“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)

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)

RRPproxy – the domain business engine
Home for your domains.
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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)

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From products and stories to brands and beliefs, .CO is the web address that makes “making your idea a reality” a reality.

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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.

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%.

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)

[via DNForum, silentg]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (2)

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)

Bob Parsons, CEO of domain registrar Godaddy.com, announced today that his 2012 vacation hunt will be to Peterville, Illinois where Parsons will go on a kitten hunting expedition. Parsons, an avid hunter, recently posted videos of his 2011 hunting vacation in Zimbabwe where he helped local farmers kill a problem elephant.

This time Parsons will have his work cut out for him. “Kittens are really fast animals and really small” says Bob. “I’m going to need at least a 50 cal for this hunt.” The city of Peterville, population 723, has provided Parsons and his 20 person safari team with permits, right of way, as well as the key to the city. In addition to being rid of these problem kittens, the residents of Peterville will be provided with free Asian cuisine, and free Godaddy.com tube tops. Franklin Campbell, the Mayor of Peterville, talked about the problem “They (the cats) claw up the arms of chairs, they poop in sand boxes. One even drank milk right from Ethel Taylor’s milk bucket. It’s just a mess over here.”

When questioned about the need to hunt kittens Parsons stated “There are occasions all over the world where people fall prey to these kittens. Problem animals need to be killed and Peterville needs our help.”    PETA officials recently named Parsons the Scummiest CEO of the Year, but have yet to respond to this recent news.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (1)

Nicks confirmed that the listings were removed but were quickly put back in to play . He assured DNN that the Premium channel would benefit from much of the post-game marketing blitz that Godaddy is conducting even still.

Nicks told DNN

“It is true that for a small portion of time around the airing of the two commercials, the Premium Listing service was static. GoDaddy.com optimizes the site to handle the crush of web traffic coming to us for Super Bowl ads. People were visiting the site to see the Super Bowl commercials and that’s what we provided, a secure, safe and solid website.”

Godaddy has been making strides to become a player in the domain aftermarket and the chance to benefit from the traffic from a Super Bowl ad obviously would be very appealing to anyone selling in the aftermarket.  Godaddy even issued a statement on January 31st touting the Super Bowl ad timing as a great time for customers to “leverage the Super Bowl Glow” to sell through the Premium Listings.  While one would have assumed the best time to benefit would have been during the ad rush, it looks like Godaddy considers the timing before and after the Super Bowl ads to be the “Super Bowl Glow”.

Nicks continues,  ”An exciting element to consider, one we did not tout in our news release, is the amount of publicity that would drive visitors and potential customers to our website in the days preceding the game. Go Daddy clips and commercials were shown on network news programs, syndicated entertainment programs and discussed in major print and online publications, starting January 31st.  Many highlighted Go Daddy’s successful strategies and history with driving traffic to the website. This helped our Premium Listing customers in ways we did not predict.”

“We are exceeding our own expectations for web traffic today, following the game and our Premium Listing service is certainly benefiting from increased exposure. Last night’s commercials are generating a tremendous amount of publicity today, as critics discuss the ads. We are also executing a  major media tour in New York City right now with our new GoDaddy.CO Girl, Joan Rivers. We expect her talking about domain names in the mainstream media will help sustain interest beyond this morning.”

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (4)