A little over a month ago, I reported that Namecheap acquired Cluster.com for $150,000 in a private transaction. The acquisition was made by the company “as a brand asset for a future product,” according to Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall. I recently learned that Namecheap has acquired two additional high value domain names: IZ.com and Poke.com.
When I am discussing the sale of a domain name with a prospective buyer, I let them know that the domain name is subject to repricing. This not only serves as a warning to a prospective buyer who might be surprised when they return to a domain name that has gone up in price, but it is also a tactic I employ to close a deal promptly. Prospective buyers don’t want to hem and haw over a domain name purchase for days or weeks and find out the price went up.
According to this tweet from SquadHelp, announcing “Automatic Price Increases” on a domain name landing page is a tactic the platform uses on some domain names in order to improve the sell through rate (STR):
Traveling has been the thing I have missed most during the last year or so. Just a couple of weeks after a trip to Costa Rica last year, we were pretty much on lock down here in my part of the US. We were fortunate to make several fun trips over the Summer by car, but I have not been on an airplane since a somewhat harrowing return trip home (that’s another story!).
I have been asked by a few different people about whether or not I would attend an in-person domain industry event this year. While I should be fully vaccinated within the next several weeks (thanks, Pfizer), I would say it is highly unlikely that I will attend an in-person domain industry event in 2021.
When I place a bid on an auction at GoDaddy Auctions, I receive an email with my maximum bid amount. I typically place my bids on the morning, and the auctions close several hours later in the afternoon. By that time, I’ve lost track of how much I initially bid on the auction.
If I am outbid on an auction, I also receive an email from GoDaddy to notify me. For some unknown reason, GoDaddy Auctions does not state the current high bid in those emails, and I find it frustrating. Here’s an example of an outbid notice I received yesterday afternoon:
A company called Pet Plan Ltd. filed a UDRP against MyPetPlans.com at WIPO. This company has filed many successful UDRPs to protect its intellectual property, so it’s not a big surprise it took issue with this particular domain name. The complainant lost the UDRP proceeding but ended up getting control of the domain name despite this. The UDRP is WIPO Case No. D2021-0062.
The domain registrant did not submit an official response to the UDRP. Instead, upon receiving notice of default, the domain registrant told WIPO, “This dispute has been resolved via Nominet and the domain has been transferred to the complainant.” Presumedly because the UDRP was already paid for, the respondent’s preemptive decision to hand over the domain name did not cause the panel to terminate the UDRP or simply decide in favor of the complainant.
GoDaddy made a major announcement in a press release yesterday afternoon. The publicly traded company intends to purchase .Club, .Design, and Minds & Machines (MMX) TLDs. These TLDs will be folded into the company’s GoDaddy Registry division. Terms of the acquisition of .Club and .Design were not disclosed, but GoDaddy will be paying $120 million USD for MMX assets, subject to various approvals. MMX is traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange.
