iEstates.com

After helping to recover IRCnet.net for the community a few years ago (the domain had ended up in a Tucows’ private portfolio after the original registrant let it expire and Tucows was kind enough to help return it to the community for a reasonable charge), I was watching this auction carefully. Had IRCnet.com gone for a lower price I would have been bidding as well in order to keep this name in the community.

Which community? What’s IRCnet are you asking? I’ll give you a quick intro if you’re not familiar with these terms. IRCnet is a huge text based chat network made up of servers all over the world and is the oldest of IRC chat networks. IRC is older than the World Wide Web (created in 1988). For more information – check out the Wikipedia page on IRC, Internet Relay Chat.

As you may notice (as I just did when researching this), ircnet.net itself does not resolve to a website, but www.ircnet.net does – I’ll chat with my friend about that. IRCnet.com has displayed a message that it’s out of service since September 2009. The domain had been registered to a registrant with an Italian mailing address and an email address in Iran for a long time. The original registrant will still be able to renew the domain per Go Daddy’s and ICANN’s renewal terms until the domain name is handed over to the auction winner.

Related posts:

• Political Domain Name History and The Obama-Biden Campaign
• Live Chat During Today’s Moniker Auction
• kredit.de sells for 1.13 million USD
• Bido proves itself with ccTLDs, sells Recycle.it for over $6000
• Have Your Say on Domain Transfers and Domain Hijacking

Godaddy.com the world’s largest domain name registrar, just put out a press release blasting ICANN for allowing the contract to run the .Com registry to be renewed with Verisign

The PR is entitled:

“GoDaddy.com(R) Outraged Over ICANN(R) Giving VeriSign(R) Monopoly”

“We are bitterly disappointed, but we’re not giving up yet. It’s simply a bad deal for the industry and registrants everywhere,” said Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com.

“The fact that this monopolistic deal was approved is a loud signal that major changes are needed at ICANN.”

“I personally don’t have a problem with VeriSign making a fair profit, but that’s not what we’re talking about here,” Parsons said. “I have a big problem with VeriSign’s windfall profits being accomplished outside of the free enterprise system in which the rest of us must compete. I find it particularly outrageous”

Parsons encourages all Americans to write to their Representatives and Senators and voice their opposition to the agreement. He is helping to facilitate this by providing a form letter people can send to their elected
officials.”

 …

Sedo, today announced a new partnership with Go Daddy. Domains that are listed at Sedo with Buy Now prices are now available to Go Daddy customers through the SedoMLS Network. This partnership between two industry-leading companies gives domain investors the ability to distribute their domains at Go Daddy, and end users the chance to purchase premium names directly at Go Daddy, via the only global domain distribution network, SedoMLS.

“Go Daddy wants to help small businesses grow larger, and finding the right domain name is the place to start,” said Paul Nicks, Go Daddy’s Director of Product Development for the Aftermarket. “Giving customers access to many premium domain names, including Sedo’s Buy Now domain names, Go Daddy can ensure our customers get the best domain name for their website or business.”

Listing domains in the SedoMLS Network already gives sellers access to both Sedo’s global audience of buyers and distribution across its partner network. With the addition of Go Daddy to the SedoMLS Network, domain investors now benefit from millions of additional end users who search for names at GoDaddy.com. In addition to receiving the widest available distribution, domain buyers can also purchase any name via an uninterrupted sales process directly at Go Daddy’s site, meaning increased sales conversion for domain name sellers. For more information, go to Sedo.com/PowerUp

“Our new partnership with Go Daddy speaks to the strength of both Go Daddy’s and Sedo’s reputations worldwide,” said Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo. “The SedoMLS Network provides registrar partners like Go Daddy with access to premium domains that are listed at Sedo, which in turn provides their customers with more purchase choices than ever. For any domain seller, we provide the reach that connects their domain listings to the greatest number of potential buyers across the globe.”

[via Press Release]

Disclaimer: Managing DNN Editor Frank Michlick is currently working as a consultant for SedoMLS through his company DomainCocoon.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (1)

---

Advertisement
DomainTools is giving away a free Reverse Whois Report for up to $99 to a winner in a giveaway they launched recently. In order to enter, visit their site to send an email to Santa before January 2nd, 2011.

DNN just learned that Godaddy has once again made some changes for the better with their domain auction platform. Godaddy auctions now pay out in 5 days if the domain name is registered at Godaddy and sold through their auction system.  Domains registered at other registrars and sold through the auction platform still are paid out after 20 days.

A representative from Godaddy informed us that streamlining some other policies with regards to the Premium Listings is in the works. Hopefully we’ll see faster payments in that sales channel as well. Currently it takes 45 days after the end of the month to receive payment.  This means if you sold a domain on November 1st you could wait up until January 15th to receive payment.  Much of this is delay is due to the nature of selling a high price domain and accepting credit cards.  Godaddy must wait a certain time period to prevent fraud or chargebacks on these purchases, but the difference between auction payouts (5-20 days) and Premium Listing (45-75 days) payout times has us a bit baffled.

Premium Listings have also gone back to 30% commission, having been at 20% for the month of August and September. These rates need to be consistent and not changing all the time and the payments need to be expedited as fast as possible.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (7)

---

Advertisement

RRPproxy – the domain business engine
Home for your domains.
www.rrpproxy.net

on the planet: Discover the details of a domain’s current ownership,
learn a domain’s pedigree and find all the domains ever owned by a
specific company or individual by accessing historical information from DomainTools.com.

The namespinner company Domainsbot today announced a relaunch of their main site, featuring a real-time search experience and new tools that make it easier for people and companies to search for domain names, Twitter handles and Facebook Page Names. By offering an integrated domain and social identity search, the new service makes it easier for users to find and obtain
unique, brandable identities. In addition to adding social identity search and revamping its website for speed and ease of use, DomainsBot also offers a downloadable mobile application, for identity searches on the go.

