iEstates.com

As just announced in blog post, LeadRefs has just released their latest version of their lead generation tool. The new version of the tool now mashes up the data of the list of dropping and expired domains with the amount of leads available to sell the domains. It also has a paid membership now – the Search Package for only $24.99 or the Expired Package for $49.99 a month, which includes the Pending Delete, NameJet exclusive, SnapNames exclusive and GoDaddy exclusive leads along with 100 daily lead generation searches. The free trial is now limited to three days. For those who don’t have the time to follow all of the leads, the service now also offers a brokerage service.

Elliot’s Blog had a number of helpful posts as to how best use this tool:

• How I Used LeadRefs.com
• Another Way to Use End User Lead Generation Website
• When NOT to Use LeadRefs.com
• LeadRefs.com Works

Related posts:

• Rick Latona “Lead Generation” Domain Auction Ending Friday, August 28 at 8:00pm EDT
• portfolio management tool
• Kevin Ohashi Releases List Manipulation Tool
• DomainTools Releases “Who’s It Gonna Be” Tool
• Flash: Google and Yahoo Announcing Partnership

After CO Internet, the operator of the .CO registry recently announced that their renewal rate was about 66% at the end of July and “expect to see somewhere in the nature of 68-69% renewal rates for July once all late renewals are totaled“. The first drop catching providers have now added the ability to go after expiring .CO domain names, with NameJet being the latest company to add the ccTLD. NameJet is also featuring pre-release .CO names from their partner registrars, such as propertytaxes.co and 204.co.

[Updated] As far as we and our readers here at DNN know, .CO backorders are currently available via:

• Aftermarket.pl
• DomainMonster
• Dropcatcher.co
• Hexonet
• Name.com
• Namejet

Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments. Are you planning to backorder any?

More details on the .CO backorder/drop process can be found in this post on The Domains.

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.

After a recent announcement by SnapNames for a price increase for catching dropped domains from $59 to $69, NameJet will be announcing to their customers in an email later today that they are dropping their price from $69 to $59 in a trial. It appears the prices have already been lowered on the site.

[Updated] See the text of the email below.

Dear NameJet Customer,

Ready to save money?

NameJet just lowered our minimum bids on all pending delete domain names to $59*!

In addition, NameJet has increased its available inventory of pending delete domains by adding TV and CC to our inventory which already includes COM, NET and ORG.

Get your backorders in now because this offer is valid for a limited time.

Search or Download Inventory

Learn More About Pending Delete Names

Sincerely,
NameJet™

* Promotional offer is only valid for a limited time and minimum bid amount can change at any time.

As we had reported earlier this year, Demand Media, parent company of numerous registrars, websites and a domain parking company, was planning to file for an IPO in 2010. According to an article by CNNMoney, the IPO has now stalled due to the regulator’s questions regarding Demand Media’s accounting practices.

The company’s CEO, Richard Rosenblatt has always insisted that the company was profitable, but the IPO filing revealed a different story, showing that the company is in the red for at least for $6 million USD for 2010. One of the reasons the filings are being investigated is that Demand Media expenses the cost of content creation over the course of five years, stating that the average time period this content will generate revenue for is 5.4 years.

[via CNNMoney]

(c) 2010 DomainNameNews.com (3)

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BoxCar – The New Domain Auction Platform
Buy and Sell Domain Names

Shane Cultra at DomainShane pointed out earlier that Namejet is hosting an auction of 3 letter .net domains, in fact more than 1000 of them at one time. The names were originally had a backorder deadline over the Thanksgiving holiday week but it appears someone wised up an move the closing date to get in on these auctions to today 11/29/10.

In addition to the .net domains Shane pointed out, there are nearly 1000 more 3 letter .org domains up for auction on the same day. Many of the domains being sold are not expiring domains though, rather they are a batch of names that appear to have come out of Marchex.

The whois of the majority of these domains currently shows privacy, but using DomainTools whois history we quickly found that the majority (if not all) of the list comes from the MDNH Inc portfolio, better known as the Marchex portfolio of domains.  If you have a subscription to the service you can see an example with the domain see.net being owned by MDNH as recently as the first week of October 2010 and further back you can see the name was owned by Ultimate Search.

Marchex bought the Ultimate Search portfolio of domain names back in 2005 and has been listing many of these domains for sale over the years. Marchex representatives informed DNN that these domain names are not being sold by the company. Shedding 3 letter .net and .org domains that likely aren’t providing targeted traffic toward those goals would make sense. Namejet reps would not confirm that Marchex was selling the domains trough the platform.

