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Dynadot CEO Todd Han – DNW Podcast #141

by — Podcasts 5 Comments

How a bootstrapped domain name registrar attracted a loyal following.

dnw-podcastWhat’s it like bootstrapping a domain name registrar for 15 years? Find out today as we talk with Todd Han, CEO of Dynadot. The mid-sized registrar has had to grow organically while battling a maze of regulation, but it has found a loyal following. There are some great business discussions in this week’s episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:33 — 29.3MB) | Embed

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Dynadot to host domain name meetup in San Francisco in July

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

Domain meetup to take place in the center of the tech universe.

Domain name registrar Dynadot is hosting a meetup in San Francisco next month. I’m not aware of any recent domain name meetups in the city, and you’d think it would be a hotbed for this sort of event.

The meetup will take place July 27 from 6-9 PM at the Triple Voodoo Brewery at 2245 3rd Street San Francisco, CA, 94107.

Registration is free and the event is open to anyone 21 and over.

I’m a big fan of meetups like this. It’s a great way catch up with people in the industry between conferences. Given Dynadot’s customer base and its location in San Francisco, this should also be a good meetup for networking with startups as well.

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WikiLeaks Domain Not Shut Down, Just DNS

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Domain name not seized or shut down; DNS provider takes action.

A story on Guardian.co.uk screams “WikiLeaks fights to stay online after US company withdraws domain name”.

This headline is misleading and suggests that the WikiLeaks.org domain name has been shut down. This is incorrect. When you actually read the story, it says that Everydns took the site down. Everydns was only providing DNS services to Wikileaks. The WikiLeaks.org domain name is registered with Dynadot, which does not appear to have taken any action on the domain name. Really all WikiLeaks.org needs to do is change DNS providers.

Still, the domain name is at risk. Dynadot is a U.S. company and the .org registry is based in the U.S.

Wikileaks is shifting to several alternatives, including country code domain names.

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Domain Security: Dynadot Offers Two-Factor Authentication

by — Domain Registrars 4 Comments

Dynadot secures domains with mobile phone security.

In April I wrote a few stories about domain name security tools offered by various registrars. One tool I missed was Dynadot’s SMS security tool.

It works like this:

Account holder receives a 6-digit code (sent via SMS) on his cellphone and then enters the code in his Dynadot account before he can do the following:

– Get a domain’s auth code
– Unlock his domains
– Change his account information

All 6-digit codes expire 1 hour after they have been sent. The account holder gets 3 tries to enter in the correct code. If he enters in the wrong code too many times, the system will automatically lock down the account.

Dynadot tells me they created this system in house.

As security concerns grow, more and more domain name registrars are offering security tools like this. And many of them are offering the tools for free. If your registrar isn’t offering similar free tools, you should start pushing them to do so.

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Dynadot Offers VeriSign’s Expired Domain Data Treasure Trove

by — Expired Domains 6 Comments

Dynadot extends data use to customers.

VeriSign DynadotLast year VeriSign quietly started offering its Internet Profile Service (IPS) to domain name registrars. The service provides traffic data on pending delete domain names. Since VeriSign runs the DNS for .net and .com, it has access to data that most other sources don’t have.

Now domain name registrars are beginning to make the same data available to their customers. One of the first is Dynadot, which offers IPS to bulk customers. (Bulk customers spend $500 or more a year with the registrar. If you open a new Dynadot account, you can prepay $500 to become a bulk customer and get access to the data immediately. Dynadot also offers to send the current daily report for free so you can see if it’s worth it before signing up. Just send an email to info@dynadot.com with your request.)

IPS’ data set is rich, including non-existent domain and existent-domain traffic data. For example, here’s some of the data on a few domains currently going through pending delete:

verisign-ips

The first two numbers represent a scale of the amount of traffic the non-existent domains are receiving for the last six days, as well as over four weeks. It’s on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest.

IPS also includes traffic data from the three months before the domain expired, a traffic score, the number of incoming links, and about a half dozen other metrics.

When using IPS to find domains with traffic, you should look for consistent traffic from the three months of data, as well as high scores for non-existent domain queries for both the last 6 days and four weeks.

With IPS, you can actually register expired domains at retail prices after they expire that still have traffic, and target them without the no-longer free practice of domain tasting. Granted, without marrying the database to a pay-per-click database, you won’t be able to estimate parking revenue. The data will be more valuable when a company such as FreshDrop integrates it into drop analysis systems.

Most of the domains on the list will be domains from previous web sites, so traffic will likely fall over time. You should also be wary of trademarks and trademark typos when using the data.

Also keep in mind that there is no data on domains that are sold through exclusive deals with NameJet, SnapNames, TDNAM etc. because these are usually sold before the domains reach pending delete status.

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