iEstates.com

FreshDrop Inc.,  today announces their new domain backordering service which has been opened in beta, is now open to the public and goes by the name Pheenix.com

Pheenix customers are allowed to backorder .com and .net domain names for a low price of $18.95 per caught domain.

Domain backorders currently is on a ‘First come, First Served’ basis with only one customer being able to reserve a backorder per domain.

Backordering domain names is free of charge, and customers are only charged upon a successful backorder.

Domain names that are allowed to be backordered are those .com and .net domain name within the ‘Pending Delete’ status, that has not already been reserved by another customer.

As you probably know the other three major drop catching services, Namejet.com, Pool.com and SnapNames.com  and charges $59, $60 and $69 per domain back order successfully obtained but each take multiple back orders which are resolved with an auction.

Pheenix uses multiple registrars for its drop catching service, however all domain names can be managed from one central location on the pheenix.com site.

Currently, the ‘Pheenix Delete’ data feed can be found on FreshDrop.com, with plans on a more robust integration between the two services in the future.

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One of our readers let us know that they recently launched a site that tracks Alexa Rank History.

The site call Site Rank History

Alexa maintains rank history for sites with rank lower than 100,000 only and you have to submit your site to the new service to track it and it appears you can only track the sites you own and submit to the service for.

Anyone its free and appears to work.

We signed up for TheDomains.com and MostWantedDomains.com and we will let you know how it works.

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Microsoft released the Microsoft Country-Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) Registry Security Assessment Service at the RSA Conference today in San Francisco:

The new service was designed to help ccTLD registry operators find and fix security vulnerabilities before they are exploited.

The offical annoucment was made on technet.com.

“The exploitation of vulnerabilities specific to country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries has become an increasingly common problem, especially in relatively small markets around the world. ”

“A ccTLD is an internet domain registry generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory, such as .co.uk (for United Kingdom) or .fr (for France). This allows web sites to be associated with their specific country, territory or geographic location and it provides the foundation for internet experiences by ensuring people using the internet reach the services they expect.  Today, over 300 country-code top-level domain name registries are responsible for servicing hundreds of millions of domain names worldwide.

Attacks on ccTLDs have far-reaching effects on private individuals, large and small companies, non-profits, and government organizations. Individuals attempting to reach certain web services may be redirected to inappropriate content where their computers can become infected by malware, putting their personal information at risk. Additionally, it is difficult for people to determine whether the problem is with the ccTLD or the organization that runs the service they are trying to reach.  This often results in an erosion of confidence in online service providers when, in fact, they had nothing to do with the incident.

Today, at the information security RSA Conference in San Francisco, Scott Charney, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Trustworthy Computing, announced during his keynote the availability of our new Microsoft Country-Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) Registry Security Assessment Service to help registry operators find and fix security vulnerabilities before they are exploited. The service is available now and is being made available at no charge to registry operators.

The Online Services Security and Compliance team (OSSC) that I lead is responsible for securing Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and data centers that host over 200 cloud services for more than one billion customers, over 20 million businesses and 76 markets worldwide. We are pleased to be able to provide this service to the greater online community and share many of the lessons we have experienced in our own environment.

Microsoft’s History of Support for Country-Code Top-Level Domain Registries

The OSSC team works closely with industry groups such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that manages market domain name registries.…

According to a Press Release we received tonight DomainTools, launched it newest product Domain Report, which promised to change “how individuals and businesses access domain information”.

“A Domain Report creates a thorough, customized report that utilizes the world’s most comprehensive database on domains to generate  an accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive snapshot of domain data”.

“In a matter of minutes, a report can be created on any single domain name and compiled into one professional PDF document”.

“This new tool is incredibly useful for users who want to focus their research on a single domain name and does not require a full site membership to access”.

“Domain Report not only gives customers access to nearly all domain ownership history on a single domain name registered now or in the past, but also provides website screenshots and lists of connected domains on the same Nameserver or IP Address”.

