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Namecheap posts $37 million revenue in Q1

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Company’s revenue tops forecast for Q1.

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall

Privately held domain name registrar Namecheap has reported $37 million in gross revenue for Q1 2019. This represents 21% year-over-year growth and is about $3 million more than the company forecasted.

Namecheap expects to generate $148 million in revenue for 2019. It added 235,000 customers in the first quarter.

The registrar now has about 10.5 million domains under management, up from 10.0 million in September 2018.

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall told Domain Name Wire that the company is continuing to see growth in add-on products. The company is also shifting to higher-quality domains.

“That’s why the growth with domains under management is a bit slower,” he explained. “The lower priced TLDs (under a dollar) that we’ve shifted away from are cycling through as they have lower renewal rates. So, in essence, we are focusing on quality over quantity when it comes to domains and it reflects directly in our revenue numbers.”

Namecheap is the seventh largest registrar for .com and the second largest registrar for new top level domain names.

Why Wix, Weebly in Squarespace exist alongside WordPress

by — Uncategorized 8 Comments

WordPress is too much for the typical small business owner to manage.

Photo of man at desk with broken website
Yesterday I got yet another reminder of why managed website builder services like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace exist.

I updated the plugins on one of my WordPress sites and POOF! The site broke. Completely. You couldn’t access it. I couldn’t even access the WP-Admin to turn off the plugins to troubleshoot it.

With a bit of help from GoDaddy, I was able to FTP to the site and remove the plugins folder to diagnose the issue.

But here’s the thing: talk to the average small business owner about updating plugins or FTP’ing into their site and they’ll lose you.

That’s why site builders exist. Anyone can create a site using them. They don’t have to worry about updating plugins and breaking their site. Security is handled behind the scenes.

Using a site builder instead of WordPress comes with drawbacks but it’s a huge market for a good reason.

This stolen domain lawsuit just got messier

by — Policy & Law 11 Comments

First the judge questioned trademarks. Now a company says it bought one of the domains.

Picture of judge's gavel

Yoshiki Okada’s lawsuit to recover valuable domain names he says were stolen from him is getting messier.

Okada filed an in rem lawsuit late last year to recover the domain names eol.com, fde.com, jol.com, nnn.com, olp.com, tang.com, wok.com, wtv.com, and zhang.com.

No one showed up to defend the domain names but the judge questioned if this was really a case that should have been filed as a cybersquatting claim. Were the domains really used in commerce? Did Okada have trademark rights? Tang.com seemed to be a trigger since it’s also a well-known trademark owned by a food company.

As if that wasn’t a big enough wrench in the lawsuit, now a company has raised its hand and said that it bought OLP.com last year to rebrand its business (pdf).

OneLoanPlace.com rebranded as OLP.com after acquiring the domain name. It finally got ready to relaunch its business on the OLP.com domain this year, only to find out it was locked due to the lawsuit.

The company says it bought the domain on January 23, 2018. In Okada’s suit, he said the domain was stolen on or about January 29, 2018.

It’s worth noting that the loan company reached out to buy the domain through a broker. Based on its legal filing, it was not approached by someone who could have been the thief.

OLP.com wants to defend the domain name in the lawsuit. So this relatively simple case is now becoming much more complicated.

 

19 end user sales…including one to Uniregistry

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

A domain name registrar was an end user this week.

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

It’s not often that you see a domain name registrar acquire a domain name as an end user. But that happened this week as Uniregistry (or is it now Uni?) bought the domain name UniEmail.com at Sedo.

This was one of 19 end user sales I uncovered at Sedo for the past week.

One that I didn’t include because I don’t know the buyer is Club.app. It sold for just $2,000, which sets a value point for .app domains.

Here’s the list of end user sales from the past week. You can view previous lists like this here.

Lootjes.nl €29,500 – Forwards to Lootjestrekken.nl. This site lets you set up gift exchanges by pulling straws. It randomizes who your gift recipient is.

Capiche.com – A fun name but it reminds me of the spelling challenges that Gazoontite experienced back in the day. I’m not sure who bought it but the domain resolves to a page with a Capiche logo.

AutoPiter.com €9,900 – Forwards to AutoPiter.ru, a Russian auto and motorcycle parts dealer.

Chacon.com €9,850 – Chacon sells smart home goods and cameras at Chacon.be. It now has the .com to match its country code domain. I think it got a good deal on this name.

InversorGlobal.com $6,000 – This domain was purchased by Inversor Global, a Spanish Investment Firm that currently uses IGDigital.com as its main website.

Lyst.ch and Lyst.at €5,500 each – Lyst Ltd is an online fashion store that uses the domain name Lyst.com.

OmniGym.com $5,465 – Omnigym (Puuha Sports Oy) produces home fitness and gym equipment out of Finland.

CloudTechSolutions.com $4,999 – Cloud Technology Solutions is a Google Cloud Premier Partner that provides G Suite and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) solutions. The domain forwards to CloudSolutions.co.uk.

EYUP.com $3,900 – David Richards of the David and Jane Richards Family Foundation, a charitable organization whose goal is to educate, empower and improve the lives of children. For now, the domain forwards to the foundation’s website at djrff.org.

QAD.nl €2,900 – Forwards to QAD.com, an integrated business software company for manufacturing companies. The company now owns the Dutch ccTLD.

WER.io $2,800 – A new digital marketing agency whose claim is to connect the physical store aspect of businesses with digital channels, enabling an immersive, spatial computing environment and direct marketing channel between brands and consumers at the local store and online.

ChefsResource.com $2,500 – This website is still being developed but has the message posted, “We are trusted by millions of home cooks as the authority for best recipes, cooking tips, and much more”. Might be some hyperbole there since it’s a fresh install of WordPress.

LQ.be €2,200 – Lemmis Q is a French Consultancy Firm that helps organizations through structural changes using their own readiness scan based on the “Six batteries of change”. Its website is LemmisQ.com.

Viak.com – $3,500 Viak is an organization trying to make smartphones more affordable.

UniEmail.com $3,000 – Domain name registrar Uni (aka Uniregistry) bought this domain.

Arcade.one $3,000- This new site appears to be for games and has a cool coming soon page.

George.pro – €2,019 Erste Group’s George Labs, which has a banking solution called George.

RenewalTherapy.org $2,000 – Forwards to RenewalCounselling.com – an individual counseling and psychotherapy services provider.

.NZ namespace gets suspension powers after Christchurch mosque shootings

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

New powers will help remove access to certain content.

InternetNZ and Domain Name Commission logos

InternetNZ has enacted an interim policy change in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

The organization has granted Domain Name Commission (the operator of New Zealand’s .NZ) the ability to take action against domain names after extraordinary events.

Domain Name Commission’s added powers will be limited to suspending, temporarily transferring or locking a domain name. All of these actions can easily be reversed if necessary.

The idea is to give the .NZ namespace’s manager the ability to make it harder to access objectionable content such as videos of the shooting.

InternetNZ notes that:

Under this interim policy change, the Commission’s actions will need to be proportionate to the harm in question, are temporary, must be made public as soon as possible and publicly reported.

More on InternetNZ’s decision is here.