Yesterday, here was a snapshot of how many people were on DomainTools.com  when we first accessed the Right Now beta, around noon Pacific Time:

And today, around 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time, encroaching on 3k again…

So far, we are thrilled to be able to see a live pulse of our website anytime we like. Next up: we’ll look into the real-time reports. If you’d like to know immediate impact to site traffic, access real-time reports, we’d recommend looking into Google Analytics Real Time. Right now it’s still in early beta but you can sign up for early access to the beta here.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest names in mobile computing, for example. Just last week news emerged that Blackberry maker Research In Motion had registered over 300 domains for its new Curve phones. The list of domains covered a broad range of extensions, as well as variations using hyphens, abbreviations and additional keywords including the scary “sucks” suffix.

These were classic cases of defensive registrations – domains registered in order to keep them out of the hands of opportunistic cybersquatters. For a brand owner particularly at risk of squatting, preemptively registering hundreds of domains at $10 each may sometimes make more economic sense than later filing a UDRP complaint, which can cost many thousands of dollars.

Other companies, such as Google, take a less comprehensive approach, preferring to register a handful of key domains before they launch a new product, and pick off egregious cases of cybersquatting later. Google obtained plus.me in November 2010, for example, even though Google+ did not launch until June 28 this year. It had owned googleplus.com since winning it with a UDRP complaint in 2002, and won googleplusone.com in early June 2011 the same way.

But within 24 hours of Google+ launching, dozens of domains had been registered by people hoping to ride the wave of the service’s expected popularity. Registrations included straightforward cases such as googleplus.biz, keyword domains such as googleplusgames.com, typos such as googlepuls.com, and domain hacks such as google-pl.us. These kinds of domains are extremely vulnerable to cybersquatting claims and have virtually zero resale value to experienced investors.

If Blackberry is at one end of the spectrum, and Google occupies the middle ground, then Apple is an example of a company that often virtually ignores domain names when it launches products. When Apple launched the iPhone, it did not own iphone.com and later was forced to pay a seven-figure sum to the registrant, who had owned it since 1995. The company still does not own ipad.com, which was registered by somebody else in 1997. If it chooses to buy the domain now, it will probably have to pay more than it would have in 2009, before the iPad launched.

But this may actually be smart strategy for Apple. The company has always developed its new products in strict secrecy, encouraging its fan base to speculate about its next move. This created grassroots buzz for months before the moment Steve Jobs took the stage to officially unveil the company’s latest innovation. With so much brand capital relying on these staged, set-piece announcements, a premature domain registration or purchase may, for Apple, be more damaging than having to pay a couple million bucks later for an important domain.

When it comes to registering domain names, whether defensively or as part of a marketing plan, there’s no one-size-fits all strategy for the world’s biggest brands.

This post has been syndicated (and slightly edited to reflect updates) from a post by SEO expert Bill Hartzer.

Google, in an effort to protect their interests in their new Google+ Plus social network, has recently acquired the International Domain Name (IDN) +.com, also known as xn--dra.com. The problem here is that xn--dra.com (+.com) is an illegal domain name–the domain name violates IDNA2008, as published by the IETF.

The use of the + character in the .com TLD is not allowed, and violates IDNA2008. Under current Verisign .com rules, it appears that the +.com domain name cannot be renewed, and according to Mozilla, IDNs are not allowed on the .com TLD.

I realize that Google would want to protect their brand and protect their new Google+ Plus social network by purchasing the +.com domain name. But from what I can tell, this was a mistake–especially because the +.com is not allowed in the .com TLD.

It doesn’t look to me like Google “did their homework” when they purchased that domain name.

What has been disallowed in IDNA2008 (IDN in application, a standard for handling IDNs in apps) is most symbol domains. IDNA2003 (the previous version of IDNA, still running in most applications as of right now, including browsers) allowed symbols.

See here to compare how the domain is handled:

In IDNA2003 it worked fine, in UTS46 (a transition standard between IDNA2003 and IDNA2008) it still worked fine, but in IDNA2008, it won’t resolve. At this point, when +.com does come up for renewal, we do not know whether or not the domain will be allowed by Verisign.

I have obtained a copy of the email from Verisign to Registrars regarding the deletion of certain domain names that are not allowed under IDNA2008. Below is the email:

As you may know, the IETF/IESG has adopted RFC 5891, which applies to Internationalized Domain Names in Application (“IDNA”). Compliance with this new RFC is necessary to ensure the security and stability of registry operations. RFC 5891 affects allowable second level strings in IDN domain names. As such, and in compliance with RFC 5891, Verisign implemented filters to block registration of disallowed strings, and updated our Software Development Kit in early Q1 2011. In addition, Verisign will insure compliance with RFC 5891 by deleting existing domain names and child hosts from the .com and .net databases.

You are hereby given 120 calendar days notice that Verisign will delete the attached registered names from the .com and/or .net databases. The attached names will be deleted on the 121st calendar day after the date of this notice, as measured by United States Eastern Time.

As a courtesy, Verisign will issue a credit to your account with Verisign for any deleted domain names pursuant to this notice, which will be calculated as follows: for each deleted domain name, Verisign will determine the remaining registration period as of the date of this notice and round it up to the nearest year.

