Several weeks ago, I noticed that Community.com had transferred registrars from MarkMonitor to Amazon Registrar. The domain name had been registered to Salesforce.com, and Community.com is now privately registered. After seeing this domain transfer, I also noticed it was no longer redirecting to a page within the Salesforce.com website. Instead, a new logo appeared at the bottom of the Community.com landing page.
Michael Bilde sent me an interesting Daily Mail article that had to do with a company’s domain name change. From what I understand, an executive at “an organic sex aid company” called Yes Yes Yes allegedly decided to change the company’s domain name from the .org to the .com, and it did not go well. One of the founders of the company, who was opposed to making this change, was not happy when it was allegedly changed without approval.
Amazon posted a job opening that looks like it could be a good fit for someone with experience in the domain name industry. The company is looking to hire a Marketing Manager for its Amazon Registry Services line of business. The job will be based in the company’s Seattle, Washington office.
I read the NamePros article asking people if they are bullish or bearish on domain names. I have to admit, I am a bit bearish on the domain name market right now. I think I’ve been bearish for a few months, but I am still buying domain names when good opportunities arise. I wanted to share some of my thoughts, which are always evolving.
Last year, I bought around 200 domain names in the aftermarket. This includes auction purchases as well as private acquisitions. This is about 10% more domain names than I bought in 2017, although the spend was down because there were a couple of outliers in 2017. I think I hand registered more domain names than usual last year, although I don’t know how many I registered.
The first domain name I bought in 2018 was InternetLiberty.com. I bought that domain name at NameJet and the total paid was $169.13 including the fees. I still own the domain name and don’t think I received any serious inquiries during the year. I think it could be used by an ISP or possibly even a campaign related to net neutrality or something along those lines.
The final domain name purchase of the year was AlternativeSpin.com. I bought that domain name at GoDaddy Auctions for $12 plus the renewal fee for one year – so a little more than $20. I do not have the domain name in my GoDaddy account yet. I think this would be a neat political news brand name.
Over the weekend, I wrote about Brent Oxley listing a portfolio of one word .com domain names in the NamesCon auction on NameJet. Perhaps, even bigger news can be found in a comment that Brent posted in response to another reader’s comment about the Create.com domain name:
“The reason I have create.com listed at $3mm is that I plan on turning this into my new hosting company I hope to launch within a year. At the time of selling hostgator we hosted more domains than godaddy and had I not sold I’m confident hostgator would be larger than them today and I’d have billions of dollars to fund my charity give.com I’d like to start.
A day doesn’t seem to go by without an old customer reaching out to share all the issues they’re having at HG. When I was shopping hostgator all interested parties always asked what the secret sauce was and when I told them customer service and uptime they’d hate my answer. The reason is because they all thought they could make millions more by outsourcing to India and that the customers woudln’t notice.
I’ll be coming back with a vengance and this time I won’t be a selllout!”
As you likely know, Brent was the founder of HostGator, one of the largest web hosting companies in the world. Brent sold HostGator to Endurance International Group (EIG) for a reported $225 million in 2012. It would be quite interesting if Brent got back into the hosting business. I am sure much has changed in that space since 2012.
