple of meetings at the restaurant where the ICANN conference is being held with some RightoftheDot.com clients.

As we were seated a large group walked passed us and sat down at the adjoining table and I couldn’t help but notice their attendee badges.

Homeland Security, ICE, Interpol, FBI, DOJ.

Serious guys.

It was a large group of over 10 and all were law enforcement from all around the world.

Its clear to those of who have attended the last few ICANN meetings that law enforcement is insisting that registrars know their customers, the domain holders.

While privacy will still be affording to those desirous of having their personal information not listed on the public whois, its clear law enforcement is going to push registrars into a “know your customer” environment.

Law enforcement has made it pretty clear that registrars are going to “voluntarily” comply with law enforcement’s demands or face legislation or regulation forcing them to do so and that you the domain holder are going to pay the registrars cost of complying.

Phil Corwin of the Internet Commerce Association has come to the same conclusion and just published an excellent article on the issue, which I urge all of you to read.

In part Mr. Corwin states:

“”(In the) ongoing negotiations between ICANN and its Registrar Stakeholder Group to beef up the registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), particularly in response to urgent requests from national law enforcement agencies. ”

“And the heart of those negotiations is an increased effort to obtain and confirm valid WHOIS data to confirm that registrants are legitimate and can be readily contacted, and that their identification data is retained. ”

“ICANN staff reported that the negotiations could be concluded within the next few weeks, and that incentives will be offered to encourage quick registrar adoption.”

“We don’t have to look far to estimate the cost of enhanced WHOIS verification.”

“ICM registry already employs such measures for the .XXX domain, and at a session on WHOIS compliance held the previous day the CEO of ICM Registry described the scope of its effort and their price. ”

“ICM expends about $6 per registrant for WHOIS verification; on average, each registrant purchases three domains, bringing the per domain price down to $2.”

“WHOIS compliance will be a much higher percentage of the price for incumbent gTLDs as well as many of the new ones on their way.”

“Of course, registrants may pay for their domains for up to ten years at a time, and it is not yet clear what requirements will be placed on registrars to verify the WHOIS data of existing registrants, and all of that will affect how this enhanced compliance affects domain pricing by registrars.”

“Nonetheless, we suspect that the cost of registrant WHOIS verification for all gTLDs will be similar to what ICM now expends, and it is not trivial.”

“In a highly competitive marketplace registrars will have no choice but to pass this cost on to registrants.”

“So, while we sympathize with the need of law enforcement to have the ability to identify bad actors, and understand that effective WHOIS verification can prevent many ill-intentioned domains from ever being registered,   it is also important that these new steps to ensure domain integrity remain feasible in scope and reasonable in cost.”…

In a blog post today Adrian Kinderis of ARI Registry Services makes the argument that new gTLD’s will  rank higher .com domain names on Google.

In full disclosure Mr. Kinderis company ARI is providing backend services for new gTLD’s, but that doesn’t mean his comments are wrong or his argument is flawed

Here are some of his comments from his post:

“”Will a new TLD web address automatically be favored by Google over a .com equivalent”

“Quite simply, yes it will.”

“The more I research, the more I have no doubt that a new TLD address will trump its .com equivalent. And here’s why.”

Why will Google prefer .anything over .com?

“We can partly answer this question by observing the way search engines like Google handle information contained right of the dot (.com, .info, .biz, etc.).”

“The basis of good search results is having the ability to present the most useful and relevant information in ascending order. An easy first step in this process is an assessment of the TLD the website is located within. We know this currently occurs because you can see search engine preferences to .edu websites for educational search topics, likewise with .gov websites for government related search topics.”

“Google bases its results on what it believes the intent was behind a search. For example if you type in ‘Nike’, Google assumes it’s more likely that you’re looking for the Nike website versus a shop that sells Nike runners (it’s a clever machine). So for searches where intent is clear, brands that own a .brand will have extra weighting behind them and are likely to rank higher.”

“Where I actually believe new top-level domains will have the biggest impact is with what the search industry calls ‘domain name bias’ (aka website credibility). This is when a web user chooses to click on one domain name in the search results over another because it looks more trustworthy.”

“In Australia, internet users have become biased towards .com.au domain names because they’ve learnt they’ll end up on a site that belongs to an Australian business. The same applies with .co.uk, so I’m sure users will become biased towards other TLDs if they’re taught it contains trustworthy and relevant content.”

