Part-owner of NameJet acquires competing service SnapNames.
Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) has acquired expired domain name service and domain marketplace SnapNames from KeyDrive.
The deal will formally be announced on Monday after the closing bell, Domain Name Wire has learned. Web.com employees tweeted about the acquisition yesterday afternoon.
Web.com marks the third corporate parent of SnapNames since 2007. In 2007 Oversee.net acquired the company. It then sold it to KeyDrive (along with domain name registrar Moniker) in 2012.
SnapNames ended up being a bad investment for Oversee.net. Shortly after the acquisition, Network Solutions (now part of Web.com) decided to pull its expired domain inventory from the service and partner with Demand Media on a competing service, NameJet.
It turns out Oversee.net was aware Network Solutions was going to do this prior to closing the deal, but it proceeded anyway.
Then it discovered that a SnapNames employee had been shill bidding on the site since before it made the acquisition. That inflated the price Oversee.net paid and it had to clean up the mess.
The divestiture by KeyDrive, which also owns Key-Systems and domain name parking service NameDrive, explains a confusing announcement last month that Moniker had a new CEO. Until then Craig Snyder had been CEO of both Moniker and SnapNames, yet KeyDrive’s initial press release didn’t mention Snyder was staying on as CEO of SnapNames. This makes more sense given the acquisition by Web.com.
KeyDrive has been embroiled in a lawsuit with the seller of NameDrive in a payment and performance dispute. It’s unclear if the sale of SnapNames is in any way connected.
Web.com’s acquisition of SnapNames will certainly have an effect on the NameJet partnership. It’s possible that both entities will be rolled into one — presumably more information will come to light Monday afternoon. The purchase price might also be disclosed if it’s a meaningful number for Web.com.
What are the odds that “Hank Alvarez” will get hired back? 🙂
…Monday after the closing bell
i hope snapnames stays seperate and maybe netsol will sell their domains there. i am not a fan of namejet. snapnames support with keydrive was horrible. maybe this will improve but if they close snapnames and move everything to namejet, i will be very disappointed.
i agree.
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I just removed my 4500 backorders from snapnames. In looking at my expenses this year, I had over 15 domains that I paid for and can’t get login info from. Snapnames won’t help. This website should just close down. It’s a disaster.
Freedom of choice is what you want; freedom from choice is what you’ve got.
Snapnames is a great opportunity to explore the wide range of services provided, and not provided, by a lot of small registrars you never knew existed.
lolololol *cough* webbusiness.biz *cough* *cough* anytimesites.com *hack*
What happens to Moniker loses another of his principles, that is now what be yours before themselves so.
It is a well known marketing strategy, if you have to compete – compete with yourself. Proctor&Gamble have been using that strategy for 50 yrs. (Endurance also follows that stategy.)
If Namejet equals 1 and Snapnames equals 1, 1+1 does not equal 2. Probably between 1.5 and 1.7. Web has a number of MBA’s and they know that business principle.
I would think the best strategy would be to let enom and netsol continue with namejet. And, put Register thru Snapnames and build up their reputation.
I was reluctant to speculate earlier but lets throw it out there anyway.
What if Web was also negotiating to buy Enom?
David Brown, the CEO of web.com is a liar, crook, and a flim flam artist. David Brown belongs in an orange jumpsuit.