Pursuant to Section 2.11 of the .com and .net Registry-Registrar Agreements, registrars are required to comply with (and include in their registrant agreements) an obligation for the registrant to comply with, operational standards, policies, procedures and practices of the registry as established from time to time. As such, you are directed to provide immediate notice (and in no event later than ten (10) calendar days after the date of the instant notice) of these actions to the affected registrants.

[Hat tips to Drewbert and JS Lascary]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (7)

After Google launched the goo.gl URL shortener in 2009, they have just announced that they will be using g.co as an official shortcut for their own websites. goo.gl will remain as is. The purchase price has not been revealed. The registry also announced that 500startups.com has acquired and will be using 500.co going forward. Currently the domain just redirects to 500startups.com.

[COInternet Press Release, Google Blogpost]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (6)

As reported by The Register, Google removed over 11 million .co.cc subdomain from its search index, since the company considered too many of the sites “spammy”. Free .co.cc subdomains are offered by a Korean company. The company also offers bulk registrations of 15,000 subdomains for a fee of $1,000. According to the company’s website they have 11,397,608 subdomains registered in 5,738,580 accounts.

Google classes the firm as a “freehost”, and has exercised its right to block the whole domain “if we see a very large fraction of sites on a specific freehost are spammy or low-quality”, according to Matt Cutts, head of Google’s web spam team.

The company said in a recent blog post: “To help protect users we recently modified those [malware-scanning] systems to identify bulk subdomain services which are being abused. In some severe cases our systems may now flag the whole bulk domain.”

The Anti-Phishing Working Group reported (PDF) 4,963 phishing attacks origination from co.cc domains in the second half of 2010.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (2)

Here are a few photos of the conference, also posted on our Facebook page:

One of the highlights of SMX Advanced, like previous conferences, has been the You&A with Matt Cutts. Coined the Alan Greenspan of Google, Matt is their most well-known software engineer. The You&A was a hilarious and very engaging discussion that started out with Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, giving Matt a giant Panda bear along with a panda foot stool. An interesting story surfaced about Larry Page, CEO of Google, and his search for the term “warm mangos”. The Google team who was working on improving search quality needed to understand the logic behind someone searching for the term ‘warm mangos’ – turns out, mangoes warm up when they are packaged in boxes due to the carbon dioxide produced. As the banter about ‘warm mangos’ was being highlighted, it is not a coincidence that WarmMangos.com was registered during that session

Marc Ostrofsky - Get Rich Click

Here is a piece about Marc from his website -

Check out his latest interview with Frank Schilling where Frank discusses his new domain parking and monetization service www.InternetTraffic.com Keep up the great work Michael.

Driven by the pinch of lower PPC revenues on a Yahoo!/Bing feed, it appears Frank Schilling’s NAMedia has recently switched to a Google feed. The company has also removed their social application originally launched as Note.com, then rebranded as Chatr and now finally Postboard. Via Email Schilling told DNN:

“In the early days of the oil-boom you could literally drill a hole in the ground with a hand-drill and strike a small gusher of oil. Then as the shallow oil ran out.. the hand-drill guys invested in bigger rigs and more sophisticated machinery. Today you have elaborate rigs manned by the hand drillers grandchildren, striking huge oilfields, miles below the sea floor. Many of the people behind the drilling equipment quite literally learned on the job. There is no university for this. The domain traffic business is very much like that. The last ten years have seen an evolution where things have gotten much more sophisticated. A few of the larger operators have embraced technology and grown to deal with the changed landscape in paid search. Google has become a critical partner in the evolution of type-in traffic monetization. The level of technical efficacy required to play there is higher though.

I remain hopeful that Yahoo will turn its third party marketplace around so it remains attractive to domain traffic, but that job is really Microsoft’s responsibility now, and it remains to be seen whether Microsoft cares enough to solidify third party publisher payouts and to fairly value domain name type-in traffic against other forms of traffic in the channel such as Error Search and Keyword Marketplace Arbitrage.”

Aside from switching parking feed providers NAMedia is also allowing others to use this new feed. Schilling created a site at InternetTraffic.com inviting people to apply for a “A no-frills domain monetization platform, for experienced type-in traffic operators.” and promising that “You will make significantly more money here“. According to WannaDevelop’s Mike Cohen, the service is being tested by the likes of Rick Schwartz, Chad Wright, Garry Chernoff, Alex Lerman. [Update] According to our friends at HosterStats, there are currently over 14,000 domains pointing to the service’s nameservers.

“I’m looking for high quality type-in traffic partners to grow a long-term and stable traffic co-operative. I’m in a great position to do this, having a unique structure with a very large tranche of owned and operated traffic. I don’t need (or want) to create a huge profit center for myself on the back of my fellow domainers traffic. This is about trying to reward those who innovate by returning the bulk of the revenue to them, so they can do what they do best.. Everyone who has joined to date, is pleasantly surprised when they see what their traffic is really capable of.”

The domain name of the advertiser is displayed behind the ad headline, separated by a “|” and written in all lower case.

[Update]: This is now an official feature on “select ads”, as per a post on Google’s Inside Adwords blog. No details have been published as to how eligible ads are selected. Lisa Shieh from the Inside AdWords crew writes:

In an AdWords ad, the display URL may be last, but it’s certainly not least. In fact, the display URL can be an important deciding factor in whether a user clicks on your ad.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (9)