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April’s Top Stories

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Here’s what happened in domain names last month.

These are the top five stories on Domain Name Wire last month ranked by pageviews.

1. Clothing company tries to reverse hijack domain name – A European clothing brand filed a “factually misleading” cybersquatting case.

2. When you buy a dead person’s domain name – This group had to change its domain name after the founder died and the domain expired.

3. Time is running out to reject unlimited .Org (and other) prices – You’re out of time to comment on .info and .org but .biz is still open.

4. Sheryl Sandberg loses cybersquatting claim over LeanIn.com domain name – Her foundation uses the domain name LeanIn.org and wanted to get LeanIn.com.

5. The .App “junk drop” is coming – The first year anniversary for .app has arrived and you can expect a lot of domain names to expire.

Podcasts:

#234 (listen) – Find out how Drew Wash’s domain development challenge worked out.
#233 (listen) – Learn how to sell with Brian Harbin.
#232 (listen) – Understand .Inc’s high-cost business model.
#231 (listen) – Hear why Trevor Mauch spent $600,000 on Carrot.com.
#230 (listen) – Learn Joshua Schoen’s domain acquisition strategy.

The .App “junk drop” is coming

by — Expired Domains 9 Comments

Expired domains are coming as first anniversary nears.

Image of trash with "The Junk Drop" written on it

In terms of domain name registration volume, .App has been a big success for Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL). The company’s .app top level domain name has nearly 400,000 domains in the zone after 11 months of general availability.

The one year anniversary of general availability is May 8, and that means the inevitable “junk drop” is coming.

The term refers to all the speculative (and sometimes defensive) domain name registrations that registrants drop one year after a top level domain launches. With so many domains coming up for renewal on the anniversary, domains under management inevitably drops.

It will be over a month after the anniversary before we get a clear picture of renewals and drops because of the grace period.

There doesn’t seem to be much of an aftermarket for .app domain names despite high registration volumes. Namebio shows a total of 15 public sales. I received multiple offers for Voicemail.app but none resulted in a sale.

 

Year in Review: .App domain names

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Google’s .App launch brought visibility to new top level domains.

Photo of iPhone screen with apps

It’s been a while since a top level domain name launch caught mainstream attention but Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) launch of .App made waves in 2018.

Perhaps it’s because it is a great string. (Google paid $25 million to acquire rights to the domain.) Perhaps it’s because Google was behind it. Whatever the reason, .app took off.

People registered 7,500 domains during early access. Over 100,000 domains were registered within a day of general availability in May. As of the end of the year, there were over 350,000 registrations.

All of this happened despite two potential roadblocks to registering .app domains. First, there was no heavy discounting. Second, an SSL certificate is required to use a .app domain name.

The SSL is required because .app is on the HSTS preload list. This makes it tricky to park .app domains, but some people came up with solutions to this.

Buying an existing .app domain can be tricky, too. Even before GDPR took effect Google had already obscured Whois records, making it impossible to figure out who owns a .app domain.

Google subsequently launched .page but that domain hasn’t cracked 10,000 registrations.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Google launches .Dev in early 2019.

Top Domain Name Stories from May

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A whole lot of GDPR.

Here’s a look at the top stories on Domain Name Wire last month, ranked by pageviews:

1. Google has already GDPR’d its Whois records – Google Registry began limiting the data in Whois records well before the May 25 deadline.

2. ICANN files legal action against Tucows registrar over GDPR – And it didn’t get the answer it wanted.

3. GoDaddy will continue publishing most domain owner data – In news welcomed by many people in the domain name ecosystem, GoDaddy decided to keep most Whois information public for people outside the EU.

4. Here’s why it’s going to be hard to sell your .App domain names – .App came out with a roar in May. But selling domains is going to be difficult because of a lack of public Whois (see story #1) and because you have to install an SSL certificate in order for a .app domain to resolve. Some services have come to the rescue.

5. Sahar Sarid arrested on charges related to Mugshots.com A domain investor connected to Mugshots.com got his own mugshot.

If you missed any podcasts, take some time this weekend to listen:

#187 – Drew Wash develops businesses on premium domains – Listen

#186 – Building an Ecommerce business on your domain name – Listen

#185 – Jen Sale of Evergreen – Listen

#184 – Jean-Noël Frydman discusses his France.com saga – Listen

Tool makes it possible to park .App domain names

by — Domain Parking 11 Comments

Free system generates an SSL on your domain name and forwards it to popular domain sales services.

If someone wants to buy your .app domain name they won’t be able to use Whois to contact you. Google Registry does not show .app domain owner information in Whois.

That means you have to park the domain name so people can fill out a contact form to inquire about buying the domain. That’s not easy, either; the domain name you have must have an SSL certificate installed in order to forward to another page.

A domain investor created a simple and free tool to make forwarding domains to landing pages possible: DomainSales.app.

The system is very basic but does just what you need it to. When you submit a domain and point your nameservers to it, it gets a free LetsEncyrpt SSL certificate for your domain. You can then choose to forward the domain to landing pages for many different services: Afternic, Epik, Efty, Sedo, Undeveloped, and Uniregistry as of today.

To see it in action, visit Voicemail.app.