Travel Shark, the company previously known as SwiftRank, has made 80 additional city Hotels.com domain name and website acquisitions, and the list of  acquired  domain names is simply awesome. Included in the purchase are BeijingHotels.com, SingaporeHotels.com, BangkokHotels.com and KualaLumpurHotels.com.  The acquisition price was not released, but I would be willing to bet that it was seven figures.

Travelshark CEO, Sue Heilbronner  provided some insight into this  acquisition. “We made this investment in these domains in support of the new consumer products TravelShark is building to enhance the quality and usability of our hyper-local content.  We know consumers will find high-quality sites more and have more confidence in those sites based on the strength of these excellent domains.  So this is a long-term decision that crosses our entire strategic plan.”

When it was known as SwiftRank, the travel company made other significant domain name acquisitions. It purchased SydneyHotels.com from Rick Schwartz for a reported $100,000, and it also purchased domain names from Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. Most of its acquisition prices are private, but the company has shown a willingness to pay significant sums of money for domain names that fit into its business model.

At present, the company currently operates many websites in markets across the world. Instead of relying on one primary website like most travel companies, it builds smaller portals focusing on niche markets. For instance, it operates LasVegasHotels.com,  BostonHotels.com, JerusalemHotels.com, CapetownHotels.com, VancouverHotels.com, and many more in regions throughout the world.

The next time you’re looking for  Las Vegas Hotels, Beijing Hotels, or  Kuala Lumpur Hotels, you should check out Travel Shark’s websites to book your trip.

More information about the company’s most recent acquisitions can be found in the press release issued today.

There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today that I think anyone who parks domain names should read. Apparently, it appears that it’s possible for a parking company to send out auto response emails for domain names that are parked, and those emails may contain spammy links in them.

Here’s an excerpt from the article discussing how this was set up:

“An Associated Press reporter accidentally sent a message to a “verizonwireless.co” address instead of the proper “.com” and got this response, ostensibly from his contact “tom”:

“I am out of office right now on a my (sic) dream vacation and will get back to you when I return. If you don’t hear from me, my assistant should contact you shortly. You should check this site to see how I scored the best travel deal for my trip.”

That’s followed by a link to a site that advertises luxury resorts. Presumably, the owner of verizonwireless.co makes money when someone clicks through to any of the resort sites.”

I sent a test email to info @ one of my parked domain names at Parked.com and I did not receive any type of response (no delivery failure notice either), so it appears that this is not something Parked.com is doing. I don’t do much parking elsewhere, so I can’t say if others are or aren’t doing this.

I recommend that you check out the WSJ article when you have a chance.

While logging into my account the other day at Enom, I noticed that they had an option to enable “Account Validation.” This is an extra layer of security that asks you questions just about every time you log in to your account, to verify that you are the account holder.

When you enable Account Validation, you’re taken to a screen where you must choose four questions to answer out of a large group of questions. There are choices about your first pet, first car, teachers, schools favorite vacation spot…etc. You must select and then answer four of the questions, which will be used to validate your credentials on future log in attempts.

After this is enabled, when you log in, it will randomly display two questions to answer. You can choose an option to not display the questions on future log ins, although I check the box every time and I still get asked the questions. Perhaps it’s a cookie setting on my computer that is causing this.

One thing I like is that the answers don’t auto populate when I begin typing, which would seemingly give away the answers. When I log in to my Paypal account without my security key, it asks me two questions, and as soon as I type the first correct letter, my full answer appears. With Enom, this doesn’t happen, making it more secure.

I recommend adding Account Validation to your account.

I recommend that you enable Account Validation at Enom when you have a chance.

As I’ve done in the past, I am posting some of my recent domain purchases so you can get an idea of what I am buying these days. Feel free to share your recent acquisitions as well. I think it’s helpful if you distinguish what you hand registered vs. what you purchased in the aftermarket.

• PhilippinesOutsourcing.com
• HumanResourcesOutsourcing.com
• SoccerReferees.com
• KilimanjaroHotel.com
• PrivateSchoolEducation.com
• SanDiegoDogWalker.com
• DrunkDrivingDefenseLawyers.com
• CornwallVacations.com
• GlobalPhoneCards.com
• SharedServerHosting.com
• PetcareTips.com
• NFCPlugin.com (hand registered)
• NFCPlugins.com (hand registered)
• AlternativeLender.com (hand registered)
• BikeCapetown.com (hand registered)
• BikePerth.com (hand registered)

I just noticed a new WhyPark “Revenue Rewards” program and wanted to share the information with you. I am not sure how long it’s been around, but I just noticed it.

According to the company, “WhyPark Revenue Rewards are bonus payments made each month to users that earned over $30 in the previous month. Reward payments are based on a bonus pool which is shared based on your performance relative to other WhyPark users.”

Although WhyPark doesn’t reveal how much money is in the bonus pool or what percentage of the pot is earned by each user, it’s a pretty cool way to earn a bit of extra money each month. To see  your total Revenue Rewards earned, you can log into your WhyPark account, click on the “My Account” tab and then choose the”Revenue Rewards” link from the menu on the left. The bonus will also show up in your Payments Received tab.

Payments are  paid out on the next scheduled payment.