I track thousands of one word .com domain names using the invaluable DomainTools Monitor Tool. In this morning’s Monitor Alert email, I noticed that Aura.com transferred from Uniregistry to GoDaddy. The domain name had been privately registered at Uniregistry, and it is still registered under Whois privacy at GoDaddy.
When I visited Aura.com, I saw that the domain name now resolves to a website for a company called Aura, a device and data protection platform. The domain name previously resolved to a Uniregistry brokerage landing page. A bit of research showed me that Aura had been using AuraCompany.com for its website. Aura.com represents a major upgrade to the company’s web presence, and it allows Aura to stand out from the other companies that have Aura in their brand names.
I reached out to Aura representatives to ask if they could share more information about this domain name upgrade. Lark-Marie Anton, an Aura spokeswoman, shared the following insight with me:
“Acquiring the aura.com domain is an investment in the Aura brand as we grow our business and build the best all-in-one digital protection platform for consumers.”
From the looks of it, establishing trust with clients and partners is a key component to the growth of the company. I think Aura.com is an authoritative domain name, and the company will not have to worry about customers navigating to the wrong website or sending misdirected emails. In addition, the company will not have to reinforce their longer domain name to ensure customers end up on the proper website. In short, Aura can be found on the most intuitive Aura.com domain name, and that will benefit the company immensely.
When I first tweeted about the acquisition, Andy Booth commented that he was a former owner of the domain name. Another comment mentioned that the asking price had been in the seven figures. Aura would not comment about the purchase price of Aura.com, but I am sure it was expensive.
Interestingly, the company previously rebranded from iSubscribed to Aura, and its CEO Hari Ravichandran was the founder of the publicly traded Endurance International Group. Endurance owns several companies in the domain name space, including BuyDomains, Domain.com, HostGator, and others. Aura reportedly raised $150 million in funding, and acquiring this domain name was a very wise business decision.
Great upgrade. I noticed a *TM* next to logo. I hope they are not claiming *AURA* as their TM
Yes, the TM symbol notes a common law right to a trademark, as is any organisations right. The “TM” does not describe registered rights, indicated by an “R”. Basically a TM is the same as a copyright, that means as soon as someone creates a work, or in this case a brand association, a trademark is deemed in-use (automatically created) and protected to some (hint: very little) extent by law.
They may elect to register the trademark for further protection, but the more generic and widespread the use of a trademark, the more challenging it will be to prove precedence or a priority to the mark in any specific class of product or service.