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Domain Auctions Should Hold Domain Names in Escrow

Elliot Silver
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24

Earlier this year, I won an auction at Sedo’s Great Domains. Immediately after I received the email confirming my auction win, I sent payment to Sedo. Unfortunately, the domain name was never transferred, the transaction was cancelled, and my payment was refunded.

I’ve heard many stories about deals not being completed after auctions conclude, and it happens at all auction houses. Although buyers may have legal recourse, that option is generally expensive, time consuming, and it’s not usually worth the effort to complete the deal.

I believe there is something that domain auctioneers can do that would mitigate this issue.

If the auction house takes possession of the domain name prior to the auction, the domain owner would not have the ability to back out of the deal. Since the owner has already committed to completing the deal, the only issue post auction is the follow through, and if the auction house has possession of the domain name, completing the sale wouldn’t be an issue.

Of course, taking possession of the domain names requires additional resources to ensure the domain names are pushed to the auction house accounts at various domain registrars. I would bet that expense would be covered by the commission from completed deals that may have fallen through.

It’s 2012, and there’s no reason domain auctions should fall through. It’s disappointing as a buyer, and I am sure it’s also frustrating to the auction houses.

Namecheap to Donate $1 to EFF for Every Domain Transfer on December 29

Elliot Silver
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8

In an effort “to stand up against SOPA,” Namecheap has pledged to donate $1.00 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for every inbound domain name transfer initiated on December 29, 2011. The EFF is a San Francisco based non-profit, digital rights organization that protects the rights of Internet users around the world.

Namecheap has been able to capitalize on Go Daddy’s public support and then flip flopping on SOPA. According to Namecheap CEO Rick Kirkendall, between December 22 and December 25, over 31,000 domain names were transferred to Namecheap using SOPA-specific coupon codes. I would bet this number would have been greater had it not been Christmas.

Back in March, Namecheap was able to capitalize on another GoDaddy publicity issue involving a video of the hunting of “problem elephants” by GoDaddy CEO and founder Bob Parsons. Namecheap donated over $30,000 to the Save the Elephants organization  as a result of an effort similar to the one planned for December 29.

I think it’s very smart marketing by Namecheap.

The press release announcing the special offer is below:

On December 29th, 2011, domain registrar Namecheap.com will be spearheading a domain transfer initiative known as  Move Your Domain Day, prompted by the recent news of its competitor’s support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Namecheap has made an official statement on its company blog  openly opposing SOPA  and will be donating $1 for every domain name transfer made on December 29th to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Shari Steele, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated, “EFF is pleased to support Namecheap’s efforts to bring attention to the proposed SOPA legislation and its consequences for Internet users worldwide. With the funds donated from the MoveYourDomainDay effort, EFF will continue to defend your right to free expression in the digital world.”

One of the primary goals of designating December 29th “Move Your Domain Day” is to heighten awareness of the potential dangers of SOPA, a bill that some say may potentially break the Internet as we know it.

The CEO of Namecheap, Richard Kirkendall said, “A free and open Internet is the only option that will continue the legacy of innovation and openess that stands for everything we all value in our modern society. However, if SOPA passes, the rights of every user on the Internet will be trampled, as the bill as proposed infringes on liberties, privacies, and freedoms without due process.”

On Move Your Domain Day, Namecheap will process transfers of any .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, and .BIZ domain from any registrar for the below-cost price of $6.99. For each transfer made on this day, Namecheap will be donating $1 to EFF.

“We’re proud to have the Electronic Frontier Foundation supporting this important initiative, and are confident that our customers can help us raise a significant sum to help continue the fight against SOPA, PROTECT-IP, and other overbroad and ill-considered legislation,” said Kirkendall.

Go Daddy Headlines Inaccurate

Elliot Silver
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9

First off, I want to be very clear in stating that I am ardently opposed to SOPA as it is currently written, and I think anyone who makes a living online should be opposed to SOPA right now. In fact, I met with a US Congressman a couple of weeks ago, and I told him that was the most important issue I wanted to discuss with him when we met.

That being said, I think some of the headlines about Go Daddy losing massive amounts of domain names and/or customers are borderline ridiculous. Take for example a headline that was on DrudgeReport.com yesterday, linking to the article at Techi.com. The article title was “GoDaddy lost 72,354 domains this week. It’s not enough.”  The author appears to attribute this large loss of domain names to GoDaddy’s original support of SOPA, which it later retracted.

