Here’s how registrars fared with .com in May.
Uniregistry recently announced that it crossed the million domain milestone. I’m not sure how Frank Schilling’s own domain names and North Sound new TLDs are accounted for, but the number is strong even if all of his domains in the total.
For the second month in a row, Uniregistry tops the transfer gains in Verisign’s monthly report.
Keep in mind that these reports are published after a three month delay. So this post is about May’s results. They certainly suggest that Uniregistry is becoming a popular registrar from a transfer-in perspective. Net adds are still lacking, though, with just 1,280 new .com registrations in May. This makes sense if the company is mostly attracting domain name investors.
Let’s start by reviewing which registrars added the most new .com domain name registrations:
1. GoDaddy* 900,737
2. eNom** 217,152
3. HiChina 157,192
4. PublicDomainRegistry 115,932
5. Tucows 106,574
When it comes to companies that won the transfer game, here are the top five registrars for May with retail operations. These numbers are the net gains after taking into consideration transfers-out:
1. Uniregistry +30,851
2. Epik +17,433
3. CSC +8,327
4. HiChina +6,691
5. Google +6,143
Epik and CSC are new to this list.
Here are the registrars that lost the most to transfers, offset by the number of inbound transfers:
1. eNom** -32,201
2. MelbourneIT -13,323
3. Network Solutions -11,538
4. Tucows -8,691
5. Moniker -8,647
GoDaddy is usually on the transfers lost list, but it had a good month when it comes to transfers. Its flagship GoDaddy.com registrar actually gained a little. Combined with reseller platform Wild West Domains, it lost 1,421.
*Includes GoDaddy and Wild West Domains **Includes eNom and Name.com, but not dropcatching registrars.
This growth does not include my/our owned and operated names. I really appreciate the work of the product, sales and development teams at uniregistry who are doing some of the best work of their careers at the moment. Very proud of them.
@Frank Schilling,
Your VP of Sales at DomainNameSales cost Uniregistry roughly 10,000 domains between breakfast and lunch not too long ago. Apparently 1 customer would have been 1/100th of Uniregistry’s total business as a registrar. You’re right that the Uniregistry sales team are doing good work – especially if they can overcome Jeff Gabriel as an ill will ambassador.
It is the true hard work of Frank Schilling’s team. Congrats. I foresee Uniregistry to be on top#1 in 2 years. But Uniregistry has to offer some coupon codes to reach the position faster
Thanks Joseph. I understand you were recently terminated from the Uniregistry sales platform by Jeff Gabriel. Our present DomainNameSales.com platform allows you to present yourself in a way that you look like an ambassador of our brand, or even an employee (to the uninitiated). You were unkind and rude to one of your clients, which reflected poorly on us. We asked you to correct that and you basically flipped us (and your buyer) the bird, unwilling to smooth things over. As a result we had no choice but to eject you, as we would have with any other customer, large or small.
I can imagine that you would not be happy about being asked to leave. When we migrate DomainNameSales.com into Uniregistry we are going to correct some of the messaging to clearer delineate between Uniregistry, broker and seller comments.
I understand and respect that you are you are self made entrepreneur and that nobody is going to “tell you” how to carry yourself in your business, but our tools are free and we ask very little in exchange for using them. If you are rude to a buyer and that buyer confuses you with us, we are going to have a problem. As Jeff has previously mentioned, you are more than welcome to return at any time if you can agree to act cordially to the customers you interact with, under the banner of our brand.
Unfortunately the confusion you speak of was created by you and you have employed it to your own utmost benefit
I recall you saying that your click is your click Frank and now my clicks have somehow become your customers
Am also tired of you saying how the tools are free
Last I checked even when you were not claiming my clients/traffic as your own you still enjoy a piece of my PPC revenues and commission on sales
Free enough for me and my bobby Megee
@Frank,
It’s unfortunate that visitors to DomainNameSales.com confuse domain owners with Uniregistry employees. But it’s doubly unfortunate that Frank Schilling honors their confusion as legitimate and uses it as a justification for Uniregistry to interfere in private commuications and take sides in negotiations.
As I explained to Jeff Gabriel, that’s a dangerous overreach. As a buyer, I can now complain to your staff whenever a seller doesn’t do as I please. Knowing that your VP will butt in and reprimand the person whose domain I want means that I have leverage to use as a weapon against any domain owner at DomainNameSales. If your VP will ban any domain owner on a flimsy pretext (provided I whine loudly) – well, that gives me a way to bully and blackmail domain owners.
My response to Jeff Gabriel was an explanation of those issues. You call that flipping you off, which shows how disappointingly out of touch Frank Schilling is with respect to the concerns of domain owners.
Those concerns are legitimate. Yet Jeff Gabriel’s sole, contemptuous answer was to ban me. He didn’t ban me for being rude to a customer; he banned me for questioning the propriety of his meddling.
The real questions here are (1) whether DomainNameSales staff ought to take sides against sellers, (2) whether private domain owners must behave like customer service reps for Uniregistry, and (3) exactly what phrases will get domain owners suddenly banned. As things stand, the only standard is Jeff Gabriel’s whim.
The question of whether or not Joseph Peterson was “unkind” is a side show. But for the record … Was I rude? Let’s see. I received a $21 offer for ArtHistory.org, which I bought for far more. Still, I responded quite politely, citing domain sales and providing links. (That kind of hand-written email is more courtesy than a buyer would receive from DomainNameSales brokers, who use impersonal templates.) I also explained that I actually intend to keep the domain, and it isn’t for sale. At this point, the woman rudely ordered me to stop contacting her. Considering that I was helping her understand the domain market, had nothing to gain, and was only responding tv her, I felt I was entitled to stand up for myself. So I reminded her that she had come knocking on my door – not the other way round. I chose a brusque tone in email #3. Rather than “Dear Ms. X”, which might make me sound like a customer service employee to be dismissed or trampled, “Listen, Lady” was designed to give her a clue.
Now, does saying “Listen, Lady” warrant expulsion from DomainNameSales.com? That’s not for me to decide. But if you are consistent, Frank, then you will need to “eject” many many many more sellers. As many as half the self-brokering domainers would be banned sooner or later if such a straitjacket standard were enforced. Plenty of sellers have told buyers to “fuck off” quite literally!
Frank, the more alarming undercurrent here is one of disrespect toward domain owners. Those of us who use your platform are regarded as “freeloaders” or employees rather than customers. It seems to me that we’re due at least as much consideration as passers by who act rudely, complain, and get coddled. Yet the attitude I’m seeing from Jeff Gabriel and (to a lesser extent) from you, Frank, is that Uniregistry “tools are free” and anyone permitted to use them must act as “an ambassador of our brand”.
Really? Those of us who park thousands of domains at your platform and – perhaps more importantly – write hundreds of personalized responses to buyer inquiries are not freeloaders. GoDaddy and Sedo don’t push domain owners around, insisting that domainers must walk and talk like their ambassadors merely because other customers are confused.
Raising those concerns with Jeff Gabriel didn’t get me any response; it got me banned. For that reason, hearing the 2 of you say that I’m “more than welcome” to come crawling back sounds ominously hollow. I’d be a fool to rely on your companies, Frank.