But who owns it? ICANN has approved the transfer of domain name registrar Epik to new ownership, the registrar said. In a press release dated yesterday, the registrar said: After a rigorous, months-long review process, the Internet Corporation ... Continue Reading1 Comment
Starboard continues to push GoDaddy to expand margins
· Domain RegistrarsInvestor demands attainable growth targets with improved margins. Activist investor Starboard has sent another letter (pdf) to GoDaddy's (NYSE: GDDY) management and board, pushing the company to hit growth and margin targets. The investor first ... Continue Reading5 Comments
Team Internet reports growth for 2023
· Domain RegistrarsThe company generated double-digit revenue growth in 2023. Team Internet Group (AIM: TIG), formerly known as CentralNic, previewed its 2023 earnings today. The company said gross revenue was around $835 million, gross profit was $190 million, ... Continue ReadingLeave a Comment
Namecheap earnings: $336M revenue, 17.7 DUMs in 2023
· Domain RegistrarsSecond-largest retail registrar continues strong growth. Namecheap, a privately held domain registrar and services business, has released its 2023 earnings results to Domain Name Wire. The company grossed $335.6 million in 2023, up 15.2% from ... Continue Reading4 Comments
A flaw in GoDaddy’s Whois contact form
· Domain RegistrarsThe form doesn't verify the email address. Shenanigans ensue. Most Whois records are now private in the wake of GDPR. However, ICANN requires registrars to enable a way for people to send a message to domain name owners. GoDaddy does this via a ... Continue Reading2 Comments
New registrations plummet after Squarespace takes over Google Domains
· Domain RegistrarsUnsurprisingly, the strong brand name mattered. Squarespace acquired Google Domains on September 8, 2023, and we now have an idea of how important the Google brand name was to ginning up registrations there. ICANN has published data from .com ... Continue Reading19 Comments
The biggest 20 domain name registrars across all ICANN-TLDs
· Domain RegistrarsRanking the biggest registrars by domains under management. Each month, I publish a report of the top 10 domain name registrars in .com domain names. This report is based on data that registries submit to ICANN every month. ICANN publishes data ... Continue Reading1 Comment
2023 top stories: An Epik failure
· Domain RegistrarsEpik was a big story for the second year in a row. One of last year's top stories was still a story this year. Last year, domain name registrar Epik ran into trouble. In September 2022, Epik announced that Rob Monster was departing as CEO. ... Continue Reading4 Comments
Top stories: Squarespace buys Google Domains
· Domain RegistrarsGoogle exited the domain name business this year, giving Squarespace a huge opportunity. Perhaps the most surprising news this year was Squarespace's acquisition of Google Domains. Squarespace (NYSE: SQSP) announced the $180 million acquisition ... Continue Reading1 Comment
.Com domain registrars, ranked
· Domain RegistrarsHere's how domain registrars fared with .com in the most recent public data. ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers August 2023. Note that the ... Continue Reading1 Comment