It’s always exciting when the domain name aftermarket and domain investing gets a mention in a non-tech news publication. GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani made an appearance on Fox Business yesterday to discuss the company’s first quarter results. What caught my attention was that Mr. Bhutani spoke about the growth of the domain name secondary market at GoDaddy. Not only that, but he specifically mentioned domain investors.
Have a look at the interview:
Typically on business channels like this one, the focus is on SMBs who register domain names and utilize various services to build their website. This interview highlighted the role domain investors play in GoDaddy’s business and the amount of revenue the secondary market provides to GoDaddy’s bottom line.
Domain investors drive substantial revenue for GoDaddy, both in terms of purchasing aftermarket domain names and selling domain names via GoDaddy. I appreciate that Aman Bhutani not only recognizes the importance of our business, but that he took some time to talk about the aftermarket on Fox Business.
Domain investors not only provide substantial revenue for GoDaddy by purchasing and selling aftermarket domains at GoDaddy companies but I think a very large percentage of all registrar renewal and registration income is from domains purchased or held for resale.
That’s why registrars are able to offer numerous free services with domain registrations (i.e. URL forwarding), which is one among several reasons domain investing is good for society and should remain free of additional authoritarian restrictions (i.e. as are imposed on the reselling of tickets in various jurisdictions and is imposed by Singapore with regard to reselling .sg and .com.sg domains). We may be lucky we only have the UDRP, URS, and laws like ACPA so far.