Dominik Mueller's Blog

Pizza Hut to rebrand as The Hut?

Dominik Mueller — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:00:39 +0000

Pizza Hut could slowly be rebranding as The Hut, according to several reports in marketing and media publications. The company has been adding pasta dishes to its menu lately, which also caused it to rebrand as Pasta Hut in the UK in 2008 (a decision I haven’t been fond of, either), so I can understand why Pizza Hut feels the need to change its name, in addition to appealing to a younger audience often referring to Pizza Hut simply as “The Hut”. However, Pizza Hut has been an established brand name for so many years, making me think dropping that name could alienate some customers. In addition to that, I also doubt that this is the right time for a rebranding.

Moreover, the company has again forgotten about buying its different company names as domain names prior to the announcement. As of this writing, TheHut.com is owned by an ecommerce company in the UK, and Hut.com is under whois privacy and forwarding to a parked page. The hyphenated version The-Hut.com is parked as well and marked as for sale. Pizza Hut/The Hut better be ready to fork out a lot of money if it wants to acquire these domain names now that everybody knows about the rebranding. Heck, it hasn’t even acquired any other variations, yet. Both Hut.net and TheHut.net are owned by iREIT (registered in 2000 and 2001 respectively). Hut.co.uk forwards to a custom parked page and TheHut.co.uk is owned by the aforementioned TheHut.com group. And don’t get me started on Pizza.com, which Pizza Hut should have bought in 2008, but which was later sold to National A-1.

I’m scratching my head over how a company with such a well-known brand could want to drop it basically overnight. The rebranding is even more risky given today’s unstable economic environment, where a valuable brand name, which is recognized by customers all around the world, is something you can fall back on. Anyway, Pizza Hut has already tested new, red pizza delivery boxes with the name “The Hut” on them, according to a BrandWeek interview with Pizza Hut CMO Brian Niccol. But it’s also important to say that no Pizza Hut spokesperson has officially confirmed the rebranding, yet, so maybe they will decide against it in the end given the mixed media coverage.

(Hat tip to Owen Frager.)

Pizza Hut to rebrand as The Hut?

Lexus blocking GoDaddy commercial

Dominik Mueller — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:43:19 +0000

In a rather surprising move, Japanese automaker Lexus is blocking a GoDaddy commercial that was set to air twice during the upcoming US Open. In the TV commercial named “Speeding“, GoDaddy model Danica Patrick is driving a custom Ford Mustang, an American car.

Lexus is NBC’s main television sponsor of the sports event and it has enforced that no other automakers shall be allowed to advertise on the channel during the US Open broadcast.

You can look at Lexus’ decision from two points of view. On one side, it was an unlucky decision, because blocking a US company from advertising during a major tournament held in the United States won’t bring positive publicity for the Japanese company. On the other hand, Lexus and Ford clearly are competitors, so blocking the marketing efforts of a company that is in trouble already could increase Lexus’ chances of gaining on Ford in the United States. The only thing is, it is not Ford but GoDaddy, an Internet company, that wants to air its television commercial. So Lexus is blocking a technology company it’s not competing with, only because there is another car in that commercial?

GoDaddy isn’t selling cars. It is selling domains, as everybody clearly knows, and the TV commercial is in no way misleading in this regard. The conflict with Lexus isn’t necessarily bad for GoDaddy, though. The domain registrar company has already started to capitalize on this by issuing a press release about it to basically further push its brand and identity as an “American company”.

Oh yeah, is it possible that this is just a publicity stunt by GoDaddy? In any case, GD is going to benefit from this the one way or the other.

Lexus blocking GoDaddy commercial

Steve Jobs underwent liver transplant

Dominik Mueller — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:15:54 +0000

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, 54, had a liver transplant about two months ago, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. There has been lots of speculation about Jobs’ health condition since he first addressed this issue at an Apple event in October. It was obvious that Jobs was seriously ill, given his worsening physical shape at that time.

Jobs is going to return to Apple part-time in late June or early July already, but his future position in the company remains uncertain. It is possible that Apple COO and interim CEO Tim Cook will play a more important leading role and that he will be voted to the company’s board of directors soon.