Wether it was a wise move to flood the aftermarket and put them all up for sale at once can be debated. It definitely wasn’t smart timing to put them for sale during the holiday week when most people aren’t sitting at their computers. As Shane points out, it’s tedious and cumbersome to even bid on multiple names at Namejet. Having them selling all at once is going to be a nightmare for anyone wanting to track or bid on multiple domains. I tried to put backorders on the entire group in fact and was told I entered too many domains.  Not a good error to see when an auction is clearly selling in bulk.

Either way this large scale auction is sure to get some attention.  A small sampling of the names at auction are posted after the jump. Check Namejet advanced search to find the full list . Backorders on this massive list need to be in by today at 8pm PST.

pet.org  see.net  rbd.net  mmf.org  elt.net  ooo.org  psd.net  sfa.net  tat.net  ppc.org  gaz.net  hsn.org  rbd.org  sus.net  zid.net  pud.net  xod.net  kmv.net  nar.net  xtv.net  zuo.net  zdd.net  pho.net  hsm.net  ouc.net  rdd.net  suw.net  xee.net  xsf.net  sao.net  fga.net  fjj.net  gbd.net  jpg.net  llf.net  mkc.net  ocp.net  oiv.net  oob.net  oul.net  psv.net  rtb.net  sct.net  tnk.net  var.net  vdd.net  xll.net  yis.net  cru.net  cuz.net  rol.net  zls.net  zjb.net  mow.net  mdw.net  zui.net  lli.net  luf.net  mjs.net  nmn.net  nuv.net  ode.net  ohm.net  phy.net  sab.net  sak.net  scw.net  sii.net  xsm.net  ews.net  fdj.net  fko.net  ich.net  jjo.net  jju.net  jmr.net  lej.net  lkk.net  lko.net  lof.net  ltk.net  lxx.net  mnb.net  nhb.net  nyr.net  ouf.net  owa.net  pvi.net  rbk.net  sld.net  tgf.net  wuc.net  xsc.net  yde.net  yrp.net  zka.net  ier.net  jmn.net  qie.net  xcd.net

(c) 2010 DomainNameNews.com (3)

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BoxCar – The New Domain Auction Platform
Buy and Sell Domain Names

I’ve been working with Mike Berkens this weekend on a breaking story that has some scary ramifications for the domain industry.  Mike just published the scary part of the story on his site.  To sum it up, Chris Hartnett, a well known domain investor has been the victim of identity theft.  The thief has used Chris’ name to conduct fraudulent business including bidding and purchasing names on NameJet as well as stealing domain names and putting them up for sale, posing as Hartnett.

From reports, there were over $60,000 worth of domains sold on Namejet to this fraudulent bidder.
Some of the names include :

• booktools.com *
• solars.com
• browning.com  *
• hawaiifun.com  *
• premiumshopping.com *
• casinotrust.com
• datastructures.com *
• pack.org *
• virtualserver.net
• w3w.com
• tradewire.com

* names were transferred out to the “fake Chris Hartnett” bidder.

The identity theft part of this story is bad enough, and the damage to Chris is horrible.  However, there’s another part that Mike didn’t cover and that’s the collateral damage, ie the other victims of these crimes in the domain space.

In the case of Namejet auctions, the fraud impacts Namejet, legitimate bidders and registrar partners.  ”Fake Chris Hartnett” ran up multiple auctions and cost legitimate bidders thousands of dollars.  I personally was involved in an auction where “fake Hartnett” , if not exposed, would have cost me $12,000 dollars extra.  At least 3 separate incidences occurred where “fake Fartnett” ran up domain prices on the auctions.  Namejet has informed us that they are offering the customers a credit or offering to re-auction the domains. Imagine bidding and not knowing wether the bidder is real or some hijacker bidding against you with no fear of ever having to really pay for the domain.

Registrar partners of Namejet are likely not going to be paid for these names, yet they most likely have already transferred out domains to “fake Hartnett”. Registrars now are victims as well.  Any name that “fake Hartnett” won may have been moved to a new registrar even and likely can’t be transferred back without a court order.  Additionally, some registrars, like NSI and Fabulous, pay out money to former owners which will never be reimbursed.  It’s a big mess.

In the case of the stolen domains that “fake Hartnett” put up for sale and sold. The real owners of the domain are out the domain. There could be potential legal battles now including registrars, brokers, the “real” owner of the domain as well as the new owner.

This is indeed a scary incident and one that should make all domain owners vigilant about keeping track of their domains.  It should make all auction houses even more vigilant about the domains they sell and the people they allow to bid. It’s time that we start getting serious about security in this space and finding ways to catch and punish criminals like this.

