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Snapnames Job & Career Domain Auction

Snapnames is currently running their September Showcase Auction, and this month’s theme is job and career domain names. Many of the domain names up for auction have no reserves, and others have very low reserve prices. Below are my favorite domain names in auction with the current price. The auction ends on Friday.

BreakfastBar.com – Reserve: $1,001 – $2,500

HorrorStories.com – Reserve: $5,001 – $10,000

HuntingKnife.com – Reserve: $2,501 – $5,000

LawyerListings.com – Reserve: None

MontrealVacations.com – Bid: $840

TemporaryWorkers.com – Reserve: $2,501 – $5,000

WineSale.com – Reserve: $1,001 – $2,500

AOL Just Protecting Its Brand

Ad.com

Last month at an engagement party, I met a friend of a friend who works for Advertising.com. After brief introductions and small talk, he mentioned that he works for Ad.com. Knowing that Ad.com had just sold at Moniker’s auction for 7 figures, I inquired further, and he mentioned that his company is actually Advertising.com, but everyone calls it Ad.com. Therein lies the problem.

In most cases, when a company or famous person has become known by a nickname, and that nickname or moniker becomes just as famous as the person (and clearly associated with the company or person), that company or person may be able to legally claim common law rights to that nickname or term.

Michael Jordan was known as “Air Jordan” because of his leaping and dunking ability. During his playing days, Nike introduced the Air Jordan brand, and I believe it is still one of their most famous brands. Had Michael Jordan not been known as “Air Jordan,” the term “air jordan” would probably be worthless unless someone else used that term famously. Like Jordan, Advertising.com became known as Ad.com internally and externally, and many people associate the term Ad.com with Advertising.com. However, unlike the term “air jordan,” the term and domain name “Ad.com” has significant value besides its usage by Advertising.com.

As an entrepreneur and marketer, I can commiserate with all parties involved in the situation. The current Ad.com domain owner just wants the sale completed as expected, Moniker/Oversee.net wants the commission they are rightfully owed, Skenzo is worried that they are going to have to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in addition to the purchase price to protect their new investment, and AOL wants to protect the brand they believe is rightfully theirs.

As a domain investor on the other hand, I am very concerned by this move by AOL, and it will make me more vigilant about researching the domain names I buy and develop.

Private Whois on Domains in Auction

I just noticed a smart move that is being made by Moniker and wanted to share it with you. I listed another batch of domain names for sale on Snapnames a couple of days ago. I logged in to my account, and I didn’t recognize one of the domain names that had received a bid. Fearful that I mis-listed a domain name I didn’t own, I did a Whois lookup, which is quicker than logging in to my Moniker account.

I was immediately concerned when I saw that the registration was private. I rarely privatize my domain names, and I have private Whois for just a few that I prefer not to be spammed about (no, this domain name and website are not for sale!). I immediately logged in to my account, and sure enough, the domain name was in my account (phewwww)! It also indicated that I had not selected the Privacy Shield option.

I went back to the Whois check and I noticed the listing said “Pending Auction” and “Moniker  Privacy  Services.” This is a smart move to prevent unscrupulous individuals from contacting domain owners and attempting to usurp the auction process.

One suggestion I have for Moniker is to add a link to the auction somewhere. Although many Whois lookup services won’t be willing to link to a competitor’s auction, there’s nothing they can do if the Admin Name is “Pending Auction: http://www.snapnames.com/domainauction123.php.” This will allow people who search for a domain name to see where the auction is. At the very least, they should change the Registrant to “Snapnames.com Pending Auction.”

Domain Name Security Offerings

With domain theft in the news again, it’s time to take a quick look at some security offerings of popular domain name registrars. The security measures below may not be the only security features offered by registrars, so if I missed something, please let me know:

Name.comNameSafe VIP service offering a security USB key fobs for accounts. Domain owners who have the keyfob need to use it in order to log in to their account, preventing anyone without the security key from accessing account-level actions (such as a domain transfer). Name.com is the first ICANN accredited registrar to offer this type of security service. Cost: $19.95 per account per year.

MonikerMaxLock is an added layer of protection customers can purchase to safeguard their domain names at Moniker. With MaxLock, the customer provides Moniker with a government-issued form of identification (passport, license, military ID…etc) and two security questions, which cannot be retrieved online. Any account or domain changes must be completed through the Moniker security team. Cost: $19.95 per domain name per year or $124.99 per portfolio per year.

