Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Website Stuff

Domain Name Industry News and Website Stuff

Featured Domains

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.

This ad sends people to Google instead of the advertiser’s website

by — Uncategorized 6 Comments

Baillie Gifford makes a risky bet.

Magazine ad for Baillie Gifford Investment Managers from The Economist, with call-to-action Search for Actual Investors

An ad in The Economist asks people to search rather than go to a website.

It’s not every day that an ad asks people to go to Google rather than directly to the advertiser’s website.

But that’s what Baillie Gifford investment managers does in a new ad campaign. The photo above is from the campaign in The Economist.

You’ll notice the call-to-action in small print in the lower left.

“Search for Actual Investors”

If you search this on Google you will see an ad for Baillie Gifford and the company has nice search positioning, too. Search Bing for the phrase and the company has an ad, but so do its competitors.

Sending people to search engines is common in Japan, but it’s a risky move for an international campaign.

Both ActualInvestor.com and ActualInvestors.com are registered by other companies. ActualInvestor.com is only $2,495 at HugeDomains.

Yes, Voice.com is the most expensive (publicly announced) domain ever sold

by — Domain Sales, Uncategorized 38 Comments

Some domain sales lists include domains that shouldn’t be on them.

Megaphone with the words Record Breaker

When MicroStrategy announced this week that it sold Voice.com for $30 million, I noted: “This is a record–by a large margin–for a public domain-only sale.”

Some people took issue with this. What about CarInsurance.com? VacationRentals.com? Each of these has been reported as a domain sale for more than $30 million.

Yes, each of these has been reported. And misreported. Sometimes by domain investors who want numbers to seem bigger and often by press making domain stories. Even GoDaddy’s own site lists these domains above its Voice.com sale.

The problem with these other sales is that they were full web businesses, not just domain names.

Another domain often on the list is PrivateJet.com at just over $30 million. Right now that domain forwards to FlyVictor.com. So you’re telling me someone paid $30 million for that domain to forward it?

PrivateJet.com was a cash and stock deal. Equity in private companies is easy to manipulate.

Let’s say Andrew Rosener of Media Options decides he wants to buy Domain Name Wire to add to his domain media properties. Instead of paying cash, he buys it with equity from a company he just set up. He and I agree the equity is worth $50 million and he gives me half of the company. Wallah, he just bought Domain Name Wire for $25 million! But we all know that’s not really the case.

If a public company buys a domain with stock and there’s no lock up and it’s liquid at that price (e.g., not a penny stock or OTC), then it’s as good as cash. But equity in a private company is not.

The best list of true domain sales is at DNJournal. There is one on the list that I have an issue with (Fund.com) due to some weird stuff with the company, but I understand why Ron Jackson included it after much questioning.

So $30 million for a domain? Yep, that’s a record by a long shot, topped only by Sex.com for $13 million. It was actually more than $30 million because the buyer, block.one, paid a commission to GoDaddy.

Of course, these are just the public sales. Most big domain sales are never made public.

DigitalTown let its domain names expire

by — Uncategorized 29 Comments

Company drops new top level domains as it becomes a shell company.

DigitalTown SEC filing image

DigitalTown, Inc. filed its delayed 10-K yesterday. It covers the fiscal year ending February 28, 2019.

The annual report discloses that the Company is no longer acquiring or renewing its domain name portfolio. It had $0 in renewal fees during the fiscal year, so many of these domains have already expired. At one point, it had 13,000 .city domain names.

DigitalTown also appears to have wound down most of its “Domain Marketing Development Obligations” in which new top level domain registries paid DigitalTown to register their domain names.

The company has sold off all of its revenue-generating assets and is effectively a shell company. It owes lots of money to creditors, which it hopes to pay off with nearly worthless stock. Shares (OTC: DGTW) last traded yesterday at $.0006. (Hey, it was up 50% on the day!)

Many of the acquisitions the company made in recent years were paid with stock. Assuming the owners didn’t liquidate this stock earlier, they have been wiped out.

 

Gail.com, the Gmail “typo”

by — Uncategorized 13 Comments

This domain name gets a ton of misdirected email.

Gmail logo with the word "not" above it.

Yesterday, I wrote about the traffic and purchase inquiries that MarTech.com gets.

It reminded me of another domain name that gets a lot of traffic and offers to purchase: Gail.com.

That’s just one letter off from Gmail.com.

And, according to the owners, it gets a ton of traffic and misdirected emails.

In 2015 it received an average of 5,000 visits a day. More sensational is that it gets 1.2 million misdirected emails per week.

(I emailed the owners about a month ago for updated numbers but did not hear back.)

The owners fought off a UDRP brought by a Brazilian company in 2006.

According to an FAQ on the site, the owners aren’t interested in selling the domain or monetizing it. They could make a lot of money monetizing it with an email data firm!