Domain Name Strategy Nets Verizon 321,000 Extra Sales

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Andy

Back in 2008, Verizon embarked on a new strategy to streamline its domain name strategy. It’s implementation partner in this quest for FairWinds Partners. After four years, FairWinds conducted an analysis of what affect their work has had on Verizon’s web traffic and online sales.

Verizon

Photo - Verizon (wikimedia)

The results are unambiguous – As of 2012, the new domain name strategy is credited with providing Verizon with 93.2 million extra visitors to Verizon’s main websites over three years. Also, they claim 321,000 additional confirmed sales, totaling millions of dollars in new revenue per year.

The strategy was simple enough to implement, as suggested by FairWinds to Verizon. All they had to do was give up low quality domain names, recover high quality domain names, remap domain names to the most relevant Verizon content, and converting new visitors to new sales.

In total, due to a leaner portfolio and also establishing more efficient registration fees, Verizon is now saving nearly $2 million every two years in domain name expenses.

The second part of the strategy was recovering high value domain names associated with the brand and company name. Around 66 percent of the traffic that was being diverted from Verizon’s main websites was being lost because of just 0.5 percent of the total number of existing domain names that were infringing on Verizon brands

After enforcing the new strategy, Internet users now navigate directly to Verizon websites when they enter domain names in the address bar, rather than being diverted to a pay-per-click site and then clicking on an advertisement, which costs the user time and Verizon money.

Sarah Deutsch, vice president & associate general counsel of Verizon Communications, said in a press statement that “The work we have done with FairWinds set us on the path to maintaining a lean, effective domain name portfolio, and our ongoing work continues to keep Verizon focused on domains that will have a positive impact on our bottom line.”

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Code Now

CodeNow.com Lets You Code NOW!

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Emman Alcide

The numbers of online learning site just kept on growing and keeps getting better. A new start-up has just launched a beta test of probably the easiest and most robust online learning website called CodeNow.

Codenow which can be accessed via CodeNow.com is an API focused learning center and can provide you hands on training in developing and deploying API in minutes. Learning how to code an API consume lots of time and it requires asking permission from API developers and also using a specialized syntax platform or software but with CodeNow, you can learn to code in the browser and run it live for a real time result and checking of your codes.

CodeNow has split screen, the left pane is where you do the actual coding while the right pane lets you view the results. You can also run the code in a virtual machine or a development kit platform and share the results of your codes in a link or decide to keep it for yourself.

Learning to code is your best weapon in the digital age. Most of the high paying jobs being offered belongs in the IT industry like software engineering, quality testing, web programming and these jobs requires you to learn to code. CodeNow.com offers a seamless environment and user friendly workspace that is perfect for beginners and novices and those who wants to venture into the API and apps development industry.

The website is currently in beta test but it is open now for reservations and you can submit your email to be shortlisted as new beta testers or receive a notification once the website is officially launched.

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Domaingate Scandal in Florida Congressional Election

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Andy

Ever since “Chad-Gate” in the 2000 Presidential elections, Florida has been no stranger to election controversies. But a candidate’s campaign buying up domains that are names of all the other opposing candidates to spread “disinformation” is probably a first. This is what is happening in Florida’s GOP primary race to replace outgoing Rep. Connie Mack.

Cyber squatting

Cyber squatting

Candidate Trey Radel’s campaign arm “Friends for Radel, Inc.” has purchased domains that should belong to opposing candidates.

For example, chaunceygoss.com, chaunceygoss.net and chaunceygoss.org belong to the Radel campaign, which is using them to put out negative information about opposing candidate Chauncey Goss.

The home page on Chaunceygoss.com accuses Chauncey Goss of living in Washington DC and working for the federal government for the past 11 years and only moving to Sanibel, Fla. just before announcing his candidacy for Congress. This is followed by a link that details America’s debt and fiscal challenges.

No doubt a lot of people get their information about candidates online these days. But here’s the thing – if you search for “Chauncey Goss” on Google, the main sites in the top ten are all legitimate, including gossforcongress.com.

Chaunceygoss.com is not even in top 100, so the Radel campaign is cyber-squatting for nothing in return, in terms of online traffic. They may still be using email to direct visitors to the faux-site, but that would probably make this domaingate scandal an even bigger violation in the FEC’s eyes.

