I was checking out the Whois information for a couple of education related domain names, and I came across EducationLoans.com and EducationLoan.com. Somewhat surprisingly, these domain names appear to be owned by financial giants PNC and Sallie Mae (or a related company). It’s a smart move to own great domain names like these.

PNC Bank is the registrant of EducationLoans.com, and Student Loan Funding Resources, LLC (with a Whois contact email @salliemae.com) is the registrant of the singular EducationLoan.com. Unfortunately, neither of these great assets are currently resolving to any type of website. They aren’t even being used for forwarding purposes to these companies’ primary websites.

Screenshots.com shows that both

I read a press release in the Wall Street Journal announcing the launch of a venture capital fund called the Ghost Domain Capital Fund. The business “invests in ‘category killer’ Internet domains that are mostly oriented toward B2B solutions.” According to its website, here is a bit of background about Ghost Domain Capital Fund:

The general partners of Ghost Domain Capital are experts at monetizing the web. The formulas and strategies used to generate significant revenue transend industries and are easily replicated. One of the requirements is a category killer domain — typically at a cost north of $1M.

The company that operates the Ghost Domain Capital Fund is the Ghost Group, “a Southern California-based venture capital firm primarily focused on the emerging marijuana industry.”

I do not have information about investments made by Ghost Domain Capital Fund, although I do have a bit more information about Ghost Group. One of the general partners of Ghost Group is a person named Justin Hartfield, who is the  co-founder and CEO of WeedMaps.com, which reportedly generates $1.5 million in monthly revenue. In January of 2012, I reported that WeedMaps had acquired Marijuana.com.

The company name is pretty cool, and I am interested in hearing more about their category killer domain investments.

According to an article on Media Week  this morning, “The Guardian is set to change its numerous domain names including guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com as part of a shift to a global digital newsbrand and ongoing expansion in the US and Asia-Pacific.” This is a wise move for the company, and I am sure the acquisition of TheGuardian.com wasn’t cheap.

Up until around April 10, 2013, TheGuardian.com domain name was owned by The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. The company also owns GLIC.com, and it uses GuardianLife.com for its website. I am unsure of whether the life insurance company used TheGuardian.com as an independent website or was forwarding traffic like it does with GLIC.com. I couldn’t find a sale listing for the domain name, so I assume it was a private acquisition.

On April 14, Guardian News & Media Limited became the registrant of TheGuardian.com. The company is currently forwards TheGuardian.com to GuardianNews.com. Interestingly, it appears OS Portfolio Holdings, LLC (connected with domain industry company Oversee.net) was once the registrant of GuardianNews.com back in 2011 and prior. The Greenberg Traurig, LLP law firm owned the domain name shortly after, so I don’t know if it was a private acquisition or some other deal.

Guardian.com is another branded domain name, and it’s owned by a third (and unrelated) company from Michigan called Guardian Industries.

Once again, we see that .com is the universal extension favored by brands serving multi-national markets. Interestingly, Guardian News & Media Limited is a gTLD applicant, having applied for 5 gTLD strings, although the company did withdrawn from three.

I was checking out some three letter .com domain names this morning, and I came across an interesting landing page on AHH.com. The landing page says “There are over 34,755 ways to explain how Coca-Cola makes you feel, and one way to describe them: Ahh.” There’s a button below the graphic imploring people to click to “explore the world of AHH,” and clicking that takes visitors to another unique url: ahhhhh.com.

I did a bit of research, and it appears the domain name was acquired just last month, most likely between April 9 – April 24. On April 9, the Whois records showed that the domain name was registered to the previous owner of the domain name, Adams, Harkness & Hill. On April 24, Whois records shows Coca-Cola as the domain name’s registrant.

According to a 2001 Boston Business Journal report, Adams, Harkness & Hill is/was a Boston-based investment banking firm. A Google search for the company didn’t yield a corporate website in the top results. Using the Whois email address for the previous registrant, I was able to see that AHH was acquired in 2006 by a wealth management firm called Canaccord Genuity.

Screenshots.com doesn’t show a website on AHH.com from between 2007 until now, so I don’t know if AHH.com was in use or if it was used as a forwarder to the acquiring company’s website.

Fast Company has an article about Coca-Cola’s usage of the branding, and you’ll want to check it out if you’re interested in the Coca-Cola campaign.

I didn’t see any sales reports for AHH.com, so it was most likely acquired in private for an undisclosed sum. Whatever the cost of the domain name was, I am sure it was worth it for this campaign.