“A research report by Microsoft found end users have learned to trust some domains over others. The report states that, “Viewing content on the internet as products, domains have emerged as brands.…

Domain Holdings announced today that it launched its proprietary Monetization Decision Engine (MDE) which according to a Press Release increases revenues by up to 70%.

“The MDE which was in Beta over the last three months.”

The MDE routes traffic for optimal revenue yield for our platform users through a series of real-time decisions. The main components are three-fold, with the results offering users some of the most competitive payouts in the industry:

“Predictive Analytics: Using a predictive analytics model based on historical performance of similar domains, we are able to route domains to the highest performing advertisers or platforms.”

“Optimization: we continuously measure the performance of domain groups against our 31 monetization partners to route traffic in a way that optimizes yield.

“Volume: With our volume on the platform, we create a competitive marketplace where our 31 monetization partners are competing for domain traffic.”

“The idea surfaced after we looked at our vertical frameworks, and noticed that they were only converting on about 15% of all traffic.

“The MDE was designed to capitalize on the other 85%.”

Here is the press release:

“”For the last three months, DomainPower has been building out its core MDE technology in private Beta.”"

“”The MDE routes domain traffic amongst its 31 monetization partners to maximize revenue opportunities for platform users.”"

“When we spoke with our users in late 2011, it became abundantly clear that the main thing they were concerned with was maximum revenue on their domains,” DomainPower General Manager Paolo DiVincenzo said. “We’ve integrated some of the biggest parking platforms and advertising networks in the space, which combined with the MDE, are producing some of the highest payouts in the industry.”

“”In a recent customer case study, Domain Holdings analysts saw a 70 percent increase from switching a domain from a single feed parked page to the MDE.”"

“”The MDE differs from traditional rotational testing in that it uses a predictive analytics, optimizing earnings for a domain the minute it is uploaded to the platform.”"”

“The MDE uses historical data from similar domain names to send its traffic where we predict – and have proven through testing – it will monetize the best,” DiVincenzo said. “This is important for domains with little traffic, as it takes time – months, years to get a large enough traffic sample to optimize revenue.”

“”In July of 2011, Domain Holdings completed a round of Series A funding which was used in large part to facilitate the growth and development of the DomainPower.…

In the course of the week we at Mostwanteddomains.com, receive 50-100 offers on and occasionally run into some interesting people.

Last week I had email conversation with a guy named Gus.

So according to Gus, who claims to have some inside knowledge about Google’s algorithm and plans for how it will rank sites in the future, domains are in big trouble.

According to Gus, Google will start ranking sites based on the location of the searcher, so that direct match domains will no longer have preference when it comes to search results.

“Domains are not dead, its just that Google will no longer rank them based on searches. “

Says Gus

“Right now if you search “Bellevue trial attorney” you will see that bellevuetrialattorney.com is #1, if you search “Bellevue trial attorneys”, you will see that bellevuetrialattorneys.com is #1. “

“If you own the .com that matches the key words, your always #1.”

“Well that ends soon when “location” starts.”

“It’s Google’s new algorithm code. Its based on where you are, and it produces results within feet of where you actually are.”

“There is maybe 22 people in the world that know this.”

Well I guess there are more than 22 now.

Of course Google has been giving more and more location based search results for a while.

Search for “Best Buy” and a map will come up showing you where all the Best Buy stores are located closest to you.

Now whether Google will alter it’s search results to actually provide the top results  based off of location, rather than other factors including direct match domains is interesting.

Using Gus’s example, if you type in “Bellevue trial attorney” and live in in close to Bellevue,  it’s certainly not a stretch to think you will see search results based on your location with the top links showing up be attorney’s who are closest to you.

Let’s say you didn’t live in Bellevue.   Lets say you lived in Seattle or even Florida but had a matter that needed handling in Bellevue would you still get search results based on the attorney’s closest to you or would the search default to current search results?

Let’s assume  Gus is right and Google moves completely to a location based search results.

There are many other losers and caveats other than direct match domains if Google moved to an all location based search.

SEO

How many SEO guys are there out in the world that are going to lose a lot of work if Google simply starts ranking sites by the links closest to the user.…