Generic Domain Names

Luxottica to Acquire Glasses.com

glassescom_logoAccording to a press release this morning, Luxottica has entered into an agreement to acquire Glasses.com from WellPoint, Inc. Although this isn’t  a domain name deal because Glasses.com is a full-fledged website and business, the Glasses.com domain name and branding is a great asset for this optical holding company to own. Terms of the deal, including the price, were not disclosed.

The Luxottica brand itself may not be entirely familiar to you, but I would imagine you know at least a few of the brands the company owns and operates. Lenscrafters, Pearle Vision,

The Story Behind the Bitcoins.com Domain Name

BitcoinsArguably one of the most popular topics of 2013 was the emergence and growing popularity of bitcoins. Thousands of publications have covered all aspects of bitcoins, and you can see the jump in popularity in bitcoins in this Google Trends chart.

A website was recently launched on  Bitcoins.com, and I did a bit of research to see if I could contact the original registrant of the domain name.  I was able to get in touch with the original registrant, a native of Argentina  who asked that I not publish his name for privacy reasons, and he was kind enough to share his story about the domain name . Bitcoins.com is now owned by Tibanne Co. Ltd., the company that operates the Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange.

“Back in 1998 (dot.coms) I created a Business Plan for a new kind of

Gifts.com Ranks Well This Christmas

Logo for Gifts.comI’ve heard a number of people cite that keyword domain names aren’t nearly as helpful as they once were. This may or may not be entirely true (I’ll let SEOs debate that), but I want to share one keyword .com domain name brand that seems to have done well this Christmas: Gifts.com.

I’ve neither bought anything from Gifts.com nor do I have any type of relationship with Gifts.com. In fact, I don’t recall ever visiting the website until I was researching how some of the big brands ranked for Christmas gift related keywords (Overall, I think Walmart fared the best in terms of big brands ranking for broad keywords).

According to its website, “Gifts.com is the #1 online gift recommendation service, offering over 7 million monthly shoppers during peak holiday periods with personalized gift ideas and interactive tools to help them become better, more organized gift-givers.

Here’s how Gifts.com currently ranks for some Christmas gift keyword searches:

Use Internet Traffic to Find “Category” Domain Names

When it comes to my domain name portfolio, I generally stick to buying category keyword .com domain names. There’s nothing wrong with brandables (and they can sell for a lot of money), but that isn’t where my focus is.

Whenever I go out or do any reading, I am always thinking about potential domain names. I look through lists of names offered by brokers and marketplaces, and I sometimes consult a dictionary and thesaurus to find potential acquisition targets.

I was updating an incorrectly categorized domain name at Internet Traffic this weekend, when I thought of

Anthos Chrysanthou Discusses Translate.com

Translate.comAnthos Chrysanthou is a successful domain investor whose company, Emerge Media, owns a number of excellent domain names. This morning on The Next Web, there was an article posted about Translate.com, a domain name Emerge Media acquired about a year ago and is now operating as a language translation website.

The article covers the release of the website’s iOS and Android apps, but I thought the most interesting aspect was that since the acquisition a year ago, “Emerge Media has since grown the site five fold to over 2 million users.” That’s a solid growth rate.

I didn’t see any

Would Amazon Launch “Pantry” Without DigiMedia’s Pantry.com?

DigiMediaI read a story on USAToday.com about a new business that Amazon is reportedly developing. “Amazon.com is working on a new business called Pantry that will help it expand further into the giant consumer package goods market,” according to the USA Today article. There wasn’t really information about whether a business unit called Pantry would go under the Amazon umbrella, or if it would be a freestanding entity.

When you hear of a major company launching a new major business under a different brand name, you probably assume that the company has the exact match .com domain name to go along with it. As of right now, it appears that

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