GoDaddy Archives - Page 113 of 115

GoDaddy Price Increase Announced for .Com & .Net Domain Registrations

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March 3, 2010

I just received an email from GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, and the email announced a price increase for .com and .net domain registrations. As of July 1, 2010, the price of .com domain names will increase 7%, while the price of .net domain names will increase by 10%. The email cited VeriSign’s price increase as the reason.

I am sure that other registrars will send similar emails to their customers, so keep this in mind if you want to renew and/or extend the length of your domain registrations prior to the price increase.

A 7% increase may not seem like a lot of money, but if you have a portfolio of 1,000 names at Godaddy and pay the full price of $10.69, a 7% increase means you will pay $11.44 per name, an increase of $750 for your entire portfolio.

Here’s the email that was just sent by Godaddy:

===

On July 1, 2010, VeriSign ®, the registry for .COM and .NET, will increase prices – .COM will go up 7%, and .NET by 10%.

The increase will be passed to registrars like Go Daddy and then, unfortunately, to consumers like you.

As of July 1, we will be forced to raise registration and renewal* prices for these two popular top-level domains.

If you wish to avoid this price increase, you can renew your domain names by June 30 and add another year to your current expiration dates. You have the option to register or renew for multiple years and lock in long-term savings. Of course, should you have any questions, please give us a call at 1-480-505-8821.

Thanks as always for being a Go Daddy customer.

One Reason to Use Godaddy: Free Hosting

Elliot Silver

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January 15, 2010

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I primarily use Moniker for my domain registrations, but I have a few that are registered at Godaddy, and I just realized one advantage of using Godaddy. Domain names that are registered at Godaddy are given free hosting from the company, although they have the ugly banner across the top of the website.

For many people, this ugly banner is a deal breaker, but in reality it shouldn’t be one. I registered a few “throw away” domain names last year with the intention of building very small websites for SEO purposes (just as a test). I only got around to building one single page website that had information and several links to another website of mine I wanted to assist with SEO.

Lo and behold, I came back to the site close to a year after launching it, and I noticed that Google has it ranked PR3. I know that people often debate about the value of Google’s PageRank, but the “website” consists of 3 paragraphs, has no photographs, used a free CSS template, and took about 30 minutes to create.

I know PR3 isn’t exactly hugely impactful, but all things considered, it was a pretty simple back link with no downside.

Why You Should Attend a Domain Conference

Elliot Silver

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January 2, 2010

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Although networking with other domain investors is high up on the list of reasons to attend a domain conference, in my opinion, there is one primary reason. Attending a domain conference gives you the opportunity to meet your sales representatives and managers for the companies with whom you do your domain business.

Whether your business primarily relies on domain investing, parking, or other monetization, you can meet the people who can help you when you are in need.

For my domain registrations, I primarily register my names with Moniker. No matter who is running the conference or where it is, I almost always see my account manager Bari Meyerson at the shows. Monte Cahn is frequently there as are other Moniker representatives, but it’s always good to connect with Bari. I also register some names with Godaddy, and my representative, Brad Larson is frequently in attendance.

The same thing goes for domain parking, although you already know by now that I don’t rely on parking for much revenue (under $1,000 per year). However, just about all of the companies are there and have company representatives available to answer questions and address complaints.

I know that if I ever have a problem, I am comfortable calling or emailing Bari and Brad day or night, and I know my issue will be addressed almost immediately. When you establish a personal relationship with the services companies with whom you do business, you are more easily able to reach your sales managers in times of need.

In addition, if your business relies on advertising from companies who exhibit and attend domain tradeshows, this is an opportunity to tell them about your website. If you own DomainInvesting.com and plan to develop a website on it, your best bet is to connect with the right people at the domain show to let them know about your plans and advertising opportunities.

Likewise, attending an industry tradeshow can also be smart when you are developing other domain names in different verticals. Most tradeshows offer free exhibit hall passes, allowing you to meet with vendors who may want to advertise on your website. This is a topic for another post.

Upcoming domain conferences where most domain companies will be in attendance include:

Targeted TRAFFIC – January 21-23 in Las Vegas, Nevada
DomainFest – January 26-28 in Santa Monica, California
Domainer Mardi Gras – February 11-13 in New Orleans, Louisiana

O.Biz: Overstock Building .Biz Awareness

GoDaddy

Elliot Silver

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September 14, 2009

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This morning, Overstock.com announced that it will be going live with the website O.biz on October 31,2009. The new site will sell mostly restaurant, office, and hotel products, with a focus on small businesses and consumers looking to buy in bulk at greater discounts than are found on the Overstock.com website.