FabulousChallenge/Response security and the Fabulous Security Key are both security offerings of Fabulous. Challenge/Response is a security feature that allows the account owner to supply answers to a preset list of questions, in order to verify the identity of the user before being granted account access. The security key is a USB device that provides additional levels of security to sensitive areas of a domain owner’s account.

Follow Up: Make 1,000% Profit

I want to follow-up to a post I wrote a few weeks ago called “Make 1,000% Profit.” In the article, I discussed how people can analyze what names are selling at auction at Snapnames, buy names for registration fee at Moniker, and then sell them on Snapnames. The jist was that you can register a domain name for around $8.00 and sell it for $80 (give or take depending on your starting price), for a 1,000% profit.

Since I posted that article, I went out and attempted to do what I had been doing, with then intention of writing up my results here. I had done what I mentioned a few times, and I wanted to prove that it is still possible, even after I publicly wrote up what I was doing.

In any event, the results aren’t as good as the title of my article, but as you will see, I am clearly still more than happy.

Names Registered: 204
Total Spent: $1,550.40

Names Sold: 91
Net Revenue (minus sales commission): $5,849

Total Profit: $4,298.60

All in all, I earned about 3x my investment in profit, and I have over 110 domain names left to sell. One thing that surprised me is that some of the names I bought actually get traffic and some are earning PPC revenue. I suppose with domain tasting being eliminated there are more opportunities to buy names that get random bits of small traffic, but I was surprised. We aren’t talking about a lot of money, but a little bit is more than nothing and shows that there is a value to these names and the buyer presumably knows this.

All in all, I think the test was successful, and I am very happy to have made over $4,000 in profit on this. I still have several months to go to sell the rest of the domain names, but any additional sales is just gravy.

As I said in my initial post as a caveat, it’s important to be able to distinguish a similar domain name to what is selling, and you need to be able to determine someone’s (or many peoples’) buying habits to be successful at this. If you are going to try and do this, I recommend starting small and scaling.

I am sure some people will criticize me because it’s not 1,000% profit as billed. However, I am not selling anything and not making any money from anything you sell, so there’s really no reason for criticism. The first time I did this, the profit margin was greater because some of the auctions had mutliple bidders, driving the price (and profit) higher.

***

Just as a “head’s up” I am leaving for a long weekend in Atlanta later on today, so comment approvals may be a bit slower than normal.

Pressure is on Oversee.net

Oversee.net LogoBased on events and announcements throughout the domain industry during the last couple of years, as well as declining PPC earnings trends and harsh economic conditions, I believe there must be considerable pressure on Oversee.net. Here’s a quick third party view of things that have transpired.

Oversee.net purchased Snapnames, which was the leading platform to purchase expired and deleting domain names. They had many exclusive drop catching deals in place with some of the leading registrars.

A few months later, Enom launched Namejet, a direct competitor to Snapnames. Some of the exclusive registrars later shifted from Snapnames to Enom, costing Snapnames some of the better dropping domain names.

Oversee purchased Moniker a leading domain registrar and auction house that primarily held its live auctions at TRAFFIC shows during the year, grossing millions of dollars. TechCrunch reported the purchase price at $65 million.

Oversee announced staff layoffs.

Oversee holds a great annual domain conference in January, DomainFest, which is held in Hollywood, California with considerable fanfare and high praise from industry professionals.

Crowd favorite and Director of Business Development, Ron Sheridan departs from Oversee’s DomainSponsor.

Rick Latona enters live auction business directly competing with Moniker auctions at some TRAFFIC shows.

Rick Latona signs exclusive deal with Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu to partner on the TRAFFIC shows, leaving Moniker on the outside. In 2009-2010 TRAFFIC will expand to 6+ domain conferences annually, and it doesn’t appear that Moniker will be the auctioneer.

Fabulous announces free security feature which will compete with Moniker’s expensive Max Lock program ($19.99/domain or $124.99/portfolio), and Fabulous also announced a free privacy protection service that will compete with Moniker’s privacy, which costs $4.00 per year.

I know Oversee.net is managed by some smart people, but it seems that many deals they’ve made haven’t worked out as well as they wanted them to work out, and in other cases, competitors are offering better products/services at better prices. Oversee companies were the best of breed in some categories, but now it seems that’s being chipped away rapidly by nimble competitors. Oversee is a well funded company with big time VC backer Oak Hill Capital Partners, but who knows how much of that investment remains and how much previous investments are currently worth.

The people that make up the company are a primary reason why I do business with more than one Oversee company. However, with tough economic times, there are difficult business decisions that have to be made. The pressure seems to be on Oversee, and it will be interesting to see their next move.

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