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Guardian News & Media Limited is a gTLD applicant, having applied for 5 gTLD strings, although the company did withdrawn from three.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.

Someone shared a newsletter from Hunter Douglas, a company with one of the best reputations in the window fashions business. The email newsletter was to inform vendors / dealers that they need to purchase their own domain name for websites showcasing their HD products.

I want to share their interesting recommendations with you:

What Makes a Good URL?
DO
If needed, use domains with city names or relevant keywords
Example: blindsomaha.com
DON’T
Purposely misspell words
Use other ‘endings’ such as .biz, .org or .net
Purchase more than one domain
Use the name Hunter Douglas or HD (Per Corporate Advertising Guild lines)

One other interesting thing was that Hunter Douglas recommended that dealers use Dynadot for their domain names. I am not sure if it’s any type of affiliate program, but it’s a great opportunity for Dynadot. I am sure many of these businesses don’t know a whole lot about domain names, and having a recommendation like this is golden.

I would like to thank everybody who submitted their ideas to the Crowdsourcing a Website Idea contest that I guest posted on Elliot’s Blog a few weeks ago.   There were many good ideas, and, as expected, quite a few opinions J.        I would also like to publicly thank Elliot for his willingness to try something different on his blog.     This is one of the reasons why I approached him with this idea, and it is one of the many reasons why I have been regularly reading his blog since 2007.

After reviewing all of the submissions and considering all of the potential models for building IdeasOnDemand.com into a revenue generating website, I have decided to go with the “contest” model.   I believe this model offers a viable solution to a problem encountered by many business, particularly small businesses and startups.

Congratulations to