Some people might ask why Overstock would want a .biz domain name for this project. You can’t argue with the fact that it’s memorable and short, two things that an established brand cares about. Likewise, the .Biz registry will have a showcase website, one step in building consumer awareness.

In my opinion, consumer awareness is what drives domain registrations after the initial speculative period ends and domain speculators choose whether or not to renew their domain names. The more that consumers are aware of a specific domain extension (and familiar with brands that use them as standalone sites rather than redirects to a main .com site), the more value the domain names have. This drives both consumer and business adoption of these domain names.

In the press release this morning, Overstock.com Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne commented, “The .BIZ extension is appealing to growing, innovative businesses. Our goal is to have O.BIZ help small to medium-size businesses save money by leveraging the purchasing power of Overstock.com.”

If this new site is a hit for Overstock, it will certainly be a boon to .Biz domain names, which in my opinion aren’t very coveted right now, despite being listed as a “Top Seller” on registrar websites like Godaddy, which is an effort to upsell or downsell additional extensions. With new gTLDs presumably coming, the .Biz registry will end up fighting for this valuable real estate with up and coming domain extensions, and it needs to prove that that people will buy them.

Godaddy Top Sellers

Possible Namepros Phishing Attempt

Elliot Silver

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July 3, 2009

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This morning I received an email that appears to be a Namepros domain forum phishing attempt, which I posted below. There are a couple of things domain investors and developers can learn from this:

1) Have different user names and passwords for forums, blogs, registrar logins…etc.

2) Don’t click links in an email as they can be cloaked.

3) If you suspect that you have clicked to a phishing website, tell the webmaster and change your password on the real site

4) Protectively register similar domain names to prevent confusion – especially if your website allows people to sign up.

It appears this email refers to a site at wwwnamepros.com rather than www.namepros.com, and the phishing domain name is registered at Godaddy. The spoofed website has already been taken down. However, you should be aware of this now and for the future. It should also be noted that the Whois information on the domain name is not private.

Here’s the email:

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL!
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Dear UserName,

You have received a new private message at NamePros.com from steelejones, entitled “Trader Rating Notification”.

To read the original version, respond to, or delete this message, you must log in here:
http://www.namepros.com/private.php

This is the message that was sent:
***************
You have received a new Positive rating or comment from steelejones.

Details about this transaction can be found *on your iTrader page* (http://wwwnamepros.com/itrader.php?u=88275).

Note: This is an automated message.
***************

Again, please do not reply to this email. You must go to the following page to reply to this private message:
http://www.namepros.com/private.php

All the best,
NamePros.com

Using Vurr to Find Keyword Domain Names

Elliot Silver

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May 18, 2009

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I found a tool that I’ve been using to harvest unregistered domain names and I wanted to share this with you. Vurr is a tool that is similar to what Overture was, but it relies on a static set of data. From the Vurr website:

“This is a free alternative to Overture and equivalent tools. Search data is from 48.6 million searches by 657,426 distinct users and comprises 97 million keywords. Data was collected by AOL on a random sample of US users from March 1, 2006 through May 31, 2006. In the interest of privacy, search information is only available in aggregate and numeric queries dropped.”

Because the data isn’t exactly “new” it isn’t the best tool to search for trends or more currently used keywords. For example, the keyword search for “twitter” returned no results. However, I do think it’s good for long tail domain searches, especially with people dropping more names than usual due to the economy.

To find domain names, I enter specific search terms, such as “mortgage,” “refinancing,” “soccer,” “mobile” etc. I then take the results, along with the actual # of searches, and I use an Excel sheet to remove the numbers, leaving me with rows of keyword phrases. I then use the Godaddy bulk domain search tool to find the .com names that are available to register.

Once I get the results, I break up the domain name back into it’s search terms, and I search Google for the “quoted phrase” to see how many results there are, how many advertisers there are, and I get a feeling for the competitiveness of the keyword and value of the product or service.

If I think a particular domain name would have commercial value to an end user and is a term that people are looking to find, I will generally buy it. The key thing is that the phrase, as listed, is a searched term and has meaning. Even if the phrase is in a niche industry or field, if it could have commercial value, I am willing to take a chance.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy Price Increase Announced for .Com & .Net Domain Registrations

One Reason to Use Godaddy: Free Hosting

Why You Should Attend a Domain Conference

O.Biz: Overstock Building .Biz Awareness

Possible Namepros Phishing Attempt

Using Vurr to Find Keyword Domain Names

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