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My favorite domain names in the NamesCon auction

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

These are some of the most compelling names in the auction (for the price).

People holding bid cards in an auction

This year’s NamesCon live domain name auction is less than two weeks away. Prebidding is already underway with many domains already at 10+ bids.

Most of the names in the auction have a reserve. So far, the most expensive domain to meet its reserve is Multiplexer.com at $2,100.

I reviewed the list to find my favorite domains at the reserve range. There are obviously better names in the auction than many of the ones I selected, but given the reserve ranges, these are the ones I find most compelling.

Give.com (reserve > $1 million) – This domain sold for $500k in 2015. It reminds me a bit of Great.com and Super.com, which sold last year for about a million dollars each. Depending on how high over a million this domain is, it has good potential.

Lucky.com (> $1 million) – Between Lucky.io selling for $67k on park.io a few months ago, online gambling, and brands that use this name, it’s a winner.

Piano.com ($400k-$500k) – I’m thinking more as a brand than as an instrument site.

Document.com ($300k-$400k) – Files.com just sold for $750k. Document.com has more uses.

Athlete.com ($200k-$300k) – I’m including this one because it sold for $122k in the 2008 TRAFFIC auction. I’m curious if it can fetch near that amount ten years later.

Leukemia.com ($100k-$200k) – I realize this is difficult to spell but probably not for people who are fighting this horrible cancer. Health Union bought the .net last year for $9k. They build lots of sites on .net, but it might be worth spending a bit more for the .com in this case. Otherwise, perhaps a charity or drug maker can use this domain.

Adverbs.com ($5k-$10k) – I like this as a brand, but would prefer the singular version. The domain sold for $1,800 in 2011.

Bullied.com ($5k-$10k) – Perfect for a bully prevention organization or help group. This domain sold for $3,400 in 2007.

Wipeout.com ($5k-$10k) – I don’t know what you’d use it for…maybe a game? Even though it has a negative connotation, I think it’s a fun name for the right site.

The auction takes place January 28, 2019 at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas and online. It is presented by Right of the Dot in conjunction with NameJet.

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15 end user domain sales up to $60k

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

A pet products company, ceramic coatings manufacturer and truck enthusiast website bought domain names this past week.

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

This week we have end user sales from both Sedo and PerfectName.com. I’ve denoted the PerfectName sales; all others are at Sedo.

The beginning of the year is usually a good time for domain sales so I look forward to seeing a bunch of good end user sales soon.

Let’s get to the list, and you can view previous lists like this here. Click here to see the list…

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How the competitive domain registrar market keeps prices down

by — Domain Registrars 4 Comments

No matter what Verisign charges them, registrar profits on .com are limited by competition.

Last year the U.S. Government granted the ability for Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) to raise prices on .com domain names pending approval from ICANN.

Where does that extra money go? As the sole wholesaler of .com domain names, every penny that Verisign raises the price of .com domain names goes to its bottom line. Domain registrars do their best to pass the price increase on to consumers, but their margins continue to be held down by the competitive market.

Indeed, while domain registrars can charge whatever they want for .com, market forces prevent them from charging much over the wholesale cost.

Take a look at this chart from Tucows’ (NASDAQ: TCX) third quarter investor Q&A:

Chart of Tucows (TCX) revenue and gross margin from .com

It shows the revenue that Tucows generates each year from .com sales as well as the gross margin. As you can see, it sells more and more .com domains but it makes roughly the same amount of margin ($8 million) each year.

Tucows CEO Elliot Noss wrote:

… .com has a strange place for us, and I suspect most registrars. It is still by far the largest top level domain. It is still by far the one that end users want as first priority. It still dominates our discussions with resellers. And over time it has become less and less impactful to our gross margin dollars. The data, going back to the launch of OpenSRS in 2000 speaks volumes. The unit volume of .com sold goes up every year. The amount of money we pay to Verisign goes up commensurately. And the amount of money that the competitive registrar market allows us to generate stays flat. Like the prairies. Amazingly flat over now 18 years. And on a % basis it has gone from us making 40% of the .com revenue generated in 2000, all the way down to 12% in 2018. We make a little under $8 million per year on .com. That was true in both 2000 and 2018. They made roughly $19 million from our .com sales in 2000. In 2017 that number was nearly $67 million. This price increase only exacerbates that trend. And of course we believe that registrars do, by far, the lion’s share of the work to generate that revenue.

While the price of .com has increased from $6.00 to $7.85 over the past 18 years, the biggest impact on profits is competition amongst domain registrars.

Noss is also pointing out that registrars (not Verisign) do the most work to promote .com’s growth.

If .com prices increase in a couple of years, Tucows will have to pass these costs directly to customers. It will probably still generate a gross margin of about $8 million a year from .com but on a bigger revenue base.

I’ve heard the argument that Verisign should have price flexibility for .com because registrars have complete price flexibility. The difference is that Verisign has a monopoly while the registrars work in a highly competitive market.

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Create an SPF record to show that your domain does NOT send email

by — Uncategorized 3 Comments

Add an SPF record to prevent spoofing.

Picture of hooded man with email.

Add a SPF record to keep people from spoofing your domain in emails.

When it comes to email deliverability, most people are trying to figure out how to ensure their mail lands in the inbox. But what if you want to tell email providers that they should not accept email from a domain name? This might be the case if you have a parked domain that someone is trying to spoof when it sends email.

One option is to create a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record that says all mail should be rejected. To do this, go to your domain name registrar and manage the DNS for the domain.

Create a TXT record and include this text:

v=spf -all

This will tell mailbox providers that your domain name should not send any email, giving them an indication that email with your address should be considered spam.

Domain name owners should consider adding SPF records to their parked domains if they don’t use them for email.

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AddictingGames.com sues Addicting.com, claiming cybersquatting

by — Policy & Law 13 Comments

Addicting.com parked page filled with links for games.

Addicting Games screenshot

The popular online game site Addicting Games filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) yesterday against the domain name Addicting.com, claiming that the owner of the domain is cybersquatting. Addicting Games is owned by Bill Karamouzis, who was on DNW Podcast #178.

The lawsuit points out that almost all the pay-per-click links on Addicting.com, which is parked at Uniregistry, are related to games. The first link is “Addicting Games”.

One big question is when the current owner of the domain acquired it.

The lawsuit alleges:

On February 21, 2018, the registrant of the domain Addicting.com was changed from Domain Hostmaster, Customer ID : 85528474484681 to Savvy Investments, LLC Privacy ID #735277, and the registrar was changed from Fabulous.com Pty Ltd to Sea Wash, LLC.

Sea Wasp, LLC is just the business name for Fabulous, so the registrar didn’t actually change.

The Whois record is private going back to the end of 2011.

From at least as early as 2004 until the record was private, the domain was owned by a registrant in Vietnam. The domain has been parked with Uniregistry since at least 2013. So I suspect that there was not an ownership change this year, although it’s possible.

There’s a chance that the domain is currently owned by the same entity that owned it since at least 2004, which is before Addicting Games existed.

That said, the links on the parked page (which have been there since at least 2013) are definitely problematic and could present a trademark problem for the domain owner.

It will be interesting to see if the owner of Addicting.com defends the domain name in court.

David Weslow of Wiley Rein LLP is representing Addicting Games.

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