Home Blog Page 4

OpenAI Secures ChatGPT.com

2

In March of this year, OpenAI filed a UDRP proceeding against the ChatGPT.com domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization. OpenAI’s ChatGPT service has become one of the most popular artificial intelligence-driven chat platforms with well over 100 million users. The company uses chat.openai.com for its ChatGPT platform.

Prior to the filing of the UDRP, ChatGPT.com had been used by a website called ChatAI.com. You can have a look at how it was being used by visiting Archive.org. After the UDRP was filed, Whois privacy was lifted, and the Whois record showed the domain name was owned and used by a company in Puerto Rico called Site Matrix.

Vestis Gets Defensive

Many companies defensively register or acquire domain names as part of a domain name defense strategy. The most common strategy revolves around securing domain names that could be used by bad actors for cybersquatting, phishing, or other nefarious activity. Some companies take defensive domain registration further by securing domain names that could be used against the company in any negative manner.

Over the past few days, I noticed one company that has taken defensive domain name defense to a level I can’t recall seeing before. My DomainTools Registrant Monitor email identified many domain name registrations related to a brand called Vestis, and it looks like that business went on a massive defensive domain registration spree.

From what I can see, it looks like many of the domain names were registered under Whois privacy at GoDaddy in March and recently transferred to MarkMonitor, a brand protection-focused domain name registrar.

Set a Minimum Offer Amount

0

I receive uneducated domain name purchase offers nearly every day. Some prospective buyers may hope to get lucky with a deal and some genuinely haven’t the foggiest idea that domain names sell for serious amounts of money. The result is that my self-managed landers for high value domain names receive far more offers that aren’t serious than offers from bonafide buyers.

For the 80%+ of my portfolio that is replaceable inventory and utilize Dan.com or Afternic landing pages, I set minimum offer amounts to prevent a deluge of lowball offers. The lowest minimum offer I allow on any of my domain names is just shy of $1,000.

Keep on Testing

3

Many years ago, I earned a Master’s Degree in Direct & Interactive Marketing. The focus of my program was primarily related to the field of Direct Marketing. One of the biggest takeaways from my program is the importance of testing. If a marketer is able to test something, it should be tested. Over and over. Even the best performing elements should continue to be tested to see if optimizations can be made.

One of the reasons I signed up for an account at Squadhelp is because the company appeared to continually test and optimize. I am sure other platforms and services tests, but it helps that its CEO regularly shares updates about its testing. I am a big believer in testing. If I had the analytics and development chops along with a statistically significant number of inquiries for my domain names, I would be testing my own landing pages, too.

Yolo.com Sold for $3 Million in 2021

2

Domain name sales go unreported all the time, particularly at the highest levels. This afternoon, Andy Booth reported that he co-brokered the sale of Yolo.com for $3 million:

Andrew Rosener from Media Options shared Andy’s tweet and announced that he co-brokered the 2021 deal with Andy.

Media Options “completed well into the 8-figures in domain name sales in August”

4

How has the Summer been in terms of domain name sales for you? If you’re Andrew Rosener or on the Media Options team, it sounds like it has been a pretty hot Summer. The company “completed well into the 8-figures in domain name sales in August,” according to its CEO Andrew Rosener:

Andrew did not share any of the sales his domain brokerage closed, but I am pretty sure one was recently discovered by George Kirikos last week:

Recent Posts

Spaceship Doubles its DUM

1
At the end of July, I wrote about Spaceship surpassing 100,000 domain names under management (DUM). The registrar continues to grow, and its Founder...

You Can Now Hide Estimated Value at Dan

1
Last week, Dan.com announced and deployed a feature I did not like. On the user control panel, Dan showed GoDaddy's Estimated Value for each...

Media.com Buyer Comments on Acquisition

1
This afternoon, Axios reported the sale of the Media.com domain name. Kismet Group, an Australian private equity company, acquired the domain name to launch...

“We love to share success!”

1
If I see two friends or colleagues that could benefit from meeting over a shared interest or converging path, I am always on the...

It Pays to Know Random Phrases

3
My eyes bulge out of my head sometimes when I see a somewhat obscure term in a domain name coming up for auction. Oftentimes,...