Domain Name Wire » Expired Domains

VeriSign releases more traffic data about unregistered domains

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:10:43 +0000

.com and .net registry provides added detail about NXD traffic.

VeriSign has enhanced its DomainScore tool to provide more insight into the traffic unregistered domains receive.

DomainScore provides a relative score for the amount of traffic an unregistered domain name receives. But this so-called “NXD” traffic doesn’t qualify the type of traffic very well. That’s part of the reason people complain that they register a domain with a high score based on VeriSign’s data and don’t get any traffic.

The latest update includes time-of-day and location information about unregistered domain traffic.

The column chart above is an example of the traffic insight you can get. Lots of requests but few unique requests? That should be a warning sign. When the traffic comes in may have to do with the type of site.

The geo location data is helpful for a number of reasons. One obvious one: if you’re going to park the domain, you probably want traffic from the U.S. rather than China because it monetizes better.

VeriSign has also enhanced the user interface and historic data for its DomainView tool.

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My own little version of “Best of DomainTools” support

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:32:04 +0000

Guy mistakenly thinks I’m associated with expired domain spam.

DomainTools has an occasional feature on its blog about people mistakenly thinking the company is associated with other web sites. Someone searches for a company, finds the whois record on DomainTools’ site, and thinks DomainTools is the company they were searching for. So it sends a support email to Domain Tools asking for support from that company.

I had my own little case of mistaken identity a few weeks ago.

My cell phone rang and I picked it up with my standard “This is Andrew”. The conversation went something like this:

Caller: Hi Andrew, how are you doing?

Me: Fine.

Caller: I’m not interested in your marketing opinions research.

Me: Huh?

Caller: The marketing opinions stuff you keep emailing me about.

Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Caller: Suuuuure, you don’t.

Me: No, really. Who is this?

Caller: I’m the guy you keep spamming about this domain name. Sometimes I like to track down spammers and call them to harass them like they harass me.

Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Caller: You are Andrew Allemann, right?

Me: Yes, that’s me. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Caller: Someone is sending spam emails from you trying to get me to buy the domain MarketingOpinions.com. So if it’s no you, someone has hacked in to your email.

[At this point I become genuinely concerned, and start looking through my sent box to make sure I haven't been hacked.]

Me: Well, which email address is it being sent from?

Caller: something@jbupholstry.com.

[Now I'm really confused. How has he tied this email address to me? Or was someone just putting my name in the message?]

Me: That’s not my email address.

Caller: Well listen, I like to call up spammers, but you genuinely sound like you don’t know what’s going on.

Me: Can you send me a copy of the email so I can look in to it?

The guy sends me the email. Here it is:

From: Alex < @JBUPHOLSTERY.COM>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:03:23 -0700 (MST)
Subject: ***SPAM*** marketingopinions.com

Preferred Domain Availability Notification:

marketingopinions.com will be listed for auction in a few days. This domain might be useful for you, since you own a domain similar to this domain.

To confirm interest in owning this domain, fill out the simple form here: marketingopinions.com

Sincerely,Alexander
5016 Spedale Ct. #265
Spring Hill, TN 37174

If you do not want more of these messages, please click the link above and follow instructions at the bottom of the page

I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty… you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. J. D. Salinger

Yeah, my name is nowhere on the email or the email address. How on earth was I being associated with this expired domain spamming operation?

I tried Googling the mailing address in the email. First result is this post on Domain Name Wire.

I had a bit of a chuckle. This guy who called me thinks he is some big cybersleuth who can track down spammers. Instead, he Googled the email he got, found my post but didn’t read it, looked me up in whois, and called to harass me.

All in a day’s work as a blogger…

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Interesting: Oversee.net knew Network Solutions was leaving before it bought SnapNames

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:25:18 +0000

Company knew it would lose Network Solutions’ expired domain inventory when it bought SnapNames.

Shortly after Oversee.net acquired expired domain platform SnapNames in 2007, Network Solutions pulled its inventory from the service in order to team up with Demand Media on competitor NameJet.

A commonly held assumption is that Oversee.net had overlooked a change-in-control term (or underestimated the risk of it) when it did its due diligence on acquiring SnapNames. In fact, I gave Oversee.net’s due diligence team a “domain dunce” award in 2009.

But perhaps I should give myself a domain dunce award on this one. Because that assumption was wrong.

In testimony related to the Monte Cahn lawsuit against Oversee.net, former Oversee CEO Jeff Kupietzky explains that Oversee.net was fully aware of Network Solutions exiting before it concluded the deal:

Lawyer: Well, you’d already been burned on the SnapNames transaction at that point in time, hadn’t you?

Kupietzky: I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it that way.

Lawyer: Well, you’d already lost the Network Solutions account?

Kupietzky: The Network Solutions was not a diligence thing. And just to be clear, because I testified about this earlier, Mr. Ng made a decision knowing that they were going to pull, to carry on the transaction even though the transaction had a term component that would have allowed him not to.

“Mr. Ng” refers to Oversee.net founder Lawrence Ng.

Network Solutions has some of the best expiring domain inventory because it is the oldest registrar. The inventory instantly made NameJet a force to be reckoned with in the expired domain business. It was a big blow to SnapNames.

If losing Network Solutions wasn’t priced in to the transaction, then I’m surprised Oversee.net went through with the deal. But I don’t want to make any more assumptions about that.

Of course the most painful due diligence failure in the transaction was Nelson Brady’s insider bidding.

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25 old (and good) domain names to backorder now on NameJet

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:27:28 +0000

These good domains are currently in pre-release.