A Domain Report can be useful in any number of professional scenarios:

•    A trademark attorney needs to show that a domain name was registered in bad faith after the filing date of their client’s trademark. They obtain a Domain Report from DomainTools that clearly documents the chain of ownership including registration dates and ownership contact information.  In addition, the Domain Report includes historical screenshots of the domain name being used in violation of the client trademarks.

•    A network administrator identifies a domain name in a phishing email and needs to document its ownership and DNS data to share with the proper authorities. They order a Domain Report and discover dozens of connected domains that share the same IP address or name server as their target domain. The administrator uses that new data to surface a more complete picture of the phishing network and initiates a coordinated response in the security community.

•    An individual is interested in buying a high-value domain name from another party.   She buys a Domain Report on the domain to validate the current ownership status, ensure the domain has a clean history, and capture useful negotiating points such as how long the current owner has owned it, has the current owner ever developed it, and possibly whether the current owner also owns other TLDs of the same domain string.

“A number of our customers use DomainTools on an event-driven basis when they have a domain-specific research need.  These important users don’t need DomainTools every day, but when they need us they want to know everything they can about a given domain name and know that their $49 investment can save hours of work or thousands of dollars.  We created Domain Report in response to this customer demand.…

When Oversee.net announced a few months ago it was changing its name from Domainfest to Webfest you would have thought they would have at least secured the right to use the domain Webfest.com

Afterall, Oversee.net is in the domain business and even though they have switched gears by broadening the old Domainfest into Webfest it doesn’t change the fact that Oversee is a major player in the domain business and that most of their revenue was and is still generated in the domain business

Although the formal name of the DomainFest was DomainFest Global and WebFest is Webfest Global, Oversee.net does own the domain name DomainFest.com but it doesn’t own the domain name WebFest.com

The domain name Webfest.com is owned by Scott Day.

You would have thought that Oversee before making the decision to change the name of their conference to WebFest would have acquired or at  leased the domain name from Scott so a conference held by a domaining company would at least be in control have the matching domain.

Its equivalent to Google running a conference on search and if you did a Google search for the conference not finding it on the first result page.…

If your a frequent reader of TheDomains.com you know we are not great fans on domain name appraisal tools so we might be surprised to see us announce yet another one,  DomainMongrel.com

I will go through some results we got today but first this is how the developers described the appraisal tool in their press release today:

“This new tool—Domain Name Estimator—offers domainers a rough indication of a domain’s worth by making use of advanced statistical analysis based on a number of factors.

These factors include:

.     Alexa monthly ranking: How the domain ranks in popularity both globally and in the US.
·         Global monthly searches: The number of searches made for the keywords globally.
·         Regional monthly searches: The number of searches made for the keywords locally.
·         Estimated keyword cost-per-click: The average cost per click for the popular keywords
·         Dictionary worth: If the domain name keywords are from the dictionary or not.
.     Historical domain sales: The tool takes into account past sales data of similar domain names.
.     Google hits: The number of google hits the keywords of a domain has globally.

The Domain Appraisal tool shows potential buyers and sellers the value of a domain to help them make an informed decision about pricing their domains.

Estimating a domain name value is a hard problem to solve given that the value of a domain name is determined by the end user. A domain name which is worth thousands of dollars to one user could be worthless to another. Given these problems, there are very few accurate domain name appraisal tools. Entering into the fray is DomainMongrel.com, helping website owners make decent choices in estimating the value of a domain name before buying or selling it. DomainMongrel.com has been beta tested on the hacker news where it was well received by the hacker community and made it to the front page. Current competitors includes Estibot.com and Sedo’s Domain Value Indicator tool.”