During Jobs’ time off Cook was able to double Apple’s stock price. Although this can hardly be ascribed to Cook’s transitional role as CEO, some analysts think he would be the right person to lead Apple in the future.

Steve Jobs underwent liver transplant

What’s the value of a domain nobody wants to buy?

Dominik Mueller — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:11:40 +0000

What is an asset worth if no-one wants to buy? That’s the title of a post I read on Reuter’s DealZone blog today. I don’t want to comment on that specific article here, but the title triggered an interesting question about a phenomenon one can observe in the domain industry every day:

Overpricing, or at least, different perceptions of value by buyers and sellers. So, what is a domain worth if there is nobody who wants to buy it? If there is nobody willing to pay your asking price?

This is an interesting topic, because, technically, an asset doesn’t become completely worthless if there is no buyer for it in the current market. But the problem is, if there is no buyer, you will not be able to sell the asset and you will not make any money.

Domain valuations are always subjective. That’s the problem. Domains are still more complicated to objectively evaluate compared to real estate, for example, because there are no proven, commonly accepted appraisal methods. We have no appraisal standards in the domain industry and numeric factors of value, such as keyword searches and pay-per-click prices, are changing quickly.

That is one reason why you see hundreds, if not thousands of domains being offered for sale on domain forums or on eBay for prices a rational investor can only laugh at. I would argue that there are more meaningless low-quality domains on the market than there are buyers. So many domains no sane investor would want to buy.

But what’s the value of those domains? The buyers and neutral observers will say those domains are worthless, but from the owners’ point of view the situation is obviously quite different. There are still so many disillusioned domain sellers in the market that I can hardly believe it. If there are absolutely no buyers for a domain, chances are that its sale value is very close to zero.

If you just can’t find any buyer for your domain name, no matter how hard you try, carefully reconsider the asking price. If this still doesn’t help, maybe the domain isn’t as good as you initially thought it was, and you should perhaps find another way of getting rid of it.

The bottom line is, if there is nobody in the market you can sell the domain to and if you won’t turn it into a profitable project yourself, the domain is worthless. You shouldn’t hold a domain for investment that nobody else wants to buy. Don’t fall in love with your domains. Renewing worthless domains won’t improve your situation, it will only cause more headaches.

What’s the value of a domain nobody wants to buy?

Yahoo sells Contests.com to National A-1 for $380,000

Dominik Mueller — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:46:19 +0000

On Tuesday, the domain name Contests.com was sold for $380,000 in the Aftermarket.com live domain auction held at the Domain Roundtable conference in Washington, DC. It was sold by Yahoo, and went to National A-1, a well-known buyer of generic domain names.

Some bloggers and domain investors have already commented on the auction’s top sale, mostly saying the domain should have sold for more. TechCrunch, for example, said Yahoo was “selling killer domain names on the cheap“. I disagree with this statement.

I think $380,000 is a fair price for Contests.com in today’s market. The reserve price was set at $150,000, so the domain was ultimately sold for more than twice the reserve. This shows that the seller, Yahoo, was willing to let the domain go for much less than the final sale price. The buyer, National A-1, on the other hand, may have been willing to bid higher. But we will never find out, so speculating about this makes little sense. Instead, we should take this as a sign that generic domain names are still trading at good market prices, even in today’s difficult economic situation. In an ideal setting, maybe it would have been possible for the domain to go for $400k to $500k, but I’m no fan of “what if” debates.

National A-1 got a good domain at a fair price. It didn’t overpay, but it didn’t get a steal from today’s perspective, either. Yahoo was able to sell a domain that it would probably not have put to good use in the foreseeable future and turned it into much-needed cash. What’s not to like about this transaction?

Yahoo sells Contests.com to National A-1 for $380,000

JetBlue’s YouTube Marketing Strategy

Dominik Mueller — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:31:02 +0000

JetBlue had its first flight from New York to Los Angeles yesterday, and the airline has packed its BetaBlue plane full of well-known YouTube personalities and bloggers to market its new air route. BetaBlue is the company’s only plane with wireless Internet access.

