At the end of October, I reported that Directnic acquired Fabulous. Mike Robertson, who previously worked at Fabulous for a number of years, will be working with both companies going forward. When the news was announced, Mike let me know that Fabulous was going to undergo a website and infrastructure update, adding functionality and giving customers a better user experience.

This afternoon, Fabulous sent out an email to customers announcing some of the changes that will be forthcoming:

• 24 Hour Support


• Phone Support


• Live Chat


• New Site Design


• Improved 2 Factor Authentication


• Payment with Digital Currency


• 41 Day Renewal Period - with no extra fee!

These changes are expected to be implemented in Q1 2018 - so sometime in the next three months.

I am an occasional (more…) → Read More

A little over a month ago, Konstantinos reported that Mike Robertson had returned to Fabulous. Mike worked at Fabulous for nearly nine years, and he departed the company in 2011, later taking on his current role as Business Development Director at Directnic in 2014. From what I understand, the Fabulous / Mike Robertson news was prematurely sent out, and now we know why.

According to a press release I received, Directnic has acquired Fabulous from Dark Blue Sea. I understand the deal includes the Fabulous domain name registrar, parking service, a large domain portfolio, and other intellectual property. Terms of the acquisition were not shared.

Fabulous is a well-liked domain registrar based in Australia, and it has been a favorite for domain investors over the years. From my vantagepoint, the popularity of Fabulous waned over the last few years, and there have been some key departures during that time, including Mike as well as Evergreen's Jen Sale, among others. I think Fabulous has retained its reputation as a customer-focused → Read More

I don't use Fabulous very often, but I do have a number of domain names registered there, mostly from NameJet auctions. Because I don't use Fabulous very often, I seem to forget my password when I need it, and for the longest time, there was no prompt to request a password when logging in to my account.

When I would forget my password, I would need to email customer support, and sometimes it would take a long time to receive a reply since Fabulous is located in Australia and I am in NYC. The company has fantastic customer support, but it was a bit frustrating to have to wait an extended period of time to receive a password reset via email.

When I logged into my account yesteday to check on a name, I was prompted to create answers for a password reset option. There are five  fields and about 15 questions from which users can choose. I assume the password reset question prompt will rotate the questions for security.

This is a minor feature, but it's something that is a big annoyance, and I am glad it's being fixed. → Read More

When I am looking to purchase a domain name in the aftermarket, one thing I try to research is whether the domain name was on the market before, and if so, the price listed on other websites. When I want to flip a name for $25,000, there's nothing worse than a potential buyer telling me he saw it listed for sale for $15,000 on another website - even though it may have been a very old listing.

One piece of advice I have to Fabulous / Dark Blue Sea - as well as other domain investors who may do the same thing - is to NOT list the asking price in the Whois information. When a company like DomainTools archives Whois lookups, it archives this information forever, and I can see what Fabulous or Protopixel (a DBS subsidiary) had it listed for at one point when I am doing my due diligence on previous ownership.

Although many buyers don't really care about a previous sales price when they want a particular domain name, it can never help in a negotiation (unless of course you got a significantly better price). When selling to other → Read More

I received an email from Fabulous this morning containing some great news for domain investors who use Fabulous as their domain registrar. Fabulous announced that they are offering two new features and additions that will benefit domain investors, one of which I had requested on my blog a number of months ago. Let's discuss the two new features available to Fabulous clients:

1) Whois Privacy

Over the years, a number of people have asked Fabulous to provide privacy protection on their Whois data. While Fabulous allowed just a few domain names to have privacy in the past, they are now giving everyone privacy - for FREE. While the cost of privacy protection various from a few cents per domain name to several dollars at other registrars, there is no cost at Fabulous.

Every domain using the Fabulous Whois Privacy Service will be given a unique identifier, and all email and phone messages related to domain names will be automatically redirected to the domain owner. This is surely going to either cause other registrars to lower → Read More

Just about all the domain names I own that get type-in traffic are developed. As a result, I don't do much parking. Well, I do park a lot of domain names, but 99.9% of them don't make much money, and I don't even consider PPC a revenue stream for my businesses. For years, I've been very happy using Fabulous for parking, and I still am happy - especially with their great customer service.

However, I've decided to do some testing. Generally, when I buy a domain name, I park it for a few days or weeks while deciding whether to develop or re-sell. More often than not, these domain names generate some money because they are better than the standard inventory of speculative domain names I own. I would usually add them to my Fabulous account and the default nameservers would automatically send the traffic to Fabulous.

During the past couple of domain conferences, I've had the chance to speak with Sig Solares, CEO of Parked.com, and over the past couple of years, I've spoken with a number of happy customers of Parked.com. I haven't → Read More