So here are a few test domains that put through Estibot.com and DomainMongrel.com (DM)

345.com-This is a domain we own that we have turned down $30oK twice for in the past 2 weeks

DM appraisal: $288,647.53

Estibot appraisal: $31,000

ACAM.com a (domain sold last week by Mike Mann for $40K)

DM value $5,055.56; Estibot $41K (now adjusted for the sale price)

Sale.com: DM $484,000; Estibot $7 Million

DivorceAttorneys.com: DM $21.00 Estibot.com$117,000

Music.com: DM: $754K Estibot $5.5 Million

TheDomains.com DM: $423,000 Estibot.com $11K

TheDomain.com DM:  $103,000 Estibot.com $57,000

Ricksblog.com DM: $411K Estibot.com $2,500

For fun we put each competing service through each other appraisal tool:

DM appraised Estibot.com at $1,995,726.95

Estibot.com appraised DomainMongrel.com at $0

Feel free to test some of your own domains and give us the results.…

This is a Guest Post by Thies Lindenthal, Sedo.com’s product manager for domain pricing, and a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Real Estate. Mr. Lindenthal holds a PhD in Real Estate Finance from Maastricht University, and frequently publishes on both housing markets and on Internet domain names as a form of ‘virtual land’.

Dr. Lindenthal developed IDNX, the first scientific grade price index for Internet domain names.

Here is the Dr. Lindenthal post:

Pricing domain names is as much an art as it is science.

Though opinions differ on the merits of automatic appraisal services (at Sedo, we believe in the benefits of fast, automatic price suggestions), statistics show that one very simple strategy speeds up sales.

The retail world has known for a long time that using charm prices—for example, $499 instead of $500—increases sales and helps a consumer make a faster purchasing decision. Extensive research in retail and housing markets also shows that charm prices are not an urban legend, but a legitimate sales tactic: consumers really do react positively to the “odd” 99 prices.

We wondered whether domain owners might also benefit from this nugget of retail psychology, so we took a closer look at Buy Now domain listings with different price points and the amount of time those listings spent on the market, using Sedo’s sales data as our basis.

A one-off comparison of average time-on-market for domains that ultimately sold for $500 rather than $499 shows that domains priced with a round number took, on average, 22% longer to find a buyer on Sedo’s marketplace.

However, this figure is too high for a handful of reasons.

Firstly, this increase in sales velocity could be caused in part by aggressive sales strategies used by domain investors. Those sellers who often list their domains with low prices and do a lot of additional marketing might also use charm pricing already – which makes it difficult to disentangle the different factors.

As a means of controlling for differences in sales strategies, we compare time-on-market for domains listed by sellers who use both round and charm prices. This ensures a fair comparison. In the case of these domains, we can assume that those with round prices and charm prices are promoted in the same way and that the seller has applied a similar pricing rationale.

Taking it one step further, we look into difference in the quality of the domains in each seller’s account.…

As a domain owner there is nothing more frustrating than having someone argue that the asking price of your domain is too high because its over “Estibot Appraisal” (unless your price is lower) then they hit you with the “its only worth what someone willing to pay for it” line.

Estibot.com for those who don’t know is a tool that attempts to appraise domain name on a bunch of statistical information.

For years I have argued that since the tool is not intuitive and only relies on statistical information, it is too unreliable to be cited by anyone to “prove” valuation.

Finding fault with the tool has always been difficult because as soon as domain sales are announced the tool typically picks up the recorded price as the current valuation and therefore its generally been impossible to take a look back at Estibot values before sales are announced.

But yesterday’s announcement of over 500 domain names sold by Marchex in 2008-2012, which were all previously unannounced, seemed like the perfect opportunity to show how accurate Estibot’s valuation is compared to actual sale prices and as you can see below the results are pretty convincing.

The 501 domain sold by by Marchex came to just over $26 million dollars in sales.

For over 50% of the domain names sold by Marchex, or a total of 266 domains, Estibot valued them at $5K or under.

Those 266 domain names, generated almost $8.9 million dollars in sales for Marchex.

Estibot values those 266 domain names at just $394,000 or less than 5% of the actual selling price.

Ok lets say it again.

For more than half of all the 501 domain names Marchex sold for a total of almost $8.9 Million Dollars, Estibot valued those domains at less than 5% of the actual selling price.

Included in this group of 266 domain names valued less than $5K by Estibot were 115 domain names that  had an Estibot appraised value of $1,000 or less.