I think it’s a creative marketing strategy to give famous bloggers and YouTube video producers a free flight in exchange for buzz on the Internet that is likely to quickly reach hundreds of thousands of potential new customers. Nowadays, no medium gets the word out as fast as the Internet. It also shows that businesses rely more heavily on the web when it comes to marketing. It’s no secret that the advertising dollars are migrating from the old-fashioned media to the world wide web, and this trend will only continue in the future.

The Internet is the perfect marketing tool, not only because it has paved the way for targeted advertising methods such as Google AdWords, which have made it easier to make educated advertising decisions and drive efficiency, but also because it encourages word of mouth and viral marketing like no other medium.

(via AdAge)

JetBlue’s YouTube Marketing Strategy

Facebook Usernames, or Vanity URLs

Dominik Mueller — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:01:15 +0000

Today, I successfully applied for my so-called Facebook username, which is actually a vanity URL. The new URL of my Facebook profile is Facebook.com/DominikMueller.

I think it’s been a great idea of Facebook to introduce these usernames, because the actual profile URLs are very long, cryptic and impossible to type in. Other social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter have been using vanity URLs for a long time.

According to Facebook, you can choose a username on a first-come, first serve basis. You can apply for your personal username on Facebook.com/Username. If I’m not mistaken, it’s also possible to secure generic keywords instead of a username or your real name. For example, it should be possible to apply for terms such as Facebook.com/DomainSeller, …/TravelAgent, …/Money and so on.

If you already have applied for a username, did you get your username of choice? And what is it?

Facebook Usernames, or Vanity URLs

Domain for Sale: Diabulimia.com

Dominik Mueller — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:00:30 +0000

The domain name Diabulimia.com is on auction at SnapNames. (…) *Update: Domain has been sold.*

Diabulimia is a portmanteau word of diabetes and bulimia. It refers to a specific form of eating disorder in which patients having Type 1 diabetes choose to give themselves less insulin than they need, because they want to loose weight. Diabulimia is a bad disorder that can be very dangerous to its victims due to the fact that both diabetes and bulimia will harm the body of those suffering from diabulimia. For more information on diabulimia, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabulimia.

Domain for Sale: Diabulimia.com

Recommended Domain Registrars

Dominik Mueller — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:00:00 +0000

After having written about what to consider when registering domain names, I’m now going to recommend a few domain registrars to you that I think are not only safe places for your domains but that also offer affordable prices, value-added services and a reliable customer support.

Structure of the article:

- What domain registrars should offer
- Moniker
- NameCheap
- GoDaddy
- Other registrars

What domain registrars should offer

When I was shopping around for a domain registrar where I could store the bulk of my domain portfolios, I was mainly looking at a few criteria only.

First and foremost, I needed a registrar where I knew my domain portfolio would be safe and protected against theft or loss. Like many domain investors, I have spent many thousands of dollars on acquiring domain names over the years. Losing a domain would be equal to losing all the money invested in it, as well as losing the future earnings potential. Therefore, security has always been the most important criterion for me.

Secondly, a domain registrar’s customer support must be reliable. It must be permanently available at least during business hours and on work days. Better yet, a registrar should have a support team on duty 24/7 in case there is an emergency with one of your domain names. Few things are worse than being on the verge of losing a domain or not being able to log into your account but then not being able to get in touch with the company your domain is registered with. Good domain registrars not only have an extensive FAQ section in place but also have a toll-free support number you can call at any time as well as an online support ticket system. Urgent matters should be answered very quickly.

Only now do I compare prices. For some registration fees may be the most important criterion when choosing a registrar, but for me security and customer support really come first. The extra cost of paying a little more for your domain registrations is nothing compared to the financial damage of losing your domains or having your account hacked. Still, prices do matter. But don’t be too cheap. There may be some registrars offering ridiculously low prices, sometimes even below the registry fee. It is unlikely that the registrars will be able to hold these prices for a long time, and if they try they will save money by providing a bad service. Registration fees of $7-10 per .com domain are fair to both you as the registrant and the registrar. Prices in this range cover the registry fee, ICANN fee as well as other expenses of the registrar company. You don’t want a registrar to rip you off, but you don’t want your registrar to go bankrupt and close down, either.

