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October’s Top 5 domain name stories

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PayPal, a fly, and some expensive domain forwards made for top domain name news last month.

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Here are the stories that attracted the most attention on Domain Name Wire last month.

1. PayPal drops Epik, sparking registrar to cry it is being “deplatformed” – PayPal wasn’t trying to deplatform the company; it had risk concerns. Regardless, Big Tech has too much power.

2. Biden campaign jumps on fly on Pence’s head with FlyWillVote.com – A quick and clever domain registration. Some people thought the fly was part of some conspiracy, though, which says a lot about the state of the nation.

3. Domain appraisal scammers try to take advantage of new GoDaddy contact system – The appraisal scam is now pretending to be a “certified” offer from GoDaddy or Sedo.

4. 3 companies paid $100k+ for domain forwards – GoDaddy released its first batch of domain sales data in years, and three of the top sales went to companies that bought the domains to forward them to other domains.

5. XYZ acquires 5 more top level domains including .Autos, .Homes – XYZ keeps adding to its top level domain stable, this time by acquiring Dominion Domains’ portfolio.

Miss a Domain Name Wire Podcast in October? Listen now:

#307 – It’s on .Fox with Crews Gore (listen)

#308 – Domain valuation with Michael Cyger (listen)

#309 – Domain leasing, selling domains and more (listen)

#310 – The domain sales stack with Reza Sardeha (listen)

XYZ acquires 5 more top level domains including .Autos, .Homes

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XYZ picks up Dominion Domains’ portfolio.

Picture of a house, yacht, boat, motorcycle and car

New top level domain name registry XYZ has acquired Dominion Domains’ portfolio of five top level domain names. The acquisition includes .autos, .homes, .boats, .yachts and .motorcycles.

This summer, XYZ bought out partner Frank Schilling for .car, .cars, and .auto.

The Dominion Domains acquisition means that XYZ now has a large collection of top level domain names related to major purchases.

XYZ founder Daniel Negari told Domain Name Wire, “2021 is going to be the biggest year yet. We are excited to launch/relaunch 10 excellent TLDs and bring more competition and choice to end users worldwide.”

Dominion Enterprises set up Dominion Domains to capitalize on its existing customer base. Dominion publishes Homes.com and Franchise.com, and also provides services to auto and marine dealers.

The company initially released its domains under a restricted model in which registrants had to be associated with the industry. The verification process, combined with high registrar onboarding fees designed to turn off third-party registrars, led to only four registrars offering its .boats and .yachts domains upon launch.

Dominion Domains later removed restrictions on its domains and re-engaged with the registrar channel. The only Dominion domain that got traction was .homes, which has over 13,000 domains in the zone. (Many of those are registered at one small registrar.) Its other top level domains each have fewer than 1,000 registrations.

XYZ has experience relaunching top level domains by restructuring their pricing and positioning, and giving them a jolt of marketing.

 

XYZ wins .car/.cars/.auto auction

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XYZ buys out Frank Schilling through auction.

A picture of a row of cars at a dealer with .car .cars .auto overlayed in yellow type and a yellow bar

XYZ won the auction for three automotive domain names.

Top level domain company XYZ has won the auction for the .car, .cars, and .auto top level domain names. ICANN posted the assignment agreements today.

XYZ partnered with Frank Schilling to bring the domain names to market, so the company effectively bought out its partner through the auction.

XYZ founder Daniel Negari told Domain Name Wire that he was unable to reveal the purchase price due to non-disclosure terms for the auction. He confirmed that there were bidders in the auction other than XYZ and Schilling.

In a written statement, Negari said:

XYZ is all in on bringing the best domain extensions to businesses and individuals around the globe. As the shift to digital accelerates, dealers and automotive businesses have even more reason to use a memorable .Cars / .Car / .Auto domain name.

XYZ continues to be active in M&A, expecting to launch 5 new domain endings in 2021: .Beauty, .Hair .Skin, .Makeup and .Quest. The XYZ Registry now owns and operates 18 domain extensions, including the most utilized new domain extension .xyz – For every website, everywhere®. We are hyper focused on increasing access and awareness to our generic domain endings and inspiring the next generation of internet users to innovate and grow their online presence.

.Car, .cars and .auto have about 1,000 registrations in total. That generates about $2 million in annual revenue, though: the domains have a wholesale price of $2,000 per year.

Frank Schilling and XYZ to sell .car, cars and .auto registries

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Three low-volume, high-price domain registries go on the auction block.

A picture of a row of cars at a dealer with .car .cars .auto overlayed in yellow type and a yellow bar

UNR and XYZ are selling three top level domains.

A partnership between Frank Schilling’s UNR and XYZ is auctioning off three domain name registries: .car, .cars and .auto. [Update 8/7/20: XYZ won the auction.]

The two companies partnered five years ago to bring the domain names to market. The three top level domains have generated combined revenues of more than $11 million so far and have a “predictable revenue stream of $1.7MM per year” with an average operating margin of 95%.

According to nTLD stats, all three registries combined have fewer than 1,000 registrations. But the partnership took a unique pricing approach to the registries. Retail prices for the domains are about $3,000 per year, significantly higher than most domains.

A new buyer could continue that strategy or choose a lower-price, higher-volume business model.

Frank Schilling told Domain Name Wire, “We both have made a lot of money from the strings and continue to, but we realize maybe the market wants it more than either of us. So this is a fair way to roll the investment.”

The auction will take place on July 13 and end the following day. Surprisingly, there will be no reserve. UNR or XYZ could technically bid in the auction under the same terms as other bidders.

Schilling noted that this is the first auction of new top level domain registries for which anyone can participate.

Innovative Auctions, which handled many of the private contention set auctions, is managing the auction.

January’s top domain name news stories

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Looking back at last month in domains.

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There was a lot of news in the domain name industry last month. Here’s a look at the top five posts on Domain Name Wire ranked by the number of pageviews.

1. This company’s domain name is a ten digit domain! – Using your telephone number as a domain name seems a little backward, doesn’t it?

2. .Com prices are going up after Verisign pays off ICANN – The optics are bad after ICANN accepts $20 million payment as part of a deal to raise .com prices.

3. Google’s new search results pages: love it or hate it? – A lot of people hate it, so Google is testing pages without favicons.

4. California Attorney General delays .org sale – The attorney general has opened an investigation into the sale and ICANN, but Public Interest Registry is pushing back on the delay.

5. XYZ to launch five top level domains this year – XYZ is on a .quest to provide more .beauty.

Here are the DNW podcasts published in January:

Podcasts:

#267 – The domain sales lander OG (listen)

#268 – Interview with Saw.com cofounders (listen)

#269 – From selling vinyl to selling domain names (listen)

#270 – A NamesCon preview with Michael Cyger and Monte Cahn (listen)

 

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