Blog

Universal Studios is releasing the movie - Leatherheads (Starring George Clooney) to the big screen on April 4th. With all of the print and television marketing they are doing right now, someone dropped the ball and failed to renew the domain name LeatherHeads.com.

The domain lapsed on March 21st, and is now resolving to the very popular Network Solutions expired page. Also interesting to note Universal Studios has held the domain at least as far back as 2001. This means that they had this movie either on the back burner or pending development for at least 7 years, and they wait till 2 weeks before the launch of their movie to allow the domain name to expire and potential traffic to be redirected. It doesn’t get much more idiotic then that.

Justin

Side Note: Appologies for anyone who followed the old link on Domaining.com - the original post was causing some errors with Wordpress.

In Lindsey, CA a library worker noticed a man surfing on the internet viewing child pornography. She does what any person with sense might do, she alerts the police. The man is arrested and taken into custody. The little farm town was shocked to find out someone was using the library computers to view this kind of content but was even further shocked when two days later, the library worker is fired.

You can read the full story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-library26mar26,1,3211325.story

I must say Im a bit bothered by this story. This single mother of two was not only doing her job, but doing the right thing, and it appears shes being let go for it. What amazes me even further is this isnt some story in China or even a two bit Eastern European country. Its the United States, its California for crying out loud. The fortunate thing is the community is coming to her aide and I would imagine and hope this woman will be well taken care of.

Just thought this was worth drawing attention to.

Each day I like to check and see which auctions look like they might churn up a bit at NameJet. I tend to backorder around 100 domains per day. Most of which I have no intention of competing for, but on occasion, some I do. Here is todays list of domains that are over $1,000 with a few hours left:

• Blogosfera.com - $3,000
• Gwen.org - $1,310
• Emulation.net - $1,555
• Hedges.com - $3,850
• Trilux.com - $1,500
• DirectOffers.com - $2,200
• FundraisingPrograms.com - $1,500

Again, the above domain names are the ones with a few hours left at Auction they are over $1,000 in bids. That is not to say these are the only ones that will top over $1,000, these just happen to be the ones with very active pre-bidders. Also interesting to note is that Hedges.com has 156 bidders, the next closest is DirectOffers.com with 65 bidders.

Recently, I came into possession of a domain name registered in 1991. This domain has been continuously renewed for 17 years. (its almost old enough to vote!). However, Ive run into a few question marks, specifically in regards to determining value. Clearly older domain names have Value, they are garbled up at the expired domain auctions quite consistently, and although most caliber domainers will say that “age is but a small factor” when it comes to a VERY old domain, it can certainly become one of the most important factors.

Why is age so desired? Primarily because all the good domains were taken first, thus in theory all of the quality domain names, should be old. I find this too be a reasonably accurate statement, with exceptions on both ends. Yes, some new domains are quite valuable (new technologies, new trends) and some old domains really have nothing to offer but a history of continuous renewal.

However, when we start talking about the very beginning of the Internet, thats when things get interesting. Think about this for a moment; this 17  year old domain was registered 3 years before sex.com.

Finally, aged domain names have advantages when it comes to Search engines. Google had acknowledged that they in fact take a domains age into its massive algorithm to help determine rank placement. How much of an impact this has on rankings is really debatable.

Unfortunately, its a bit complicated to sort domains and sales prices by the age of the domain name, which is another reason the feature is not currently included on NameBio. Perhaps in later versions this technology will be added, but until then. I may just have to let the domain market itself determine value.

Estibot.com the automated appraisal service launched a special subscription service today. Most notably the free bulk appraisal function has been moved to the subscriber service and was serious upgraded.  Included in the paid service are the following functions:

• Bulk Appraisal and Keyword Research: Get all the Estibot data plus appraisals for 100 domains at a time. The bulk appraisal now provides identical data and valuations to the single-domain tool. See sample output

• Members also have access to the old, fast bulk tool that can handle 700 domains with each run

• Lightning fast AJAX Overture tool: Get 100 search term suggestions instantly as you type. Great for brainstorming and long-tail research!

• Bulk Overture tool: Enter up to 10,000 search terms to get search popularity data instantly

• Portfolio Appraisal: Get your portfolio of up to 1,000 domains appraised instantly

• Type-in Traffic Checker: Enter up to 10,000 domains to check for type-in traffic

• Domain Extractor: Clean and extract domain names from documents and web pages of virtually unlimited size

• No Captcha Check for members!

I spent some time this morning reviewing the new tools, and am really pleased with them. Domainers can still use the standard single domain appraisal service for free as it was, but for those running bulk operations, the subsciption tool just might be for you. The rates are as follows:

• 1 Day Pass - $4.95
• 1 Week Pass - $9.95
• Monthly Subscription - $19.95
• Annual Subscription - $149.95

Subscription are paid using Paypal.