Now consider the extra services the domain registrars offer. Such value-added services include, for example, email forwarding, URL forwarding, whois privacy, web hosting plans, or web design packages just to name a few. Usually these services come at an extra fee, but it’s not unusual that the basic services like email and URL forwarding are included in the registration fees. When pointing domains to a specific location on the web, it’s mostly important that you’re able to change the domains’ name servers, but URL and email forwarding can be quite useful in some cases, so it’s nice if you can get this extra. Talking about security, a handful of registrars offers special security services for clients with valuable portfolios. Moniker, for example, has a new so-called “MaxLock” product on offer that provides extra protection for your domain names. Such services may be costly but they’re worth it in the end if your portfolio is worth a lot.

Finally, you should also be able to quickly manage your domain names. This is especially the case if you have hundreds or thousands of domains in your account. Making changes to such a large number of domain names piece by piece would be unacceptable, so make sure your registrar offers bulk tools or similar portfolio management tools. This allows you to make changes to many domains at the same time or to sort your domains into different portfolios. The changes you make should also be processed by the registrar in a timely manner. It’s just annoying when a registrar doesn’t process an urgent whois update or name server changes after hours. Today such changes should be automatically processed within minutes.

I think that’s about it. There may be other things to consider, but if you pay attention to the aforementioned you can’t do much wrong. On a last note, only use registrars that are officially ICANN-accredited. I also don’t recommend using a reseller company, because resellers are usually owned by individuals or very small companies that may not be around in the near future anymore.

Now, here are a few selected domain name registrars meeting the criteria listed above and which I therefore recommend using:

Moniker.com

Moniker Online Services, LLC is one of the most popular registrars used by professional domain investors and large corporate domain owners alike. It is also my main registrar of choice. The company is based in Pompano Beach, Florida. In early 2008, Moniker was acquired by Oversee.net, the parent company of DomainSponsor, Low.com, Revenue.net and SnapNames, inter alia.

Moniker has a good customer support with a toll-free support phone number, support ticket system and a personal account manager for clients with larger portfolios. Personally, I’ve only had good experiences with Moniker’s support team. The prices for domain registrations can vary slightly depending on the size of your portfolio. The registration fee is around $8 for .com, .org and .info. For .net the pricing is currently below $7.

Today, Moniker is not only a registrar company but it also offers secondary market services like domain appraisals, domain auctions and domain escrow.

NameCheap.com

NameCheap is a smaller registrar company, but I used to have a lot of domains there before I moved them to Moniker. NameCheap has an attractive pricing structure and fast customer support. It’s also easy to make changes to domains or obtain EPP codes for transfer-outs.

As of this writing, the registration fee for all the major domain extensions is $9.69, .info domains can even be registered at a low $2.98 per year. Included in the annual registration fee are email forwarding, URL forwarding, DNS changes and, for a limited time, whois privacy.

GoDaddy.com

GoDaddy is a special case for me. I don’t really like the way it promotes its services, I don’t like the cluttered website, the sometimes misleading checkout process, and I really cannot stand some of the terms of its service, such as the 60-day domain lock after whois changes. (This domain lock prohibits the transfer of a domain out to another registrar even if you only make minor changes to the domain name’s whois information.)

But still, I have used GoDaddy on a few occasions in the past, mostly when obtaining ownership of domains I have purchased from other domainers. GoDaddy is an extremely popular service and due to its marketing efforts the company is well-known outside the domain industry. Aside from the forced 60-day domain lock, I didn’t have any real problems with GoDaddy, though, so I will recommend them, in part based on my own experience and in part based on the experience of fellow domainers. I would still like to remark that I would strongly prefer the other companies mentioned above to GoDaddy, especially Moniker is by far the superior service compared to GD.

According to GoDaddy’s website, prices are $9.99 for .com, $8.99 for .net, $19.99 for .org and, which looks like a limited-time offer, $0.99 for .info. But beware: The ICANN fee is not yet included in those prices, so you will have to add another $0.20.

