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Domain companies with fanatical customers

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Domain companies that have fanatical customers often have these shared traits.

This morning I was reading a thread on NamePros about domain registrars. Someone was asking for recommendations on which registrar to choose. Some names kept coming up including Epik and NameSilo. Others mentioned GoDaddy, Namecheap and Dynadot.

Having someone recommend your company to potential customers is the holy grail of marketing. And it’s not really marketing. It’s just about offering a great product or service at a good price.

There are some domain name companies that come up often as recommendations. Here are some things these companies typically have in common:

  • They are active on domain forums and blogs, responding to both praise and criticism.
  • They have easy-to-contact point people to help customers when they experience a problem.
  • They do some level of marketing in the industry.
  • They go to industry conferences.
  • They offer a good customer experience.
  • They have reasonable prices (not necessarily the lowest).
  • They don’t bait-and-switch, which leads to lost goodwill.
  • They help customers achieve their goals–whether that is to sell more domains, more easily manage their portfolio or something else.
  • They recognize that their product/service isn’t flawless and are open to ideas on how to fix it.

Am I missing anything?

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Web.com is now a private company

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

Siris Capital takes Web.com private.

It’s official: Web.com is now a private company.

Shareholders approved an acquisition by Siris Capital Group yesterday. They got a bit of a bump from when the deal was originally announced at $25.00 per share; all shareholders received $28.00 per share. The deal was about $2 billion including debt.

Web.com owns Network Solutions and Register.com, two high-priced registrars. It also owns SnapNames and a 50% stake in rival expired domain service NameJet. Web.com owns a portfolio of domain names it has captured from the expiry stream as well.

The company has struggled to find its footing of late and was facing investor pressure.

Web.com traded under the symbol WEB on the NASDAQ.

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Namecheap releases interesting data about domain registrations

by — Domain Registrars 3 Comments

Report looks and recent and historical data on domain registrations at the registrar.

Namecheap released a report today with data about its customers and their choice of top level domain names. The report includes data from the past ten years as well as more recent data incorporating new top level domains.

It can be difficult to compare registration data that doesn’t take into consideration the price of domain names; indeed, Namecheap excluded .xyz and Famous Four Media’s domains from some of its calculations.

Here’s what I found interesting:

1. .US was within the top three most-registered country code domains among Namecheaps customers from January 2017-June 2018. That’s not a huge surprise. The surprise is that it’s among the top three for registrants from Asia, Europe, Africa and South America in addition to the United States. It’s the #1 country code domain amongst Namecheap’s Asian customers. Perhaps promotions played a role.

2. Over the past ten years, June has been the most active month for domain registrations at Namecheap. November and October are #2 and #3, respectively.

3. Nearly half of Namecheap’s customers have registered just one domain with the company:

The full report is available to download on Namecheap’s website.

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Uniregistry is rolling out a paid discount plan

by — Domain Registrars 31 Comments

Some customers are told to pay plan fees in order to retain discounts.

Uniregistry Perks provides domain discounts in return for an annual account surcharge.

Domain name registrar Uniregistry rolled out a new discount plan at the beginning of the month that requires a monthly subscription.

I was alerted to the plan by a Uniregistry customer who says he was informed his prices would go up unless he subscribed to one of the plans. I have only 22 domains registered at Uniregistry and have not received any such notice.

The plans charge a fee to activate discounts on new and renewal billing. The cheapest plan is $108 per year.

It appears that the best plan offers .com domains for $8.59 compared to Uniregistry’s standard pricing of $10.88.

Interestingly, the plans are more expensive if you have more domains under management. GoDaddy has offered its Domain Discount Club for a long time and it charges the same fee no matter how many domains you have under management.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Uniregistry waives the discount fees on larger portfolios. I can’t imagine the company losing a 50,000 domain portfolio over a $219-per-month surcharge.

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Bob Parsons resigns from GoDaddy’s board

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Parson’s long exit from GoDaddy oversight is complete.

Bob Parsons with wife Renee. Photo from BobParsons.com.

Bob Parsons has resigned from the board of GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY), the company he founded in 1997 that made him a billionaire.

In a press release, GoDaddy said that Parsons will spend more time on his other businesses and philanthropic ventures.

Parsons hasn’t been involved day-to-day at GoDaddy for some time. He resigned as CEO in 2011 when he sold the company to a consortium of private equity firms. Parsons was Executive Chairman of the board until 2014 when he switched to just being a board member.

Although I butted heads with Parsons a few times as he built his company, there’s no denying that his entrepreneurial success is not a fluke. He sold his first company to Intuit for $64 million. He then started what later become GoDaddy and watched his cash pile dissolve until the company started selling domain names.

He recounts the story of when the company almost went bust. He had a few million dollars left in the bank and went on vacation to figure out if he wanted to shut down the company. He saw a valet there who seemed very happy parking cars. At that point he made the decision: he’d press ahead with the company; if it failed, he could always be happy doing something else. That turned out to be an excellent decision.

Parsons is a Marine and Purple Heart recipient. His experience in the Marines impacted how he ran the company; there was a focus on physical security. The culture has changed significantly since he left. Internally, the security culture of the company has given way to a Silicon Valley-friendly environment. The company has also eliminated controversial marketing techniques that many called sexist.

Since selling GoDaddy, Parsons has invested in a variety of companies including a golf club maker, marketing firm and real estate. He has also contributed to charities through The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation.

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