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GoDaddy gets two more patents

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

Patents cover domain availability lookups and DNS templates.

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GoDaddy has added two new patents to its collection. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted two patents to the company today.

Patent #10,659,424 (pdf) – Determining status of domain name registration. The idea behind this patent is to determine if a domain name is available for registration by using the least amount of computing/connection resources as possible.

Inventors: Christopher Ambler, Moninder Jheeta, Charles Beadnall

Patent #10659423 (pdf) – System and method for modifying a domain name system template. This patent describes a way to set up DNS templates that can be applied to domain names. Some of these could be pre-set by the registrar, such as a way to connect a domain to a photo-sharing website or other third-party service. Users could also create their own templates that can be applied to multiple domains. (I use one such template to send email to Mailbox Park and web traffic to a Uniregistry lander.)

Inventors: Rich Merdinger, Nitin Gupta, Rahul Mahajan, John Roling, Karen Munoz, Steven Wiesenthal

Website Boom: Wix quantifies massive demand for websites due to Covid

by — Domain Registrars 12 Comments

People are creating websites in droves.

Image of an explosion with the words "Demand for websites and domain names is booming as businesses respond to COVID-19"

Website building platform Wix (Nasdaq: WIX) reported first quarter earnings today. It had a solid first quarter, but things got really interesting in April. As domain name companies can attest, there has been a boon in people registering domains and creating websites due to the Covid pandemic.

In April 2020 compared to April 2019:

  • 63% more people signed up for a Wix account
  • Net paying subscribers added during the month jumped 207% compared to the April 2019 growth rate
  • Collections (cash receipts) soared 76%
  • Online store subscriptions grew 580% compared to the year-ago growth
  • Online store transactions grew 110%

Earlier this year, Wix said it was too early to determine the impact Covid would have on its business. Now it has lifted its guidance going forward, citing the change in consumer behavior “creating a vast tailwind for our business.”

For Q1, both revenue and collections were up 24% compared to the same quarter of 2019. Wix’s base of paying customers increased by 162,000 to 4.7 million during the quarter and 6.9 million people registered for accounts.

Domain stocks rebound with the market

by — Domain Registrars 5 Comments

Many domain name companies are faring well during the pandemic.

Picture of stock chart with the words "domain stocks"

On March 14, I wrote about how domain name stocks fared during the pandemic market crash up through the close on March 13. The market wasn’t done capitulating, but stocks have rebounded nicely since then. The NASDAQ is up 17% since I wrote that story, the Dow is up 4% and the S&P 8%. Still, all three of the indexes are off their 2020 highs.

No domain names stocks have returned to their high prices of earlier this year, but two are up for the year: Verisign and GoDaddy.

Here’s a look at how domain stocks have fared this year.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign is up 10% for the year and is down just 2% from its high earlier this year. .Com has proven resilient in the face of the pandemic, even getting a lift from Covid-related registrations and businesses transitioning online. It doesn’t hurt that ICANN agreed to let it raise prices 7% a year for the next four years.

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in the company that owns Enom have dropped 16% from their peak on January 16 and are down 10% on the year. The price has rebounded 18% from when I published the earlier story.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): Go Daddy-O! Shares have surged 37% since March 13 and are up 11% on the year. They are down just 4% from their 2020 high.

Endurance (NASDAQ: EIGI): Shares are down 48% on the year and 53% from their 2020 high but are up 7% from the close on March 13.

CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC): I hesitated to include CentralNic and the next two companies in this post. They are thinly traded so changes might not reflect the current market. But CentralNic’s shares are now even for the year and off just 4% from their high at the beginning of the year. The stock is up 27% since the last story.

MMX (London AIM: MMX): New top level domain operator MMX (Minds + Machines) has seen its stock fall 26% from its peak on February 7. It’s down 8% on the year and down 1% since the last story.

NameSilo (OTC: URLOF): Shares in this registrar are down 54% since January 9. The stock is down 50% on the year and has dropped a further 9% since March 13.

I do not own individual shares in publicly-traded domain name companies to avoid a conflict of interest. Mutual funds I own, including index funds, do hold some of these stocks.

Top domain name registrars

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

A monthly look at the latest .com data

Image of man running up column chart with words "Top 10 Registrars"

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers January 2020.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 1,060,845 (904,896 in December)
2. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 205,518 (165,119)
3. Namecheap Inc. 197,210 (162,806)
4. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 140,818 (154,234)
5. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 138,028 (127,652)
6. Alibaba (HiChina) 116,153 (155,992)
7. Dynadot 82,150
8. Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) 77,686 (64,869)
9. West 263 73,295
10. 1&1 71,196

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of December 2019.

1. GoDaddy* 52,061,831 (51,788,723 in December)
2. Tucows** 12,807,781 (12,837,586)
3. Web.com++ 7,137,113 (7,154,081)
4. Endurance+ 6,810,266 (6,807,222)
5. Alibaba 5,852,372 (6,014,079)
6. United Internet^ 5,507,431 (5,508,700)
7. Namecheap 5,322,270 (5,232,862)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 4,136,931 (4,286,667)
9. Google 3,199,382 (3,109,392)
10. GMO 2,296,219 (2,278,000)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions, Register.com, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you



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