New gTLD Archives - Page 50 of 95

Rightside Happy With .News Registration Levels

Elliot Silver

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July 30, 2015

The .News domain extension has been available for people to hand register for just two weeks, and it is already selling more in that time period than other Rightside domain extensions in the same period of time. I was told that 8,790 .News domain names were registered on its first day of general availability.

This afternoon, the company announced that over 15,000 .News domain names have been registered so far in the first two weeks of general availability.

With over 15k registrations .NEWS is our most successful web address 2 weeks into general availability http://t.co/FbtH2HmL1W

— Rightside (@rightside) July 30, 2015

The tweet was a bit confusing at first

Right of the Dot and Heritage Auctions to Auction .Versicherung TLD

New gTLD

Elliot Silver

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July 27, 2015

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Over the weekend, I received an email from Monte Cahn announcing that his company, Right of the Dot, LLC, is teaming up with Heritage Auctions to sell the .Versicherung new gTLD extension. The auction will be held on August 26th at 10am EST, and the auction format will be an online ascending clock auction.

Versicherung is the German word for “insurance.” This domain name extension went into General Availability in September of 2014. There are approximately 3,000+/- .Versicherung domain names registered.

Monte shared more details about this new gTLD extension that I thought you might find interesting:

“Like a Drug Baron”

New gTLD

Elliot Silver

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July 25, 2015

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In one of the more amusing comments I have read in some time, someone apparently compared me to a “drug baron” with respect to the new gTLD domain names. In response to an article on Shane Cultra’s blog, Neil wrote the following in a more detailed comment (bolded emphasis added by me):

“You said you wanted to improve the quality of your portfolio like Elliot yet you insist on XYZ? Elliot may promote these crappy extensions heavily but he dosent use them, like a Drug Baron. He only invests in quality and improves his portfolio year on year.”

I appreciate the comment about my improving my portfolio because that is the aim of my business, but I take umbrage in the comparison that was made. There are two things that I think are inaccurate in the comment that I would like to discuss.

The first issue is with the comment that

.Brand Domain Names: Does Risk Outweigh Reward?

Elliot Silver

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July 23, 2015

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In a post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog a couple of days ago, there were several questions asked and answered about Google’s treatment of websites that use new gTLD domain name extensions. I had already understood how Google treats new gTLD extensions, but I wasn’t really sure about how Google would treat .brand domain names, such as .Google or .Barclays domain names.

In the aforementioned blog post, a question about .brand domain names was posed and answered:

Q: Will a .BRAND TLD be given any more or less weight than a .com?
A: No. Those TLDs will be treated the same as a other gTLDs. They will require the same geotargeting settings and configuration, and they won’t have more weight or influence in the way we crawl, index, or rank URLs.

If a .brand domain name doesn’t have any more weight than any other TLD, what is the advantage of using it? I would imagine there could be added trust with a .brand domain name because a consumer should know that the brand operates the extension and it’s less likely to be a phishing site or a site offering counterfeit goods. However, at least at this point in time, I don’t think consumers would know enough about the new extensions to understand this yet.

With that being said, I think there are quite a few disadvantages for a brand to use a new gTLD extension:

Sedo Provides Final Update on Autism.Rocks Discussion

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July 20, 2015

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Following the sale of Autism.Rocks, there was an issue between the seller of the domain name and Sedo. Shortly after the conclusion of the sale, Sedo commented on the situation, stating in part, “We are in direct contact with the seller and together we are going to analyze the process on potential mistakes and how to proceed.” In addition, the company stated, “Again, we are in contact with the seller and hope to sort out the situation.”

I just received an updated statement from Sedo regarding the situation, which I have shared in its entirety:

Why is .Vegas “Lagging?”

Elliot Silver

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July 20, 2015

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The Las Vegas Sun published an interesting article about the .Vegas new gTLD extension this morning. I would like your thoughts on why there are only about 15,000 .Vegas domain names registered. Compared to other city new gTLD extensions like .NYC, .Berlin, and .London, .Vegas is “lagging” as the article title mentions.

The Las Vegas Sun article cited two local business owners with different perspectives on .Vegas domain names. Anthony Carlitto, a local business consultant, mentioned one major issue people in the domain industry continue to point out: there isn’t much consumer awareness of the new extensions. Michael Kruse, a local real estate agent who switched to a .Vegas domain name, cited an increase in traffic to his website. To be honest, I don’t