While 72,000 lost domain names in a week sounds like a huge number, especially when you take the revenue figure into consideration, it really isn’t all that significant when you look at previous weeks. According to DailyChanges.com, during the same week last year, Go Daddy lost over 86,000 domain names:

As  Mike Berkens mentioned, you need to keep in mind that not everyone uses the DomainControl.com DNS, so these numbers may not entirely reflect the actual changes that have occurred. However, the same could be said about last year’s numbers as well.

I think it’s pretty appalling that GoDaddy would publicly support a bill that many technical and Internet experts say will cause major problems for companies that operate online, even if they did retract that support later. However, reports indicating a mass exodus of domain names at GoDaddy (or a widespread boycott) seem  erroneous to me based on a historical look at the data that others are citing.

Buy Domain Names in Bulk and Save

Elliot Silver
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5

There are a number of larger domain portfolio owners that sell domain names. While companies like Name Administration will generally only sell domain names at end user prices, there are companies that have fairly decent pricing. Buy Domains, for instance, has a huge portfolio of domain names, and many are well priced.

That being said, buyers can often get more reasonable deals on domain names, lower than the listed price, depending on the seller. The price discount that is offered generally depends on variables such as asking price, time of the month, sales volume, previous inquiries for the domain name, revenue generated by the domain name, and other proprietary variables that differ for each domain owner.

One piece of advice I can give you to get the best deals is to inquire about and purchase domain names in bulk. When you buy in bulk, you can generally get an even better price on the domain names.

What I do is write down a list of domain names I like from a particular company, and I inquire about the group of domain names at one time. I ask the domain owner for the best possible price on individual domain names as well as a bulk price. If I choose not to buy the list of domain names, I will go back to the domain owner and ask for a deal on the group of domain names I do like. I find companies are more likely to make deals on multiple domain names.

One other purchase tip I can give you is to try and make larger purchases at the end of the year (like next week). If a company hasn’t met its goals, wants to pad its numbers, or needs liquidity, they may be more likely to give better pricing at the end of the year.

Breaking: Go Daddy No Longer Supports SOPA

Elliot Silver
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6

After significant public admonishment from the Internet community, Go Daddy has publicly declared it is opposed to SOPA as it is currently written. I think the scorn was deserved, but I am glad to see GoDaddy has changed its stance on the issue. The company’s press release is below.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Dec. 23, 2011) — Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

“Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation — but we can clearly do better,” Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO, said. “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this.   Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.

“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” said Adelman.

In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.

“Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” Jones said.

Follow & Friend Go Daddy on Facebook & Twitter.

About Go Daddy
Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans, as well as website design and hosting packages.   Go Daddy has a  broad  array  of  cloud-based products and services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce website hosting, blog software, search engine optimization utilities, email marketing tools, website design services, website security software and online storage solutions. Go Daddy has more than 51 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers more than one domain name every second of every day. GoDaddy.com is the largest worldwide mass-market hosting provider by annual revenue according to Tier1 Research (Mass-Market Hosting Report-Winter 2011) and is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. Go Daddy registered more than one-third of all new domain names created In 2010 for the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.  

Easy to Save Searches on NameJet

Elliot Silver
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6

I am finding myself adding more saved searches on NameJet than ever before. I don’t know if it’s because the new website layout makes it easier to use this feature or if the search functionality has made it more useful, but I’ve set up a number of daily search result emails to help find domain names.

Here’s how to set up a daily search email:

1) Visit NameJet, click on My Account, and log in

2) Scroll to the bottom of the left column and click on Saved Searches

3) Click on Create a New Saved Search and enter your information

There are a number of keywords I search for, primarily with my keyword at the end + .com. You may also want to add variations, like s for plural or ing. I like to make sure I only receive the name once, so it sends me new domains only.

If there was one thing I could change, it would be to create a way to have all of these searches sent to me in one daily email. I get enough emails over night, and additional saved searched generates more emails. If you have 10, 20, 50+ saved searches, that’s a lot of emails to go through when one would suffice. I would probably add more keyword searches if I could have them all sent in one email instead of multiple emails.

If you haven’t tried the save search functionality on NameJet, I recommend trying it out.

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