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Top 5 Domain Name Stories from August

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A look back at the past month in the domain business.

The Verizon Center in Washington D.C. is being renamed the Capital One Arena.

The top story on Domain Name Wire last month was an arena naming deal that I scooped. Other topics include data privacy, a neo-nazi website and tough times in the domain business. Here are the top five stories ranked by pageviews:

1. Verizon Center in Washington DC likely to become Capital One Center – The most viewed story last month was my scoop about a name change for the arena in Washington D.C. Using recent domain name registrations, I concluded that it would be renamed from the Verizon Center to the Capital One Arena.

2. Will May 2018 be the death of Whois? – The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) isn’t a sexy topic, but it’s going to have a major impact on domain names.

3. GoDaddy drops Uniregistry again – GoDaddy will stop offering Uniregistry domains (again). It struck a deal with Hexonet to manage Uniregistry names that are already registered with GoDaddy.

4. Google ends up with DailyStormer.com domain name – Domain name registrars and other service providers played a game of hot potato with the racist Daily Stormer website.

5. Cold winds in the domain industry? – The domain business is in a bit of a funk.

And here are the podcasts Domain Name Wire published last month:

#150 – Get ready to MERGE!
#149 – Frank Schilling talks domains
#148 – Domain name due diligence
#147 – Leverage your Domain Buys

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The Latest .Com Winners & Losers

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Latest data shows little change.

ICANN published the latest official .com transactions report from Verisign, which includes data by registrar for May 2017.

Little has changed in the top spots, with GoDaddy leading the way and Tucows, which now includes Enom, coming in second place.

Here are the top registrars in terms of new .com registrations for May:

1. GoDaddy* 930,127
2. Tucows** 190,589
3. HiChina 145,636
4. PublicDomainRegistry 124,470
5. Namecheap 122,598

Here are the top five registrars (open to the public) for net inbound transfers during the month:

1. HiChina +18669
2. GoDaddy +9,022
3. Google +7,816
4. TurnCommerce (Namebright) +6,199
5. MAFF Inc (XZ.com) +5,920

On the flip side, these five registrars saw the biggest net outflow of .com domain names due to transfers:

1. Tucows -13,170
2. PublicDomainRegistry -6,688
3. Fabulous -4,950
4. 1&1 -4,070
5. Domain.com –3979

*Includes GoDaddy and Wild West Domains **Includes Tucows and ENom.

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Blake Irving to retire from GoDaddy

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Irving out, Wagner in.

GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving announced yesterday afternoon that he will retire from GoDaddy at the end of the year.

Scott Wagner, GoDaddy’s president and chief operating officer, will take over as CEO when Irving leaves.

Irving can be credited with turning a company that was known for its racy Super Bowl ads into a family-friendly company that prizes women employees. He has been at the forefront of trying to bring equality amongst the sexes in technical positions at the domain name and hosting company. He also morphed a military/security-conscience company into one with a Silicon Valleyesque culture. Irving also led the company to its successful IPO.

Wagner has held key operational roles for the company (including interim CEO) since KKR invested in the company. Wagner was with KKR at the time and then moved into roles with GoDaddy.

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GoDaddy drops Uniregistry again

by — Domain Registrars 30 Comments

This time it appears to be permanent.

Earlier today I recorded a podcast with Frank Schilling that will air Monday morning. During the recording, Schilling informed me that GoDaddy will stop offering Uniregistry top level domain names. This isn’t the first time GoDaddy has dropped Uniregistry names, but it seems they now have put a permanent transition in place.

GoDaddy stopped offering new registrations of Uniregistry TLDs in March due to Uniregistry’s planned price hikes, but then added them back in with high prices. While new registrations are available as of today, this will soon be switched off.

I reached out to GoDaddy to ask about the decision. Mike McLaughlin, EVP & GM, Domains, replied:

GoDaddy strives to provide its customers with great product experiences wherever possible. After careful consideration, we decided to stop offering new Uniregistry domain names for sale because their pricing changes caused frustration and uncertainty with our customers.

For existing customers who have Uniregistry names, GoDaddy has partnered with Hexonet’s 1API GMBH to take over the backend management of the domain names. Customers will continue to manage their existing Uniregistry domains through the GoDaddy platform.

The deal with Hexonet is interesting. Customers who already have Uniregistry domains registered in their GoDaddy accounts will manage them as usual in their account interface. This will link to Hexonet’s backend.

The only difference customers might see is that they can no longer have Whois privacy on their Uniregistry domains. I came across this tweet from someone who received a notice about losing privacy:

For his part, Schilling is taking the decision in stride. He said GoDaddy was never a huge registrar for its domains because GoDaddy didn’t offer Uniregistry domains at launch. He also noted that the large registrar 1&1 is getting ready to offer Uniregistry domains again. Listen to the podcast on Monday to learn more.

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Rewind: Tucows for $1.00, go-go parking revenue and CreditCards.com

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A look back at the domaining world ten years ago this month.

Remember 2007? It was go-go times in the stock market and we didn’t know what was about to happen. The great recession was knocking on the door.

I just took a look back at Domain Name Wire’s archives to see what I was writing about in August 2007.

The top story that month was news that CreditCards.com filed to go public. (The IPO would be delayed due to the market meltdown later that year.)

Back then I was also writing about the strong growth in domain name registrations. Verisign estimated there were a total of 138 million registered domain names and that was up 31% year-over-year. In 2017 we’re looking at low single digit growth but there are now about 330 million registered domains.

Domain parking was still a big deal in 2007 and I was reporting RPMs (revenue per thousand views) of over $100. Those were the days!

GoDaddy was making a bid to run .US, but Neustar ended up keeping the contract.

And there was talk of a bubble in domain names, but I don’t think people foresaw the big fall in domain parking.

Oh, and shares of Tucows were trading for $1.00. If you bought shares then you’d have a 50x return after just ten years! I forgot about a four-for-one reverse split. So the return is more like 13x. Still, not bad!

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