“Five years ago we only needed to worry about checking domain availability before naming a new business or product. Today’s challenge is to take care of domains and social media identities, such as Facebook and Twitter. Our goal is to simplify an important and time consuming process creatively,” said Emiliano Pasqualetti, DomainsBot, CEO.

The new domainsbot.com also features premium domains from GoDaddy and Sedo, the two largest marketplaces of names for sale. These partnerships will enable users to browse for the largest selection of domains available on the secondary market. Additional features of today’s release include the introduction of DomainsBot Deals, a selection of top discounts for domain
registrations and renewals in partnership with some of the most popular registrars, and a whole new selection of B2B services for domain registrars, registries and new TLD applicants. The services for new TLD applicants will provide statistics based on existing registrations estimating potential for new TLDs.

 

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (6)

---

Advertisement

A web address for great ideas. What a great idea.

.CO is for creators. For the people and businesses who make the world turn.
From products and stories to brands and beliefs, .CO is the web address that makes “making your idea a reality” a reality.

Find your .CO today

Godaddy launched a domain name market analysis section on their site today which touts the claim that they are selling more domain names at auction than industry veteran Sedo.com.

According to Godaddy :

• Go Daddy sold more than 109,000 domain names through auctions in 2nd Quarter 2011.
• Sedo sold approximately 10,600 domain names in 2nd Quarter 2011.

The sheer volume of sales is likely due to the fact that Godaddy is one of the largest domain registrars that auctions off domain names that are expiring from it’s user base and Sedo is not.  The comparison is a bit apples to oranges, yet the numbers are stunning.   Namejet.com might be a better company to compare Godaddy with.  Namejet auctions many registrar deletions at a starting price of $69 compared to Godaddy’s $10 starting price.  It would be interesting to compare those numbers and we invite Namejet to jump in to this competition. :)

The data on the site also shows some interesting numbers about the amount of domains that are sold Buy it Now, Offer/Counter-offer and  Auction.  Again, the numbers are likely skewed with the Auction numbers receiving more volume because of the deleting names that Godaddy auctions.  The Buy Now number is the one that is impressive.  It would be great to see these numbers made a little more granular to know how many of those auctions were deleting/expired domains vs actual sellers and how many of the Buy It Now were Premium Listing names sold from home page searches.

The launch of this new section of the Godaddy site and the recent lowering of commissions seems to be a clear indicator that Godaddy is aggressively going after the domain aftermarket business.  Kudos to Godaddy for sharing this data.

DNN has just received word from Godaddy that Premium Listings sales commissions have been reduced to 20% on all new Premium Listings for the month of  August.  The previous rate was set at an industry-high 30%.   Many domain name sellers had noted that the Godaddy commission was excessive but had seen good results using the platform to increase their sales.   It’s important to note that this is a promotion on new listings.  If you have existing names listed, you may want to delete them now and re-list them to take advantage of the lower commission structure.

All domain names sold through Premium Listings are displayed as for sale, with a “fixed price”, when a user searches for the domain from the Godaddy home page.  Godaddy also offers an auction platform with a lower commission of 10%. These names also appear in the results for home page searches.  Sellers can list their names at a fixed “buy it now” auction price, but auction listings do require the seller to sign-up and bid, and thus the conversions are likely to be lower than a “fixed price” option that takes the user right to a cart and checkout rather than requiring bidding.  A recent report released by Sedo claims that “fixed prices” increased sales by up to 40%.

Righthaven LLC, a company that enforces licensing of content created by their clients, has in the past taken possession of domain names owned by alleged infringers. Recently a judge dismissed one of their claims on a defendant’s domain name.

Now it appears that GoDaddy, the domain registrar for the domain Righthaven.com, has taken down their domain for an invalid whois. According to ICANN rules domain owners are required to maintain valid whois information. Anyone can report an invalid whois record via the WDPRS system, which then passes on the complaint to the sponsoring registrar of the domain. The registrar would then attempt to contact the domain owner and ask them to verify/update their contact information. Should they not do so, the domain can be suspended or even deleted.

[via @rhvictims]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (4)

---

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

It appears that another phishing scam is making the rounds trying to get users to reveal their GoDaddy username and password to the scammers. According to “silentg” who received the email and posted on DNForum about it, the email links users to “goldidaddy.com” (registered at Melbourne IT) instead of GoDaddy.com. The email mimics a GoDaddy notice under the Whois Data Reminder Policy of ICANN (WDRP).

[via DNForum, silentg]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (2)

---

Advertisement
DomainConvergence 2011, May 12-13, Montreal, Canada

Please note that the following is a parody intended for April Fools day 2011, Namecheap actually set up the coupon code named below.

In response to Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons latest announcement regarding hunting problem kittens, NameCheap has made a unique special offer to domain owners. You can transfer up to 10  .com/.net/.org domain name to Namecheap for $4.99 through the end of the day on April 1, 2011 (11:59PM EST).

In addition to the low priced domain transfer, the company will donate $1.00 for every transfer to the non-profit Los Angeles Kitten Rescue organization.  The company is taking a loss on these transfers as domain registration far exceed $4.99.

To take advantage of the special offer, you need to use coupon code SAVEPUSSY .  There is a 10 domain name transfer limit.

Editor Note : Prices of .org and .biz increase today so this is an even better deal given the price increases

UPDATE : Namecheap is playing along with our gag and really running this deal

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (1)

---

Advertisement

We buy Domains!
We are interested in acquiring your premium domains!
Click here to submit your domains now.