Other registrars

There are also a bunch of other domain registrar companies worth noting. I haven’t extensively used a lot of other registrars myself, so I can’t comment on most of them but I decided to list at least one of them here because I trust the ability to judge of my fellow domain industry peers:

One of the best and most secure domain registrars in the industry, besides Moniker, is Fabulous.com. Fabulous is owned by Dark Blue Sea (DBS) and it also operates a popular domain parking service. I don’t know why I haven’t used Fab yet (as it is sometimes referred to on domain forums). I guess it is because I’ve been a happy Moniker customer for a long time and there hasn’t been any reason for me to go to another registrar. Just like Moniker, Fabulous is mostly used by owners of large portfolios. It is a secure registrar and also offers competitive prices (users of its parking program may be eligible to lower prices than its other customers).

Recommended Domain Registrars

How to Register Domain Names

Dominik Mueller — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:00:16 +0000

This is another basic article in my domain guide. It shall explain what is important to consider when choosing a domain name and when ultimately registering domain names. Then I also briefly note what you should be paying attention to when managing your domain registrations. Although the tutorial is targeted mainly at those new to domain names, it may also contain the one or other information interesting to experienced domainers.

Structure of the article:

- Where to register a domain name?
- Cost of registering a domain name
- Choosing a domain name
- Checking availability
- How to register a domain name
- Manage your domain registrations

Where to register a domain name?

Firstly, as already posted in my Introduction to the Domain Name System, the domain registry is at the top of the domain system. It manages the different domain extensions. VeriSign, for example, is responsible for the .com top-level domain. However, you usually won’t register a domain directly at the registry, but you will go to a specialized company functioning as middle-man. This company is the domain registrar. The registrar will register the domain with the registry on your behalf, and it provides you with a user interface for the management of your registrations.

Today, there are quite a lot of registrars you can choose for your domain registrations. Some registrars are better, some are worse. (Go to: Recommended Domain Registrars.) But you usually can’t do much wrong when registering a domain at one of the bigger domain registrar companies. These are, for instance, Moniker, Fabulous and GoDaddy among others.

Cost of registering a domain name

Domain registrations are not free. The end-user price you pay for your domain registrations varies among the different registrars. In today’s market an annual registration fee between 7 and 10 US dollars per .com domain is a fair price.

This annual registration fee includes the registry cost (which is $6.86 for .com domains as of this writing), the $0.20 ICANN fee as well as a markup for the registrar to cover its costs and make a profit.

Most registrars also offer value-added services you can buy together with your domain registrations. These will come at an additional costs specified by the registrar. This way it’s possible to purchase email forwarding, URL forwarding, domain whois privacy or other services and privileges you wouldn’t otherwise get with your registration.

Choosing a domain name

Maybe you already have a unique name in mind that you want to register for your website or for investment. Unfortunately, all the best .com domains have already been registered long ago and are no longer available for registration. This is especially true for generic keyword domains.

That leaves you with different options. You can try to acquire the domain from its owner, you can come up with other domains, imagine made-up terms that may be brandable and so on… In short, be creative.

For businesses, I always suggest to first of all register the company name in as many variations and under as many extensions as possible so that it won’t fall into the hands of cybersquatters. Then it also makes sense for companies to buy keyword domains describing their products and services. To give an example, General Electric owns GeneralElectric.com, GE.com, General-Electric.com, GeneralElectric.net and lots of other variations of its trademark. But it also owns a portfolio of quite valuable generic or semi-generic domains including TransportationServices.com, Coincidence.com, Ecomagination.com and others. Such domains are perfect to complete a company’s domain portfolio and hence make it easier for customers and business partners to find your products and services on the web. (Fun fact: GE’s domain portfolio consists of almost 15,000 domain names.)

All in all, it’s most important to have your target audience in mind when choosing a domain name. If you’re going to register a domain for your personal website, maybe choose your name as I have done. Or come up with something original, with a slogan or anything else that will be easy to type in and remember.

If you’re going to register or acquire a domain for your business website, make sure to buy your company name and also try to use domains that will support your company’s professional online presence. Choosing suitable and valuable domains is a very important task that should be part of any company’s marketing strategy. (Also see: Benefits of Generic Domains.)

Checking availability

Once you have chosen which domain you want to register, the next thing to do is to check whether it is still available for registration. Checking a domain’s availability is pretty easy.

