If you have adult-related domain names monetized with pay per click links at Bodis, you may consider changing where you point them. According to an email from the parking service, the company’s upstream advertising provider will no longer allow the monetization of domain names classified as adult. I suspect this may impact other parking services as well.
Here’s the email I received from Bodis with more information about the situation:
One of the criticisms of companies catering to domain investors is the lack of innovation in the space. Those people aren’t wrong. There are a handful of companies intent on making innovative changes to domain investor services, but the needle doesn’t seem move much. I am hopeful that is going to change.
I was in Las Vegas for the ICA meeting last week and had the chance to connect with domain investor colleagues. One thing I heard from several people is that they / their companies are building new products and services that are tailored to domain investor needs.
Last week, I wrote about the frustration I have had with the DropCatch.com login requirements. It wasn’t unusual for me to login via 2FA to place a backorder on a domain name at DropCatch and then have to go through the login process again a short time later to backorder another domain name. Doing this multiple times per day added a speed bump to my morning. It got to the point that I would not bid on a marginal name to avoid this.
Over the weekend, I noticed a maintenance message on the DropCatch website. I held out hope that the company was going to address an issue that bothers other customers as well.
Efty has become known as a platform that enables customers to utilize customize domain name landing pages to sell domain names and track their leads. Efty customers would then choose a third party payment and transaction platform – like Escrow.com or Dan.com – to close their deals.
This afternoon, Efty announced Efty Pay, a “frictionless domain name transfer engine” that will enable customers to transact within the Efty ecosystem. The benefit to customers is the ability to transact directly within Efty’s platform at an equal or lower commission rate to third parties. The company is expecting to launch this offering soon, but a firm date hasn’t been announced yet.
DropCatch.com will be undergoing some maintenance later on today. As a result, auctions that were expected to conclude today during this time period will end on Tuesday instead. The note on the top of the website provides the update:
“DropCatch will be undergoing routine maintenance on Monday, January 8th between 2:00PM and 6:00PM Mountain Time. The site will be unavailable during this time. Auctions scheduled to end on Monday will be extended until Tuesday, January 9th.”
Escrow.com may be the largest platform for third party domain name domain name sales transactions. This morning, the company unveiled a short report (pdf file) featuring domain name sales trends from the past year. The data shared is based on the 8,500+ domain transactions worth “[M]ore than US$300M” transacted via the escrow service provider for the year. There are still 10 days remaining in 2023, so it is incomplete.
Interestingly, it looks like this is going to be a down year for domain name sales on Escrow.com. According to a report shared by Domain Name Wire in September of 2022, there were $256 million worth of domain name sales transactions in the first half of 2022. The figure shared in today’s report is ‘more than $300 million USD,’ for this entire year, so it could theoretically be any number above $300m. I would imagine that $300m figure is relatively close to the actual figure though. I asked for a bit of clarity to understand how 2023 compares to 2022.
