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A walk down memory lane in domain investing

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These old documents bring back memories.

A copy of a Network Solutions receipt from 1999

This weekend I cleaned out some old boxes of files and came across one labeled “domain names”. It contained a bunch of documents I’ve saved over the past 20+ years related to my domain name investing.

There were a handful of my Network Solutions receipts from registering domain names while I was in college. Back then, you’d get a paper confirmation in the snail mail whenever you registered a domain name. I remember going to the mailbox somedays and find a dozen envelopes from Network Solutions. (See image above.)

I also found the transfer documents I sent to Network Solutions when I sold my first website. I built the website in my dorm room using Microsoft Frontpage and sold it on eBay.

Speaking of which, transferring a domain name back then was a big pain. I found a couple of transfer documents I had faxed to Dotster to transfer domains I sold. I even had to copy my photo ID to send along with each multi-page transfer request.

Oh, and then there was this printout of Adsense earnings from January 2005:

A picture of a printout of earnings from Google Adsense

Unfortunately, that was just about the end of the Adsense gravy train.

Trademarks suggest more domain services in the works

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These trademark applications are for domain name services.

The word Trademarks on a dark blue green background with a stylized R symbol

A lot of entities and people have filed trademarks related to domain name services lately. Most of these have been filed on an intent-to-use basis, meaning the companies haven’t used them in commerce yet. Here’s a rundown of some of the applications.

ALD Holdings, LLC, a company in Montana, filed for Pamphlet for “Providing a web hosting platform for simple and secure domain transactions” and Learn Domains for “Business consulting services in the field of domain name investing”.

Gordon Hayes filed for Impossible to Forget for “Reseller services, in the field of internet services, namely, distributorship services in the field of domains and domain names; domain name brokering services, namely, procuring of contracts for the purchase and sale of domain names; providing information about domain names for sale; reseller services, namely, distributorship services in the field of domain names.”

WebGrow, Inc. in Massachusetts filed for an intent-to-use trademark Domains for Marketing for “Marketing services in the nature of assisting companies with their marketing, branding and sales by procuring, developing, and providing for sale, rent or lease, as well as by consulting regarding, internet domain names and websites”.

DNPG LLC in Boston filed an intent-to-use trademark Attentive for “business consulting and advisory services in the field of domain name investigations, acquisitions and brokerage”.

Finally, remember the guy who is trying to trademark Premium Domain? His latest filings are for App and App.Inc for “Leasing of internet domain names, namely, leasing of premium domain names, and domain name leasing services” and App.Inc.

Australia’s .Au namespace flat over past year, but gets a Covid bump

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Registrations picked up in Q2 but namespace remains flat for the financial year ending in June.

A chart showing domains under management in the .Au namespace. The number was essentially flat from June 2019 to June 2020, with a small drop in .net.au domains

.Au Domain Administration Limited (auDA) published its annual report today for the 2019-2020 financial year that ended in June.

The report shows that .au domains under management are essentially flat over the past year, falling from 3.193 million domains to 3.180 million.

.Au domain names are currently registered only at the third level. The .com.au domain base is up slightly from a year ago, but .net.au fell from 242,000 to 223,000.

But registrations picked up in Q2 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as this chart shows:

Chart showing .au domain name registrations in 2019-2020 compared to 2019-2019. In the latest month, June 2020, registrations were 56,132 compared to 41,467 a year ago.

auDA showed a spike in revenue for the financial year, but the number is obfuscated by a change in revenue recognition policies.

The full annual report is available online (pdf).

Domain leasing, selling domains and more – DNW Podcast #308

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Listener questions about domain leasing, selling domains and more.

On this week’s show, I answer some listener questions. We’ll talk about domain leasing (when to do it and how to set it up), how to sell unused domains, and how to handle inquiries for low-priced domain names.

Also: Nobel Prize domain connection, ICANN saves money, six-figure forwards, XYZ, no-fee backorders and more.

Sponsor: Donuts

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More details behind last week’s top end user domain sales at Sedo

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Here’s why a company paid $25,000 for Westerly.com.

graphic of briefcase full of money related to end user domain name sales

Every week, I publish a list of end user domain name sales. I research Sedo’s public sales to find domains that are now in end users’ hands.

I rarely hear from the buyers after writing about their acquisitions. But over the weekend, I got a note from Ziad AlMalki of Al Malki Group, which purchased the highest-price domain in last week’s list, Westerly.com.

Ziad AlMalki, Director of Al Malki Group, wrote in an email:

In regards to the domain, we have just launched department store devoted to luxury in Riyadh which is the capital of Saudi Arabia. The department store is called Westerly, this domain will be its ecommerce platform.

I asked him what role domain name availability played in choosing the store’s name. AlMalki wrote:

We worked with a branding agency to come up with a name that had .com domains available for purchase, before buying Westerly.com we had purchased variations of it in case we couldn’t reach an agreement with the seller.

The availability of the .com domain was crucial in selecting the name for our new department store.

He also explained more about the business:

Al Malki Group has grown to become a major player in the Middle East luxury business scene, trading and marketing over 100 international brands by a highly skilled and dedicated staff of more than 1,200 employees. AMG operates these brands with a variety of different business models, be it Franchise Agreements, Distribution Agreements and Joint Venture Agreements.

 

 

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