For this, you can go directly to the domain registry and look up the domain in the registry’s whois database. Let’s say you want to register a .com domain and want to see if you can still register it. VeriSign is the official .com registry, so you’ll go to VeriSign.com. The direct link to VeriSign’s whois lookup tool is http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois/. Then type in the domain you want and viola, VeriSign will give you an answer. If it doesn’t find a match, the domain is still available.

But you can also go to a third-party whois tool such as the popular DomainTools.com or iWhois.com.

Even easier, you can go to the domain registrar company where you would like to register your domain. The registrar will automatically check all domains you’re about to order during the checkout process.

Sometimes you might want to check the availability of more than one domain. Say you want to register 100 domains. Then it would be tedious to type in one domain after another. For such tasks, there are a couple of bulk whois tools which you can use to fasten this process up a little. DomainTools.com offers a bulk checker at http://www.domaintools.com/bulk-check/, into which you can copy and paste large lists of domains. Most registrars should be offering a bulk whois tool, too.

How to register a domain name

Since you’ve read the domain guide up to this section, the process of registering a domain name should be self-explanatory by now.

Choose the domain you want, and then choose a domain registrar you trust and where registration fees seem reasonable. Then go to the registrar’s website where you will find an empty box for you to type your domain into. If you want to register more than one domain, use the registrar’s bulk registration tool. After hitting enter, the registrar will check if the domains are available and if yes, you can add them to your cart and go through the check-out process.

Maybe I should elaborate on the whois information at this point. The whois information are stored at the domain registries. These information include a domain’s creation date, the date when it was last updated and its expiration date. The whois also includes information and contact details for the owner of the domain name.

There is usually an administrative contact, a technical contact and a billing contact listed in a domain’s whois. These contacts can be the same person or they can be different contacts, depending on who is responsible for the management of the domain and who should keep the whois info up to date (administrative contact), who may make technical changes to the domain such as DNS changes (technical contact) and whom all bills or other messages shall be sent to (billing contact).

Some people are tempted to provide false information in the whois, because they want to stay anonymous for some reason. But be advised that it is prohibited to provide false whois information. Registrants using fake or outdated contact details risk losing their domain names.

There is a legal and easy way to be anonymous, though. It is possible to purchase whois privacy as an additional service with your domain registrations. If you have your whois protected, your domain registrar will list its own contact details in the domain name and you will therefore remain anonymous. Your contact details given to the registrar must still be correct and up to date, because they will be stored by the registrar in case a third party has claims against the actual owner of the protected domain name. It is then possible that the registrar will reveal your contact details to the third party, but you will still stay anonymous for everyone making a whois lookup for the protected domain.

Manage your domain registrations

After you have successfully registered your domain name, you have become the owner of that domain name. That means you must now manage your domains. Domain management tasks include forwarding the domain to an URL of your choice, pointing it to name servers, setting up email addresses under the domain, keeping the whois records up to date, and renewing the domain.

This last task is very important. If you fail to renew your domain at the end of the one-year registration period, it will expire and eventually be deleted from the registry database. Big companies have already forgotten to renew their valuable domains, which then dropped and were snapped up by competing companies or cybersquatters. Getting their expired domains back has often been a grinding and expensive task for those companies, but those costs can be saved by making sure you always know when your domain names will expire.

The good domain registrar services allow you to set your domains on auto-renew. The registrar’s system will then automatically renew the domains for you when the expiration date comes near. You will still have to make sure your billing details are correct or that you have an account balance sufficient to cover the renewal fee, though.

It is also possible to advance-renew domains for up to 10 years so that you won’t have to think about the renewal of your domains in the near future. This is also useful if you want to save money, because domain registries and registrars may decide to increase domain registration fees. For example, VeriSign has increased its registry cost by almost one dollar within the past three years. Most price hikes are expected soon.

As much as renewing domains is a must-do for every domain owner, it is equally important that your domains are secured against loss or theft. Always have your domains locked at the registrar, unless you’re going to transfer it out to another owner or registrar. Also keep your registrar login details secret and use unique passwords that are difficult to hack.

Choosing a domain registrar with a proven track record is already half the battle. Moniker and Fabulous, for example, are known to go to great lengths when it comes to protecting their customers’ valuable domain portfolios. More details on recommended and secure domain registrars can be found in the next article in this series.

How to Register Domain Names