(c) 2010 DomainNameNews.com

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Today sees the launch of a new drop-related services by the name of NameCatch, which we found via an announcement by user Erdinc on Namepros. Similar to FreshDrop, the site provides domain drop lists from a number of websites and allows you to sort and filter them by a number of criteria, such as languages and patterns. The subscriptions are based on the filters you would like access to and start at $3 for a 10 day subscription for searches that start or end with specific up to 50 keywords.

From their site:

NameCatch.com provides information on domain names, particularly expiring domains that go to auction. We scan big lists of domains every day for dictionary terms in different languages as well as word patterns such as consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV).

We provide advanced search features which enable users to enter up to 50 search terms to do a bulk search on expiring domains. Most domain auction sites allow searching for one term at a time. If you have a list of multiple search terms and you want to check a few different sites, typically SnapNames.com, NameJet.com and GoDaddy.com, this can be a daunting task to do on a daily basis. But with NameCatch.com you can do it with a single ‘Search 50′ button.

NameCatch has also a domain tracking service. Whether you have a small list or a larger list of domains that you are interested in, you can enter these names to your ‘Track 10,000′ list and we will scan them for you every day and email you if any of them goes to auction.

(c) 2010 DomainNameNews.com

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The .ME registry has partnered with NameJet yet again to offer up another batch of .ME domains at auction. This time it’s personal . . . as in personal names.  The list of 300 domains includes some of the most popular first and last names such as Adam.Me,  Michelle.Me, OConnor.Me, and Smith.Me

The full list of names to be auctioned can be found at www.PersonalNames.Me . The official press release can be seen after the jump.

Podgorica, Montenegro – Mar 2, 2010- The .ME Registry and NameJet announced the Internet’s largest online auction of personal names today. If you’ve ever wanted your own name as a domain, now is your chance! More than 300 personal names and surnames with a .ME extension are up for auction, starting April 5, 2010.

“We’ve had phenomenal success working with NameJet in the past. Their online auction platform is a perfect venue for this upcoming auction of personal names — the biggest online auction event the .ME Registry has ever held,” stated Predrag Lesic, Executive Director of the .ME Registry. “The popularity of social media makes this an opportune time to create a personal presence online and, as we’ve told the world from the start, dot-ME is as personal as it gets. Dot-ME is all about YOU!”

Here’s a glimpse at some of the many popular names available in this auction:

Andrew.Me
Adam.Me
Brian.Me
Daniel.Me
Douglas.Me
Eric.Me
Jack.Me
James.Me
Jason.Me
John.Me
Kevin.Me
Lindsey.Me
Maria.Me
Paul.Me
Peters.Me
Scott.Me
Shawn.Me
Steve.Me
Ryan.Me
William.Me

For the full list of available first names and surnames, go to www.PersonalNames.Me.

“This is the first time in the history of domains that more than 300 premium personal names have gone to auction at the same time. It’s so rare to gain control of your very own name with any domain extension. Imagine having it with a dot-ME – the ultimate personal domain,” said Steve Brown, General Manager of NameJet.

“Dot-ME is the ideal personal Web site domain,” noted Lesic. “Imagine the power of being the ONLY person in the world to own your first name or last name through dot-ME, even though millions of others have the very same name.”

.ME is proving to be extraordinarily popular for so many reasons. More than 350,000 .ME domains have been registered in the two years since the domain extension’s launch and a number are used for online call-to-action and catch phrase branding by businesses worldwide. One noteworthy example is Facebook, which is using FB.Me as its URL shortener.
For other examples and articles about the many clever uses of .ME, visit ExploreTheWorldOf.Me.

To learn more about the .ME Registry, developing a .ME business idea through non-auction allocation of a .ME domain, or to find out how to register a .ME domain, go to www.Domain.Me.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

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In August 2008, Fabulous.com announced they were partnering with NameJet to sell all the company owned expiring domain names. Now, a year later, this service is open to the public.

“You may remember that in 2008 Fabulous.com partnered with NameJet to sell our expiring domains,” a Fabulous representative said in an email. “After thorough testing on our own portfolio we are pleased to announce that this program is now available to you.

As an additional revenue opportunity, the Fabulous.com Expiring Domains Service has delivered fantastic results for our own portfolio and those customers that were selected for our beta testing program. With the minimum sale price being US$69, it is a great way to squeeze out some final revenue before letting your domains expire.”

Domainers will receive 60% of the final sales prices (minus the renewal fee) for all domains sold through this service. After agreeing to the Expiring Domain Sales Agreement and Domain Inventory Management Agreement, all expiring domains in your account that are not listed as “never sell” will be automatically listed for sale at NameJet.

Domains can still be renewed for the first 30 days after the expiry date, however after this date it may not be possible to retain ownership of your domain names if you’re using this service.

[via Fabulous]

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

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