DomainTools Whois “Service Unavailable” (Updated)

Elliot Silver
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8

If you use DomainTools as much as I do, you have probably noticed that Whois searches on the platform return a “Service Unavailable” message. This service outage is impacting current Whois lookups as well as Historical Whois lookups.

DomainTools responded to an inquiry about the outage a little while ago via Twitter, telling attorney John Berryhill, “We are working around the clock with the provider to fix!” Several hours ago, the company tweeted that “ETA is a few hours out,” and it seems that the issue is still being addressed.

The company did share a tip to access Whois records, although I presume this doesn’t help with Historical Whois records:

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.Net 30th Anniversary Infographic

Elliot Silver
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6

I knew that .com was celebrating its 30th anniversary / birthday, but I did not realize (or think about) that .net has also been around for 30 years. In celebration of this, Verisign (the company that operates the .net registry) published the infographic below with some neat facts about .net and .net domain names.

Four of the more interesting call outs in the infographic include the following:

  • Largest public sale was Mobile.net for $500,000
  • 15 million .net domain names registered
  • Find was the most common keyword in .net domain names registered in 2015
  • There are 63 registered .net domain names that contain the maximum 63 characters

Check out the infographic below to learn more about .net:

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NameJet Changes Bid Increments

Elliot Silver
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8

Although I don’t recall actively participating  on a six figure auction on NameJet, I have been an observer on quite a few of them. One thing I found peculiar is that an auction could be in the half a million range and bidding would increase by just $100 per bid. This was a bit frustrating considering the auction is extended by 5 minutes for every bid placed in the final moments of an auction.

I just learned that NameJet has changed its bidding increments for auctions over $25,000. The new bid increments for auctions above $25,000 are below:

Current NameJet Bid Increments:

  • Less than $1,000 – $10
  • Over $1,000, but less than $25,000 – $100
  • Over $25,000, but less than $50,000 – $200
  • Over $50,000, but less than $100,000 – $500
  • Over $100,000 – $1,000

I asked NameJet General Manager Jonathan Tenenbaum to share the rationale

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Was Registering 30,000 LLLL.net Domains a Good Idea?

Elliot Silver
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19

I received Giuseppe Graziano’s weekly domain brokerage newsletter this morning, and I was a bit surprised by  one of his observations.  In going through some recent domain industry developments, Giuseppe opined that “the most impressive development that I have seen is the registration of the remaining 30,000 Chinese Premium LLLL.net.”

Giuseppe later continued with some back of napkin calculations on why he felt this was a shrewd investment:

“Chinese Premium LLLL.com (also called “chips” – credit: Tim Schoon) have a current floor price of approximately $300, but their trading range is more in the $400/$600. If we play by the book and assign a value of 5-10% of the corresponding .com for each .net domain, we notice that, even if using the conservative 5% figure, all these LLLL .net should have a minimum value of ($300 * 5% =) $15 each. If someone registers a premium .net for $8, then they should be instantly able to turn a ($15 – $8) $7 profit per domain. Therefore, whoever invested the supposedly $240,000, should have an instant value capture of approximately ($7 * 30,000 =) $210,000, which is not a bad return for a day (or one hour) of tiring work”

In my opinion,

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Give.com Acquired by HostGator Founder

Elliot Silver
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0

Earlier this week, Give.com was sold for $500,000 in a sale transacted via Sedo. The Whois record for Give.com updated yesterday, and I learned that the domain name was acquired by Brent Oxley, the founder of HostGator (who sold the company to Endurance International Group for over $200 million).

After seeing the Whois change, I reached out to Brent to learn more about the acquisition and his plans for the domain name.

Brent told me that Sedo’s Dave Evanson emailed him a list of high value domain names he was brokering, and Give.com was on the list. Although Brent was not in the market for a domain name at that time, he had been planning to set up a charity and had not finalized a name for it yet. The email proved to be serendipitous, and Give.com will be used for Brent’s charity.  Commenting on the deal, Dave told me, “I was aware of Mr. Oxley’s outstanding background and was delighted I was able to negotiate a price that made seller and buyer happy.”

Brent shared his vision for how Give.com will be used and when the charity will launch:

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Verified Domains to Provide Domain Name Background Checks

Elliot Silver
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0

Bill Hartzer emailed me to announce the launch of Verified Domains, a business that was created to provide “extensive background checks on domains.” The purpose of the business is to give domain buyers reassurances about the history of domain names that are being considered for acquisition.

Verified Domains launched today, and I have not had an opportunity to explore the website fully, so I asked Bill to share more information about how Verified Domains works. Here’s what Bill had to say about how it works and why people would want to use Verified Domains:

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