Web.com To Sponsor PGA Tour

Elliot Silver
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As you can see from the embedded tweet, Web.com has announced a 10 year sponsorship of the PGA Tour. In a blog post  posted this morning on its website, Web.com “signed a 10-year contract with the PGA to become the title sponsor of the newly renamed Web.com Tour.” The Tour was previously known as the Nationwide Tour.

This is pretty good news for domain name investors, as it will certainly bring additional attention to domain names. The great thing about the PGA Tour (in my opinion) is that many business decision makers watch golf tournaments, and any time attention is brought to domain names, it’s a very good thing.

Go Daddy has done very well with its sports sponsorships, and it seems that the company continues to increase its visibility, with auto racing, Super Bowl, bull riding and other sporting event sponsorships and marketing campaigns. 1 & 1 has also been advertising during popular sporting events, although the focus seems to be on small business websites in its commercials.

Web.com’s primary focus is on business websites, and in the last couple of years, the company acquired Register.com and Network Solutions.

.Org Prices to Increase on July 1

Elliot Silver
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Public Interest Registry (PIR), the domain registry that manages .org domain names, will be raising the wholesale prices for .org domain names on July 1st, 2012. Most domain registrars typically follow suit, and the amount of the price increase generally depends on where you register domain names.

Domain registrars have been sending out emails to clients, and registrars like NameCheap have also been blogging about the price increase. While the increase isn’t much, it can be a burden for people and companies that hold a significant number of .org domain names.

There are a couple of ways you can save money though. First, you can renew, register, or transfer your .org domain names for the 2012 price prior to the July 1 price increase. A second way to save money is to see if your preferred registrar is running any .org registration or renewal deals in advance of the deadline. I’ve found that companies may run special offers to encourage customers to renew for several years to save money.

After June 30, prices on .org domain names will be going up, so if you have any in your portfolio, now is a good time to renew them.

DONA.com – First Domain Registrar to Offer “UDRP Insurance”

Elliot Silver
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Most of the time when I receive special offers, I read right through them as quickly as possible or simply delete them. An email from Francois Carrillo this morning announcing the launch of DONA.com has me interested. His new domain registrar at DONA.com is offering free “UDRP insurance” on domain names registered there.

Here’s the deal:

“If you are hit by an UDRP:
– You will get free legal assistance to estimate your winning chances.
– A list of attorneys offering special rates to our members.
– And if you won the UDRP, we’ll reimburse you the legal fees spent to defend you!
This way you no longer have to be afraid about this plague. If you register your domain in good faith, you should no longer spend money defending against domain hijackers.”

In addition to this, Carrillo pledged that 30% of the profit from DONA.com will be given to the Internet Commerce Association, an organization that lobbies and fights for the rights of domain investors.

This seems like quite an offer. The UDRP insurance payout is only given if you win the UDRP, but with the cost of a defense around $5,000 (give or take depending on who you use), it seems like a pretty good deal if you. Although the price per registration is moderately higher than other registrars (assuming domain investors have better than rack rate), it’s still a good deal if you are hit with a UDRP and win.

Congratulations to Carrillo who always seems to be coming up with creative ideas to grow his business.

NameCheap Almost at 3 Million Registrations: Give Aways on the Way

Elliot Silver
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To celebrate its impending achievement of 3,000,000 domain names under its management, NameCheap has made a couple of special offers to its customers. Since the company is just a bit short of the final 10,000 domain countdown, I want to share what the company is offering customers during the countdown and just after.

The big prize is that the company will be giving $3,000 to the person who registers the 3 millionth domain name. The prize will be paid either via NameCheap account credit or paid via Paypal.

The company is also offering specials for when it hits 10,000 before and 10,000 after the 3 million number.

According to the NameCheap contest page, “We’ll be giving away 1000 free** domains before the 3 million mark, and 1000 more after! If you buy or transfer any 10th domain between 2,990,000 to 3 million, we’ll credit the associated costs back to your account automatically.Moreover, once we reach that 3 million milestone, we’re giving away another 1000 domains for free** for every 10th domain purchase or transfer until we reach 3,010,000 domains!”

You should visit the page to read any disclaimers they may have to be sure you’re eligible.

Congratulations to NameCheap on the  achievement.

NameCheap Overtakes Go Daddy

Elliot Silver
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According to the Google Adword Keyword Tool, tens of thousands of people search for the term “domain name” each month (just under 100,000 searches). Go Daddy is the largest domain registrar, with tens of millions of domain names under management, and NameCheap is on its way to 3 million domain names under its control (check out the company’s 3 millionth domain registration contest).

I am not sure when this happened, but NameCheap has overtaken Go Daddy in Google for the key search term, domain name. Both companies still trail the Wikipedia page for that term, but it’s certainly a major boost for NameCheap to be listed ahead of Go Daddy. A search of the plural “domain names” shows that GoDaddy is still outranking NameCheap, with both companies trailing Wikipedia.

Over the last couple of years, NameCheap has aggressively courted Go Daddy customers and domain buyers with its tongue in cheek advertising and marketing campaigns. At the end of 2011 when Go Daddy flip flopped on its SOPA stance, NameCheap made a big push with people opposed to SOPA, and the company saw a surge in transfers.

NameCheap is a much smaller entity than GoDaddy, so it’s pretty remarkable to see them outranking Go Daddy for this key search term. As a result, Go Daddy and other companies are spending a lot of money on paid search, while NameCheap doesn’t seem to have the need (at least for this key term).

In case you are wondering, I used a non-work related computer to do the search since Google sometimes skews results based on search preferences and prior searches.

Fabulous Now Offers Password Reset

Elliot Silver
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I don’t use Fabulous very often, but I do have a number of domain names registered there, mostly from NameJet auctions. Because I don’t use Fabulous very often, I seem to forget my password when I need it, and for the longest time, there was no prompt to request a password when logging in to my account.

When I would forget my password, I would need to email customer support, and sometimes it would take a long time to receive a reply since Fabulous is located in Australia and I am in NYC. The company has fantastic customer support, but it was a bit frustrating to have to wait an extended period of time to receive a password reset via email.

When I logged into my account yesteday to check on a name, I was prompted to create answers for a password reset option. There are five  fields and about 15 questions from which users can choose. I assume the password reset question prompt will rotate the questions for security.

This is a minor feature, but it’s something that is a big annoyance, and I am glad it’s being fixed.

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