Domain Names Blog

Name.com Offers New Safeguards to Domain Clients

Dave — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:06:16 +0000

VeriSign® issued a press release today, revealing that Name.com has joined the VeriSign® identity Protection (VIP) Network - meaning that Name.com can provide additional protection to its clients beyond a secure log-in.

Name.com will now offer its clients two-factor authentication from VeriSign®. Two-factor authentication combines something a client knows (username and password) with something they have - for example an authentication keyfob. The security device (as VeriSign® refers to it) works by generating a one-time password for every sign on. The security device works across any VIP-enabled Web site.

This is a good move for Name.com, given the increased prevalence of domain theft. Those domainers with portfolios containing valuable generics are at a heightened risk and may flock to Name.com as a result.

Name.com Ends Cheap .COMs — Sort Of

Dave — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:35:30 +0000

Name.com was well known as a trustworthy registrar that had excellent prices on .com domains — $5.99 for the first year and on transfers. They recently raised their price back up to $7.99 — well er sort of. There is a graphic on their homepage instructing users to use a special promo code (XUP599) to get the discounted ($5.99) price on .coms — but only for a limited time. I’m not sure why they decided to go this route - perhaps they are trying to get customers used to the idea of paying $7.99 with the occasional promo code thrown in. Check out Name.com to get .coms for $5.99 (with the promo code) while you still can.

1 and 1 Offers .BIZ Domains FREE for a Year

Dave — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:46:15 +0000

1and1.com has a new domain registration sale - Get up to 25 .BIZ domains FREE for the first year. .BIZ is not my favorite domain extension by a long shot but in this case the price is certainly right. Click here to go to the 1and1.com domain registration page.

.uk Passes 7 Million

Dave — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:47:09 +0000

Nominet, the .uk registry operator, reports that the .uk domain name has passed the 7 million registrations mark. 1 Million of these domains have been registered in the last year alone.

A recent survey of British Internet users (performed by Opinion Matters) showed that 72% of users are more likely to choose a .uk over a .com when looking for informatin online

Bido has Technical Issues Again - Shuts Down for Now

Dave — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:42:42 +0000

Bido once again had technical issues when attempting to rerun the FixedLoans.com auction. According to Sahar Sarid Bido will be closing up shop indefinitely until they can resolve the issues.

I really like the concept and hope they can get up and running again soon.

FixedLoans.com Auction Crashes Bido.com

Dave — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:43:18 +0000

Bido.com, the 1 domain-per-day, 1-hour, no-reserve auction website crashed just after 2pm EST today during the auctioning of FixedLoans.com. Apparently the site was done in from a combination of massive traffic and a new chat implementation. As I was participating in the auction, I had first hand experience of the crash. The last bid I could see before the site stopped updating was around $5600 with about 4 bidders still in the mix (although there could have been more as my bids were not registering).

Bido will rerun the auction of FixedLoans.com tommorow as a regular auction, one hour, starting at $1 - no reserve. Here’s hoping they fix the technical issues by then.

The Glamorous Life of a Domainer

Dave — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:56:19 +0000

I came across an interesting article in Fortune on domain flippers, which definately put a glamorous spin on domain trading.

It started last September, when he paid $620 for the Internet domain name qsd.com and, two weeks later, sold it for $12,000 to a fellow domain trader, or “domainer.”

I wish it were always that easy! Another article on domainers from about a month ago from Entrepreneur.com is a little more balanced in terms risk vs. reward.

While it’s inexpensive to enter the domain business, you’ve got a steep
learning curve and immeasurable competition. You also have a perpetually
shifting market to follow.

Now that sounds more like it!

It’s Not Just About Price

Dave — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:41:47 +0000

I was catching up on some blog reading when I came across a SEDO blog about Choosing the Right Registrar. The author of the post notes that, in his opinion, the biggest factor in choosing a registrar is price - though there are also a number of other factors to consider such as hidden fees and ease of use of the customer account.

I had been planning on adding some additional features to this domain registration price comparison site - such as whether or not private registration is included in the domain registration fee - but things kept on coming up and I hadn’t got around to it (after all this site is predominantly a hobby and I have to make a living). Reading this blog post, however, reminded me of these additions and I have started to work on them (so stay tuned).

Finally, the SEDO blog post mentioned an important factor in choosing a registrar was how easy is it to change ownership/transfer a domain. For a domainer, this factor is probably the most important - outweighing registration fee. I think in the future I will put up a Poll and let people vote on which registrar they feel is best in this regard.

New Auction Site Bido.com

Dave — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:07:48 +0000

I just came across a relatively new domain auction site - Bido.com. This site has a twist, however, in that they only auction 1 “premium hand-picked” domain per day, with a 1 dollar opening bid and no reserve. The site looks like it was been operating for a couple months now and the domains being auctioned range from mediocre (vacantroom.com, realaddiction.com, parkourworld.com) to fairly decent (spywarehelp.com, debtspecialist.com, debtnews.com).

100,000 .ME and Counting

Dave — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:59:33 +0000

The .ME Registry recently announced that they had registered more than 100,000 domain names in just over 2 weeks of opening up domain registration to the general public.

According the the Registrar, more than a thousand auctions are open for popular .ME domains. A couple completed auctions of note were “lasvegas.me” for $15,105 and “chatwith.me” for $15,035.

I am a little suprised as to how well .ME is doing - however I still think that in the long run .ME will probably have about as much name recognition as .info, .biz or .mobi — which is to say a lot less name recognition than .com.

If you are looking to register a .ME domain name then take a look at our .ME price comparison page to find out who has the best prices.