RSA Conference Panel: “Domain Name Abuse”

Elliot Silver
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The RSA Conference is a respected and well-attended  Internet security conference that brings security experts together from all over the world. This year’s main event in the United States is  currently being held in San Francisco, California through April 24th. I learned that there is a panel focusing solely on  domain names, and as one might expect, it’s not one that puts the domain name space in a positive light.

On Thursday, April 23 at 9:10am, there is a session called “Domain Name Abuse: How Cheap New Domain Names Fuel the eCrime Economy.” The panel will be led by  Paul Vixie, CEO of a company called  Farsight Security, Inc.

Here is how the panel is described on

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Why Network Solutions Showed a $10k Price for an Unregistered Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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Sam Biddle, a Senior Writer at Gawker Media, posted this tweet about Network Solutions  showing  a price of  $10,000 for the unregistered SamBiddle.com. Biddle opted to register the domain name  at Hover for $13 instead of paying the  exorbitant  price  listed at Network Solutions.

After seeing the tweet, I tried to replicate the registration process at Network Solutions. I was unable to find another unregistered domain name with a premium asking price. I dug in a bit further, and I believe I found

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Domain Name: A Business Asset

Elliot Silver
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Last week, I  chatted with  a friend, who I got to know after his company bought an expensive domain name from my company. We got to discussing  domain names, and he shared a reason for buying the domain name that I hadn’t considered before: it’s an important business asset.

This might sound pretty obvious, but let me explain it further.

My friend is in a service business. For privacy reasons, I won’t divulge the service area, but think about things like consulting services, medical services, legal services, home services…etc. Essentially any professional service companies that don’t have products or proprietary patents, algorithms…etc. would likely fall into this category.

My friend owns his own company, and he is

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Realtor Shares Advice About Real Estate Domain Names

Bill Hauck
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Publisher’s note: Bill Hauck shared an insightful comment earlier this week about real estate domain names, and I asked him if he would be willing to expound on it in a blog post. Bill was kind enough to write the article below sharing some of his advice.

I’ve been a residential real estate agent for nearly 20 years and a domain name investor/enthusiast for at least the last ten years, maybe longer. During that time, I’ve purchased a number of real estate-related domain names to use for my real estate business, and others for the sole purpose of licensing or reselling. If you’re considering purchasing real estate-related domain names with the goal of licensing or reselling them to an end-user, my thought process as both Realtor and as a domainer may be of some help to you.

As a Realtor, I wanted to acquire geo-specific, real estate-related domains for lead generation. I was able to acquire several on Namejet and purchased (or negotiated trades for) other domains directly from the owners. Here is a list of domains I was willing to purchase over the years, albeit not at very high prices; SiouxFallsLots.com, SiouxFallsLand.com, SiouxFallsListings.com, SiouxFallsTeam.com, SiouxFallsCondos.com, SiouxFallsCondominiums.com, SiouxFallsBuilders.com, SiouxFallsBuilder.com, SiouxFallsSDRealEstate.com, SiouxFallsProperties.com and SiouxFallsHome.com. While I still own most of the above domains, the most desirable domains a Realtor can own, and more importantly may be willing to pay thousands of dollars for, are “City”Homes.com or “City”RealEstate.com. I was fortunate to acquire SiouxFallsHomes.com after many years of staying in touch with the owner and making generous offers for the domain.

In my opinion, “City”Homes.com is a bit shorter and slightly more brandable. However, I like the keywords in “City”RealEstate.com better and the domain can also be used for residential and commercial property. While there may be some money to be made in other real estate-related domain names, my personal preference when investing in geo real estate domains is to focus on “City”Homes.com and “City”RealEstate.com.

Once you have a quality real estate domain (RED) that you want to license or sell is to find an end-user. Years ago, I used to make lists of individual real estate agents and their e-mail addresses. While I had some early success that led to licensing three real estate domains (REDs), the returns weren’t high enough to justify all of the work. More recently, I’ve found that it’s become difficult to find e-mails addresses of individual agents, although I suspect there are services available for such purposes.

Here are some bullet points from my personal experience

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Taylor Swift Domain News is Much Ado About Nothing

Elliot Silver
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During the last few days, a tremendous variety of publications wrote about Taylor Swift (or most likely her representatives) registering .Porn and .Adult domain names. There were articles from publications such as USA Today, Cosmopolitan, Fortune, Entertainment Weekly, CBS News, and many other news outlets from around the world.

In my opinion, this “news” topic is not news at all, and I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. In fact, I think this tweet from Directnic says it best:

When it comes to domain name registrations, companies need to be diligent and proactive. Companies need to protect their trademarks, especially when it comes to urls that could be used in an embarrassing manner or in a way that could confuse a customer or prospect.

For Taylor Swift and her brand, I would

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Mobile Version Update

Elliot Silver
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Google recently announced there would be an update that would impact websites that aren’t mobile friendly. I haven’t had much trouble navigating DomainInvesting.com from my iPhone, but it was not perfectly optimized for mobile.

DomainInvesting.com recently went through an update / upgrade, and it is now much more mobile friendly. As of this afternoon, DomainInvesting.com is now mobile friendly according to Google.

As with anytime a major update is made to a live website, there is the potential for issues to arise. I would ask that you share any feedback about the mobile experience. I use an iPhone, so I have not personally done testing with other devices.

If you notice anything funky with respect to the way the website looks on your mobile device, could you please let me know? The issues should be related to usability and functionality.

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