Estibot’s total valuation for this group of 115 domains came to just $48,000, but those 115 domain names generated almost $3.5 Million in sales for Marchex.

Here are the details:

If you look at the 200 domain names sales based on those that sold for the greatest difference in sales price compared to Esibot Appraised value you’ll see some $14 Million in domain sales that Estibot has a total appraised value of less than $2.5 Million or less than 20% of selling price:

On the other side of the ledger there were only 99 domain names out of 501 that sold for less than appraised value, further demonstrating how Estibot generally low balls the true value of domain names.…

DomainsBot, is just released its Domain Suggestion Developer API.”DomainsBot domain suggestion is now available as a REST API with client code available in C#, PHP or Java and via a simple-to-implement copy and paste widget (JQuery plugin).

The copy-and-paste widget can be easily integrated into the html of any website; look & feel can be customized using CSS.

“We designed the widget to allow anyone with a basic understanding of html to implement our domain suggestion within minutes” said Francesco Simoneschi, VP of Product Development at DomainsBot.

DomainsBot reports domain name sale increase up to 15% across their partners using their domain suggestion tool.

The company claims that more than 1.5 Million of their suggested names have been registered during the last 12 months.

“Being the providers of domain suggestion services to 8 of the top 10 registrars and their resellers, we understand the importance of bringing the same benefits to small and medium hosting companies and domain resellers. With our new developers API, anyone can now increase domain registration in minutes with little implementation and affordable subscriptions.” said Emiliano Pasqualetti, DomainsBot CEO.

DomainsBot’s API is also available free of charge as part of many registrars’ APIs, including that of OpenSRS, the wholesale Internet services division of Tucows.

“We have been using DomainsBot’s domain suggestion since 2006 and we have always been very pleased with the quality of the service. About 10% of our domain registrations come from DomainsBot suggestions and we are happy to offer their value added service with no charge as part of our API.” said Adam Eisner, Director, OpenSRS Product Management.

The DomainsBot name suggestion widget and API are available now at https://developers.domainsbot.com/.”

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An Australian company Kikabink just launched a new iPhone® App called Domain Sales.

“The app provides access to more than 72,000 historical domain and website sales, enabling people to review sales prices and value domain names.”

“The Domain Sales app is a world first, providing sales data on top level domain names (TLDs) such as .com, .org and .net as well as country code top level domains (ccTLDs) such as .com, .au and .ca.”

“Business owners often have difficulty finding domain names, as many of them are already registered. As such they have to buy domains on the aftermarket. The issue then becomes, how much should they pay? The Domain Sales app solves that problem by providing comparable sales,” said Kikabink co-founder Simon Johnson.”

“Recent sales include:

•     PersonalLoans.com sold for $1,000,000
•     Jackpot.com sold for $500,000
•     Movies.xxx sold for $90,000
•     Flu.ca sold for $45,000
•     Hardware.com.au sold for AU $33,333

“The real-estate industry uses comparable sales to value property. We believe Internet real-estate is no different. The Domain Sales app provides historical domain name and website sales dating back more than 10 years, from major aftermarkets, auctions and private sales. Users can also get real-time reports on what has just been sold, where and for how much,” said Johnson.

“We have seen many business owners who have been sitting on underdeveloped domains in their industry for years. Instead of letting their domains expire, many people are now waking up to the fact that their domains are worth something. They could be sitting on a goldmine. Anyone can now use our free Domain Sales app and turn their unwanted domains into cash,” said Johnson.

“We’re really proud of what the Domain Sales App can do. It really levels the playing field. Now anyone can get the facts and discover how much their domain or website might be worth.”

Domain Sales is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes® App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/domain-sales/id517956471?mt=8.”

About Domain Sales
Domain Sales is a powerful iPhone® app that provides businesses with invaluable information for valuing domain names and websites. It includes extensive search criteria and analytics about each domain name. It can be downloaded free from the iTunes® App Store or by visiting http://www.DomainSalesApp.com.

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