Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Website Stuff

Domain Name Industry News and Website Stuff

Featured Domains

“Libra” top trending keyword in .com

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Verisign confirms that people are registering Libra domains like crazy.

Picture of mobile phone with Facebook Libra cryptocurrency logo and representations of bitcoin

Verisign has published its monthly list of trending keywords in .com and, not surprisingly, Libra led the list.

Facebook announced the Libra cryptocurrency last month and people started registering Libra domains in droves. That’s pretty dumb, but I suppose it could drum up new business for lawyers.

The trending keyword list takes a look at the terms that made the biggest leap in new registrations compared to the month prior. Here’s the full list:

1. Libra
2. Snafu
3. Psychedelic
4. Currency
5. Ceramic
6. Employer
7. Pottery
8. Impact
9. Regenerative
10. Manual

I should caution that a single registrant registering lots of domain names can push a domain into the top 10.

June’s top DNW stories

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Here’s a look back at June in the domain name industry.

Top 5 etched into a rubber stampThese were the top five stories on Domain Name Wire last month, as ranked by pageviews.

1. Gail.com, the Gmail “typo” – This domain name gets a lot of traffic and even more misdirected email.

2. DigitalTown let its domain names expire – DigitalTown, a company that registered lots of second level domains under new TLDs, is letting all of its domains expire as it effectively winds down existing operations.

3. GoDaddy adds its branding to ‘for sale’ landers – Potential domain buyers will see a brand they instantly recognize and trust.

4. Clothing company fails to upgrade domain name through UDRP – I’m surprised the panelist didn’t consider reverse domain name hijacking.

5. Record breaker: Voice.com domain name sells for staggering $30 million – Microstrategy’s sale to a blockchain company smashed the previous record.

Missed a podcast? Get caught up here:

#241 (listen) – Adam Strong and I discuss the Voice.com sale and one word domains

#240 (listen) – Joe Uddeme walks through a process for finding end users to buy domains.

#239 (listen) Nicolai Bezsonoff, current VP & GM of Registry Services at Neustar, talks about how he got into domains and how he views the market today.

The web is English, but ccTLDs aren’t

by — Uncategorized 4 Comments

New report quantifies the use of local languages on country code domain names.

Chart showing us of local languages vs. English in country code domain names. Covers .cat, .ch, .dk, .nl, .nu, .pt, .ru/.рф, .se, .sk.

CENTR’s report shows that local languages are popular on ccTLDs.

Over half of websites have English as their primary language, but there’s a big difference between languages on each top level domain.

CENTR, an organization representing European country code top level domain (ccTLD) operators, worked with Oxford Information Labs to analyze language use in ccTLDs.

All told, it analyzed ten ccTLDs representing 16.4 million domains from territories in which English is not the primary language.

The principal languages spoken in the country or territory comprised at least 64% of the content in the zone, and the average rate per TLD was 76% (see chart above).

The numbers are even higher for domains that allow internationalized domain names.

You can download the report, which analyzes .cat, .ch, .dk, .nl, .nu, .pt, .ru/.рф, .se, .sk, on CENTR’s website.

Mailchimp has challenges with non-ASCII characters

by — Uncategorized 6 Comments

Mailchimp supports IDNs in domain names, but not the username portion of email addresses.

Graphic indicating universal acceptance of non-ASCII characters in domain names and email addresses. //*.*//

I recently received an email from ICANN’s Universal Acceptance Outreach group about an error on Domain Name Wire.

Universal Acceptance refers to websites working with all top level domains as well as non-ASCII characters. Internet users can submit reports to ICANN about sites that don’t work with these and ICANN sends a notice to the site owner.

In my case, someone tried to sign up for the Domain Name Wire newsletter and got this error:

The username portion of the email address is invalid (the portion before the @: [redacted])

The username had a non-ASCII character in it.

As it turns out, Mailchimp supports international characters in the domain name portion of email addresses, but not the username.

I reached out to Mailchimp to find out if the company plans to support and a spokesperson told me, “We don’t have plans to implement IDNs in usernames at this time, but are always considering changes to the platform based on customer needs.”

I followed up to ask if this was a technical or demand issue, and Mailchimp responded:

From a technical standpoint there are many factors to evaluate in supporting IDNs in usernames. Currently, we don’t have the demand for this change, but we’re always listening to our customers and looking to provide the most useful service we can.

NamesCon wraps European event, sets locations for next 3

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

European event attracts a worldwide crowd to Portugal.

Group photo of attendees at NamesCon Europe 2019

Attendees at NamesCon Europe in Portugal this past weekend.

NamesCon’s European show finished this past weekend in Cascais, Portugal. About 160 people attended and the live auction brought in $250,000 in sales. (The live auction continues online.)

Show organizers announced the locations for the next three European shows:

  • NamesCon Europe 2020 – Budapest
  • NamesCon Europe 2021 – Rome
  • NamesCon Europe 2022 – Cologne

The German location should be a winner given all of the domain name companies in Germany. Sedo is based in Cologne.

Next up for NamesCon is the U.S. show in Austin, Texas, January 26-29, 2020. Early bird tickets are now available for that show.