Patent suggests ways a registrar can decide which domains to display to customers.
Part of a diagram from GoDaddy’s latest patent related to domain name suggestions.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued patent #10,387,959 to GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) today.
The patent (pdf) for “Portfolio-based domain name recommendations” provides ways a domain name registrar can select which domain name suggestions to make to a customer.
There are many examples covered in the patent. One is to limit the number of times a domain suggestion is shown to a customer. For example, after showing it five times, the registrar may decide the customer isn’t interested and remove it from future suggestions.
Another embodiment is to show domains that are related to other ones in the customer’s portfolio based on how long the domains have been in the portfolio. GoDaddy discloses that it has found customers are more likely to register domains related to “middle-aged” domains in their portfolio as opposed to domains that have been registered a short amount of time or a very long amount of time.
Although it does not disclose what constitutes middle-aged, it gives an example of marking domain registered more than five years as old and less than one year as new.
The application includes other embodiments related to domain and SEO value.
Jeffrey Black registered IMI.com in 1994. Over two decades later he found himself in court spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to prove that he wasn’t cybersquatting on a concrete company’s brand by registering the domain. On today’s show, Black’s attorney Mike Rodenbaugh walks us through exactly what happened: why Black registered the domain, how this case proceeded all the way to a jury trial, and what happened next. 
