.Org Registry Holding $5,000 Contest

Elliot Silver
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According to a tweet this evening from the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the registry that manages .org domain names, there is a $5,000 contest I want to share with you. To enter the contest for a chance to win, let PIR know “how your .ORG site is making an impact.”

Submissions are already being accepted, and the submission deadline is March 31, 2014 by 11:59pm, Eastern Daylight Time in the US. Below is more information about how to create a submission to participate in the contest, as well as other pertinent information about the contest.

Of course, you should

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Newbies May Go Broke

Elliot Silver
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Every day, someone new learns about the business of domain investing. There are blogs, forums, ebooks, marketplaces, registrars, registries, brokers, consultants, advertisements, and many other sources that share information about domain investing. It is much easier to learn about buying a domain name today than in years past.

The lure of investing in domain names is strong. Some people see easy money with little management necessary, and they are immediately intrigued. They see how easy it can be to purchase a domain name, and before they know it, they’ve registered dozens. Oftentimes, these domain names don’t really have commercial value, but it’s so easy to buy a domain name and it makes sense to the person buying it.

Unfortunately, there is a high likelihood of

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Exact Match .com Domain Names Making News

Elliot Silver
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During the last couple of weeks, there have been news reported about several exact match .com domain names and the companies that operate them. While news about these individual companies might not directly produce residual value for our domain names, I think reports about these businesses with exact match .com domain names is good for the domain name resale market.

Here are four news stories from the last couple of weeks I have been tracking pertaining to exact match .com domain names. Keep in mind that some of these news reports are related to the companies who use EMDs and is not simply “domain name news.” You should also keep in mind that I am biased because my portfolio is almost exclusively made up of EMDs, and my developed brands are built on EMDs.

I am sure I missed additional articles, and if so, I invite you to share them with all of us.

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Oakland Athletics Migrate to Athletics.com

Elliot Silver
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The Oakland Athletics baseball team announced that it will begin using the Athletics.com domain name for its website. The baseball franchise, or quite possibly Major League Baseball, purchased the Athletics.com domain name back in May of 2012, in a deal that had been reported in initially by Jamie Zoch of DotWeekly and written about further in Domain Name Wire. The purchase price of Athletics.com was not revealed.

The decision to rebrand the website from OaklandAthletics.com to Athletics.com was made to keep all of the team’s branding and social media the same. Here’s how the team announced the news today:

“In an effort to ease fan access to the official club website and, in turn, conform with most other Major League clubs’ sites, the A’s have announced “athletics.com” as their new brand domain.

The switch, from the original “oaklandathletics.com,” is effective immediately, and it “will make accessing the Athletics much easier and faster for fans,” the team said in a statement.

Moreover, the name matches that of the A’s official social media accounts, including @Athletics on Twitter.”

In 2009, just about 73% of MLB teams owned the matching team name .com domain name. Since that time, a number of teams / MLB were able to buy their .com domain name, including Athletics.com, Angels.com, Rockies.com, and Cardinals.com.  It appears that there are only a handful of teams remaining that do not own the exact match .com for their franchise website. Those team name .com domain names include: Rangers.com, Rays.com, Twins.com, and Giants.com.

Kudos to the Athletics and Major League Baseball for buying and using Athletics.com.

Bitcoin Keyword Domain Names Owned by End Users

Elliot Silver
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During the last several months, I’ve noticed quite a few “coin” domain names selling at various aftermarket venues like Sedo, GoDaddy, Afternic, and NameJet. Most of the names that appear to be selling seem to be of the brandable variety rather than exact match keyword domains.  I think a big reason for this is that most of the primary keyword .com names are already owned by end users.

The reason that the best exact match keyword domain names are owned by end users already is likely because Bitcoin and other crypto coin currencies have become popular during the last few years, and the domain names weren’t picked up by many speculators. In addition, because of the growth trajectory of Bitcoin, major players in the space had more money to spend to acquire aftermarket coin domain names (see BitcoinWallet.com and Bitcoins.com links below for more details about those domain names).

Some examples of exact match Bitcoin and other coin related domain names that are (or appear to be) owned by end users are listed below. Many of these domain names are already developed or are pending development:

Some examples of brandable coin domain sales that have recently sold via aftermarket domain sales venues include the domain names listed below. I don’t know if these were speculative investments made by domain investing companies or if they were purchased by end user buyers seeking to build a brand:

  • CoinShield.com (NameJet)
  • CoinEscrow.com (GoDaddy)
  • BitcoinLive.com (NameJet)
  • Bitcoin2014.com (Sedo)
  • CoinCard.com (NameJet)
  • HappyCoins.com (Afternic)
  • CoinTraders.com (Afternic)

One reason we are seeing names with the “Bitcoin” term selling is because I don’t believe there is a trademark that would allow one company or individual to use the Bitcoin keyword exclusively. Despite the Bitcoin “brand,” I don’t think there is a real trademarked brand that would prevent others from buying and using Bitcoin within their domain names.

I believe we will continue to see coin related domain names selling in the aftermarket. It will be interesting to see if sales for some of the highest value “coin” domain names, like Coins.com, Coin.com…etc. These domain names were probably originally destined for websites related to the hard currencies, but perhaps that will change.

Find Out Who Owns a Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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One of the most frequent questions I am asked by people who don’t invest in domain names is “how do you find out who owns a domain name?” When there’s a website, parked domain name, or any other type of landing page, finding out exactly who owns a domain name may not be that simple for someone who doesn’t have know where to look.

The answer, however, is fairly simple. The Whois database is a sort of similar to a phone directory in that it contains information about the ownership of a domain name. Whois records show the (registrant) owner’s name or company name, a contact person, phone number, postal address, email address, and some other bits of information. Although some of the information may not get you to the best person (ie the IT department at a major company), it does give information about the domain registrant.

Sometimes, a domain name is registered privately. Most domain registrars

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