I was just looking through some “old” domains currently available for pre-release backordering at NameJet. Here are some worth backordering. I haven’t checked any of these domains for trademarks, though. You should carefully consider trademark issues before buying any domain.

Squiggles.com – registered 14 years ago and every other major TLD is registered. A great brandable name. There are a few products with this name, though, so don’t park it if you win it.

DGMS.com – a nice acronym domain registered since 1994. As with any acronym, be careful about parking.

BrainTech.com – great brandable.

LocalFocus.com – perfect for today’s “focus” on local.

NetSol.net – you shouldn’t register this one. Network Solutions should. And since it’s registered at Network Solutions currently…

WashingtonGolf.com – great state golf domain

HSDG.com – good acronym and has a DMOZ listing

LeasedLabor.com – short term labor market and/or contract gig domain (hint: LeaseLabor.com is currently available for registration)

CherryhillNJ.com – townships’ official site is Cherryhill-NJ.com

HealthTek.com – nice brandable. Double check trademarks.

MemoryEtc.com – good domain for burgeoning memory training market

CreativeOnline.com – remember, “online” is the most common keyword sold in GoDaddy’s marketplace

TennisWeek.com – start an online pub about Tennis

NetAsset.com – financial or web services domain

InnovativeCuisine.com – perfect for foodies

FiveStarFood.com – another good foodie domain

CanineCuisine.com – for all the k-9 foodies

MegaSites.com – forget mini sites. Start a service offering mega sites.

LandscapeCompany.com – name says it all

FloridaLighting.com – ditto

VancouverHouses.com – I like homes better, but still a good one in a hot real estate market

BumperBowling.com – own the market

CommerceCenter.com – many uses

WallVisions.com – good for art or projection services

YourHospital.com – perfect for medical services directory, social network, or patient services site

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Orphaned domain listings still mucking up domain sales process

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:22:00 +0000

When domains change hands or expire, “for sale” listings remain.

[Update: I received a message from GoDaddy saying a solution is in the works and should be complete within a couple weeks.] [Update 2 Feb 20: GoDaddy says it has fixed the problem. If anyone has the same problem in the future please let me know.] In October I wrote about how domain name marketplaces still struggle with “orphan listings”. These are domains listed for sale that have either expired or were listed by their previous owner.

A couple people have recently relayed to me issues related to orphan listings and how this has become a bigger issue with listings being syndicated to GoDaddy.

In one case exactly like the one I described in October, a customer tried to hand register a domain on GoDaddy.com that had already expired. The domain was still listed on GoDaddy Auctions, though. GoDaddy.com said the domain wasn’t available for registration but could be purchased on GoDaddy Auctions. The user ended up having to use the GoDaddy app to register the domain. (GoDaddy doesn’t show auction listings in the registration path to mobile users.)

I discovered another person on NamePros who won an expired domain backorder and promptly listed the domain for sale on GoDaddy Premium Listings. He was surprised what he saw when he searched for the domain on GoDaddy. Instead of showing his Premium listing, the site showed an old Sedo “buy now” listing from the previous owner.

I know there are domains I own that still show up for sale on Sedo that were listed by previous owners. This can cause a whole slew of problems. I keep waiting for the day that someone files a UDRP on one and claims I listed it for sale on Sedo…when it was really someone else.

There are solutions, at least when it comes to fixed priced domains. Both Afternic and Sedo have mechanisms in place to monitor domains listed with instant transfer capabilities. But that doesn’t cover all domains, as was the case here.

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Domain attorney Ari Goldberger featured in NBC Miami story about expired MiamiPolice.com domain

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:07:23 +0000

Goldberger featured in TV news story about MiamiPolice.com.

Domain name attorney Ari Goldberger of ESQwire.com was featured in an NBC Miami story last week about MiamiPolice.com.

The Miami Police let the domain name expire a couple years ago and it was picked up by someone who now parks the domain with DomainSponsor. While I’m not sure why NBC Miami just did this story now (slow news week for the holidays?), it’s good to see Goldberger was interviewed for the story.

It turns out the Miami Police only owned the domain for a short time and never really used it, favoring their official web site Miami-Police.org. So they decided it wasn’t worth the $35 to renew the domain name.

The story reads:

Police spokesman Delrish Moss underscored that not having miamipolice.com does not affect police services at all, and that a small purchase here and a small purchase there adds up in times of severe budget crunches.

That’s the government at work.

The video is embedded below.

(As a side note, does anyone think the reporter in this story resembles ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom?)

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VeriSign releases DomainCountdown for expired domains

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:16:46 +0000

.Com and .net registry released more data on expiring domain names.

VeriSign has just released a beta of DomainCountdown, a source of data on expiring domain names.

DomainCountdown provides a wealth of information about domain names in pending delete status, and some of them are quite fascinating.

The baseline data for each domain has to do with NXD data — basically queries to non-existent/non-resolving domain names. VeriSign is in a unique position to capture this data.

But beyond that DomainCountdown also has some spectacular data about how the domain name was used previously.

Here are some data points I find particularly compelling:

What kind of web site was on the domain? Think e-commerce site, blog, parked, redirect, etc.

Did the web site have a shopping cart enabled?

Did the site have some sort of login?

Were there ads on the web site?

How often profanity found on the domain during the previous 3 month? VeriSign calls this “Brand Safety”, and it’s certainly something a brand should think about when buying an expiring domain.

VeriSign monitors Domain Name Wire so feel free to post feedback on the tool in the comments below, or send feedback to domaincountdown (at) verisign.com.

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