A wonderful resource, AllDrops.com has opted to shut down its site effective today. This resource monitored dropping domains and where they would be going to auction. Many experienced domainers are very familiar with this site, and its a shame to see it go. It appears Mike, the owner has opted to spend more time with his other projects and we wish him all the best.

Justin

Up until about the beginning of last year, TDNAM was a bargain basement for Domainers who knew to look. Quality expired domains could be found at even better prices. Once the word got out though, the place became a festering ground for overpriced junk and rookie domainers buying into the traffic estimates. Still, occasionally there are some nice deals and decent domains running the course.

Today when I went to check a scan of domain names that were ending at auction in the coming week, I was a bit surprised that I only saw one domain name I had any interest in. Although the domain buyers are still buying, just seems to me that the pond isnt being stocked as much as it used to be….

Perhaps Mr. Parsons is holding back some for a private collection?

Justin

If your a simpsons fan, you immediately laughed when you saw this name. A popular Character on the classic TV show, his namesake sold today at NameJet for $11,660.

Earlier this year the domain name BlowDryers.com had popped up on my Radar. It was a big domain to me for several reasons, but with my family closely tied to the professional beauty industry, it had even more significance. Instantly it was on my “got to have” domain name list.

The domain had expired on 2/9/08 and was earmarked for hitting NameJet auction last week. I was very disappointed to find a few weeks ago the domain had been renewed by its original registrant and wasn’t resolving to any site anymore (specifically, not the Network Solutions parked page). I decided to give the original registrant a call (A beauty supply company in New York). They very rudely declined to sell it to me, without even hearing an offer. At this point I had resigned to give up entirely.

Yesterday I recieved a notification from NameJet with the following line:

“We are happy to inform you that a domain name you Backordered as a Wish List item is about to become available and is now entering a Pre-Release status.

Domain Name: blowdryers.com”

I was completely surprised. I immediately went to my Backorder section at NameJet and found that the domain was sitting there with “pending auction” next to it. This usually means the next day it will begin its auction.

I decided to do some homework, as none of this made much sense. I went back and checked the historial whois data (thanks to Domaintools). Unfortunately Domaintools did not capture the whois data from when the domain was showing the usual Network Solutions pending renewal /delete whois info. However, it does show that on 3/7 , 3/10, and 3/12 the domain was in an active status, with the original registrant listed as the owner.

When I checked at the time of the email, I was shown the pending renewal delete data from Network Solutions.

What happened? How did a domain that was seemingly renewed, end up expired again and back at auction? I sent NameJet a ticket, asking for verification that infact the domain was going to auction the following day.

I recieved the following generic response from Shane at NameJet this morning:

Hello,

Once the deadline to delete a domain from your backorder list has lapsed, there is a short timeframe where the domain is being converted to your list of “my auctions”. During this time, the domain is frozen and no changes to the bid amount can take place, nor can you delete it. It will show as “pending auction” on your backorder list and the delete box will be grayed out.

Once the domain has been converted to an auction status, you will find it on your list of MY AUCTIONS where you can then enter your proxy bid and participate in the auction.

So, I waited this morning to see what would happen. At approximately Noon I started to receive my NameJet notifications about auctions that were starting, but none for BlowDryers.com - I went to my backorder section to see if it was still pending auction, low and behold, it wasn’t. It was now back to my Wish List. I checked the whois on the domain name and it was once again back to the original registrant.

Ive inquired to NameJet once more, asking for explanation of what had occurred. I will post more as I find out. My fear is that the domain name will soon have private registration and a suspicious new owner.

Justin

The problem with having a domain auction in a chat room is that with 100 people in a room, everyone has their own comments. Almost always they slow down the auction. Some people made suggestions on how the system shoudl go, others just continued to ramble on about random things and on occasion, typing “sold” at the wrong moments.

The auction was definetly slow and quite honestly, a bit rough to watch. Even though it was supposed to be an LLLL.com exclusive auction a few lots had LLLL.net’s and most weren’t even fetching registration costs.

A couple of spotlights on a few of the listings. Coil.com sold for $20k to NamePros member Bfluid (who is also the Organizer of the auction). However, My bet is that we will see a buyout. Where the owner has an option not to sell by paying the bidders $5. I am not a fan of this kind of setup.

All in All, quite a few domain names found new homes, but it took 3+ hours to auction off less than 100 lots. Thats pretty time consuming. However, I want to congratulate Bfluid for putting together and running this auction event.

Justin