I keep most of my domain names registered at GoDaddy because I find it is easier to manage a portfolio at one registrar. Throughout the year as I acquire domain names at auction, my other registrar accounts grow. I have domain names at Network Solutions, Namecheap, Dynadot, NameBright, and probably a few other domain registrars.
Update: After publishing this article, I heard from Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie (Freelancer is the parent company of Escrow.com). Matt told me the information in the article is incorrect, and these countries were added to the “do not service” list in error.
Matt’s full statement to me is here:
“The article is erroneous – we do service those countries listed today.
We updated our compliance processes yesterday and moved a few countries to a higher risk category in the database, which seems to have auto-populated the website for our “do not service” list which is incorrect and we are getting corrected immediately.
To be clear, we continue to support China and Israel.
The only restriction that I am aware of in that list is that there is a total goods embargo BETWEEN the countries of Turkey and Israel currently.”
Escrow.com maintains a list of countries / regions from which it does not support payments. Buyers and sellers in these regions can not receive payments or disburse to bank accounts from these countries. In 2019, Escrow.com made some waves when it added Russia and the US state of Alabama to this list. Since then, the state of Alabama seems to have been removed from this list.
In its most recent update, Escrow.com added 18 countries/regions to its list of countries not supported by Escrow.com. The two countries that stood out the most to me are Israel and China. I know of many domain registrants who live in these two countries, and I also know there are many businesses in these two countries that acquire and use high value domain names.
I have spent more money on non-.com domain names this year than ever before. My perspective is that startups are using them as less expensive alternatives to .com domain names, and the number of companies operating on non-.com domain names continues to grow. This, in my view, has led to more aftermarket sales of non-.com domain names – and for higher prices. That’s why I have been spending more money to opportunistically acquire some non .coms in expiry auctions.
This morning, Atom.com CEO Darpan Munjal shared a couple of graphics detailing the sales distribution of non-.com TLDs on Atom.com from the last three years. Although he did not share actual data, the illustration shows what domain name extensions are the most popular sellers on Atom over the last few years:
Andrew Allemann wrote about the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) statement about the .com registry extension agreed upon with Verisign. As a domain investor with a couple thousand domain names, the most eye-catching aspect of the statement was seemingly related to the prices charged by domain investors:
“NTIA recognizes concerns about current pricing and believes a reduction in .com prices would be in the best interest of the public. We also recognize that prices at both the wholesale level and downstream, including prices charged by resellers and substantial markups by warehousers, need to be addressed.”
Artificial Intelligence can be a time saver. For domain investors, it can make it easier and quicker to create marketing copy to help promote a domain name. Over the last couple of years, domain name sales platforms and domain investors have utilized AI tools to help generate sales copy for their domain names. This can be risky, as attorney John Berryhill noted on X today regarding some Atom.com landing pages he found:
The hazards of AI-generated domain landers… @atomHQ Anyone want to guess why this name would be associated with bricks or “building something”? pic.twitter.com/ACvcWO03cR
— John Berryhill (@Berryhillj) November 29, 2024
Atom.com is promoting a Black Friday sale with a prominent header banner on its home page. Atom CEO Darpan Munjal shared some insight and answered some questions about the sale:
I spent many years in retail, where Black Friday was more than just discounts—it was about creating excitement and connecting with customers.
This year, we are testing that concept in domains and the early response has been🔥. Excited to see how the rest of the week plays out
— Darpan (@darpanmunjal) November 26, 2024
