Love ‘em or hate ‘em, a better partnership between domainers and the world’s biggest registrar would benefit the industry.

GoDaddy is the most loved domain name registrar. Ironically, it’s probably the most hated registrar at the same time.

Respondents to DNW’s annual survey have selected GoDaddy.com as the best registrar for five years running. But it’s also true that a lot of domainers avoid the registrar like the plague.

It would be great if GoDaddy had an offering that courted some of the biggest domainers. After all, GoDaddy has the best retail reach of any registrar. Ultimately, that means more end users to buy domains than any other platform. Most end users also have an account at GoDaddy, making it easier to transfer domains to them once sold.

What can GoDaddy do to court domainers? First, I’m not willing to assume that the company should court domainers. It may be that domain investors are too low margin for the company. But if it does make sense to go after domainers’ business, here’s what GoDaddy should do:

1. Create a new platform for domainers – call it “GoDaddy Pro” if you like. It would have a separate login page with nothing but a login box.

2. Offer a better user interface – once logged in to Pro, domainers would get a graphic-light interface with easy access to the most domainer-common functions: pushing domains, changing DNS, etc. Perhaps even one click to change the DNS to park on popular parking platforms. Less clutter.

3. Easy checkout – Pro customers could define options they commonly select during check out. All of these options would appear on one page during checkout. Registering a domain should take about 30 seconds.

4. Tight integration with end user sales tools – namely, quick access to listing domains as “Premium Domains“. Perhaps pro users would get lower commissions on these listings.

5. Enhanced domain analytics – GoDaddy already has a feature that tells you how many times someone did a whois search for domains you own. What if you could also see how many times someone did a domain availability check on domains you own? This would be helpful in setting prices, and also spur you to list them as “Premium”.

6. Flat rate, low pricing – no coupon codes to enter and no clubs to join. GoDaddy’s Domain Discount Club has prices that match the best tiers offered at other registrars. But you have to pay $90 a year to get the good rates. Pro users should automatically get these pricing tiers. Also, throw in free privacy — most other registrars do this.

7. Show up to domain conferences – no booth necessary. Just send one or two representatives to each conference to meet with customers and show that the company supports domainers.

To make it work, Pro would have to be limited to domain owners with a minimum number of domains, such as 1,000. Customers willing to deposit a certain amount, perhaps $2,500, could also get an account.

What do you think?

Familiar faces top results from survey.

Sedo and Parked.com were selected as the best domain name parking companies in the 5th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey.

Sedo took top honors with 23% of the vote, followed by Parked.com at 18%. Here are the top five vote-getters:

1. Sedo 23%
2. Parked.com 18%
3. NameDrive 13%
4. SmartName 6%
5. DomainSponsor and Google Adsense for Domains 6%

SmartName is new to the list this year. The company has combined its three parking platforms into one, giving customers previously on GoldKey and ActiveAudience access to SmartName. The company has also launched new parking products including content sites and shops.

It’s also interesting to look at the percentage of customers that have used a service that rate it ‘best’. By this measure, SmartName takes home top honors, followed by Parked, NameDrive, and Sedo.

Amongst domainers with 1,000 or more domain names, Parked.com takes first place followed by Sedo.

Rate domain name parking companies at ParkingJudge.com.

Registry wants to offer name.xxx later this year.

After winning an independent review against ICANN for denying ICM Registry’s application for a .xxx top level domain name, the registry says it hopes to begin offering .xxx domain names later this year. It has already opened up a process on its web site to pre-reserve names.

Whether or not this time line is feasible depends in part on how ICANN’s board acts upon the independent review. In a strange version of accountability, ICANN’s board gets to review the outside arbitrator’s decision on the matter and decide if it should accept it. But it’s ICANN’s board that voted down .xxx to begin with.

The history here is long. But essentially, ICM registry applied to operate a .xxx top level domain name. By all accounts and a board vote, it met all of ICANN’s requirements and should have been awarded the TLD. The board authorized entering into negotiations with ICM for the registry. But the board then reconsidered it and voted it down because of pressure from outside groups including the U.S. Government.

The best case scenario for .xxx is that the ICANN board approves entering into a registry agreement with ICM registry during its Nairobi meeting next month.

Domain company plants flag in Texas.

Last month I hinted that a domain name company was on its way to Austin. Now it’s official: domain parking and sales company NameDrive has set up shop in the capital of Texas.

The company has leased space north of Austin, which it is currently readying for move-in. Four employees are already in Austin, with three more on the way. That may grow to 20 by the end of the summer.

NameDrive is the first major domain name company to call Austin home. Parked considered moving its U.S. offices to Austin after Hurricane Katrina, but decided it enjoyed hurricanes and moved to Florida instead. But Austin has a number of companies with killer domain names, such as CreditCards.com.

Although I have nothing confirmed, I’ve also heard that NameDrive is currently testing a “professional grade” parking product. A few big portfolios have been on the new platform with good results, although there’s no information available on NameDrive’s web site about it. Big portfolio owners might want to drop them a note, though.

So Welcome to Austin, NameDrive. Now I have no excuse – there will be a domainer meetup in Austin this year.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) gets low marks.

The percentage of people rating ICANN’s performance as “Good” has hit its lowest point since Domain Name Wire started its annual survey five years ago.

In the fifth survey, including responses from over 500 people in the domain name industry, only 12% rated their satisfaction with ICANN as “good”. That’s down from 33% in 2006.

40% of respondents rated ICANN “poor”, up from only 19% in 2006.

The survey involved participants in 49 countries. Most survey takers were domain investors, but also include domain name registrars and other service providers.

Part of ICANN’s challenge is that major policy changes and disputes tend to turn warring sides against ICANN in addition to each other. A major stumbling block lately has been the much delayed rollout of new top level domain names (e.g. .NYC, .Music). ICANN originally planned to accept applications last year, but delays have mounted as trademark interests and other third parties have weighed-in.