Chauncey Goss, who is the son of former Congressman Porter Goss, has his own website at gossforcongress.com. The Goss campaign is exploring its legal options regarding this cyber-squatting by Radel, and may also complain to the FEC.

Radel has also purchased domains that should belong to other rivals including Brian Owens, Gary Aubuchon and Paige Kreegel.

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google-plus

Google + New Look and The Whitespace

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Emman Alcide

Google has revamped the look and feel of their dwindling social network site that was expected to overthrown Facebook last year but failed in the battle of social site domination. it was even beaten by the newcomer Pinterest which was only launched a few months ago. Google is not giving up the social media by relaunching Google Plus with a new look and what is more interesting is that its new interface uses lots of Whitespace – lots and lots of Whitespace.

So what does the whitespace means for the new design of google + and will it be an integral part of its remodeling? The whitespace is actually a feature of the new google + and it is called Responsive Web Design. The whitespace makes the design adoptive to the browser and automatically adjusts its spacing to fit in the browser and unlike Facebook where it has fixed width and spacing and does not depends on the browser’s layout. Basically, the new Google design changes its layout and re-sizes itself when you maximize or adjusts your browser while Facebook just looks the same.

The question is: What will Google + do with the vast whitespaces? Time will tell. Maybe Google will be adding features time to time to fill up the gaps but according to Google the Whitespace they basically just wanted the social networking site to be responsive to the browser.

Although a lot are skeptic with the Whitespace and doubtful whether it would help google + in the battle of social networking site supremacy I personally think the the responsive browser design is a good idea. I like the fact the Google Plus is more focused on contents rather than advertising like Facebook. I also think that the idea is revolutionary and will also be perfect for websites as well and not just for social media sites which have dynamic contents. It would be a great feature for ecommerce sites and other types of websites to have the interactive navigation and responsive layout like google +. If you have not seen the layout yet then head over to Google plus and maybe it is time to revive your interest to the fledgling social site again.

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Brannans Auction – Good Start or Dud?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Andy

David and Toby Clements held the first auction for their new domain brokerage and auction house on Brannans.com.

Brannans.com domain auctions

Photo - Brannans.com

The auction, held using proxibid software, had great potential to rock the domain name market but did not really up to the hype.

It left a lot unsold, and that doesn’t mean one of “the lots” put up for sale.

Out of the 184 domains that were available at the auction, all but 8 ended up unsold with the reserve price unmet. California.com, with a reserve range of $3-4 million, was one of the domains whose reserve price was not met.

Digital.com likewise went a-begging with a reserve range of $1-2 million. Also on the list were Connecticut.com, InstantCash.com and MusicVideos.com, all with a reserve price range of $500k – $1 million. Even Redmond.com didn’t find a buyer for the reserve price range of $50,000 to $100,000.

The eight domains which did find buyers snagged a total of $34,000. The one which got the highest bid was BalletShoes.com, with a reserve price of $5,000-$10,000, which sold at $13,250. The winning bid for BoozeCruise.com was $8,250 (reserve $5,000-$10,000) while hu,net which did not have a reserve price was sold at $6,250.

There are two ways to look at this first auction on Brannans.com. You could appreciate the fact that Brannans managed to put up such high quality domains for sale that buyers didn’t have pockets deep enough to bid for them. This bodes well for the future, as more deep-pocketed buyers and sellers gravitate towards Brannns.

On the other hand, the practical results – $34,000 in auction proceeds, is really on the lower side given all the hype. If it continues like this, the next domain up for auction will be Brannans.com.

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Network Solutions Promo Code

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Alex

Just wanted to share this with you guys real quick, I found a great Network Solutions Promo Code to get a big discount on domain names from Network Solutions. So if you are in the market to buy domain names (and if you are reading this blog, you probably are) you should check out this deal, it’s only going on for a limited time, but they are offering domains for just $6.99, which is cheaper than any other deals I have seen lately. I particularly like this deal because it’s with a company I already know and trust, after all, Network Solutions was the first domain name registrar.

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stpaddypromo

It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Emman Alcide

So, How many domains did you purchase today? That is the question that friends always ask me after St.Patrick’s day and I also ask the same question to them for during St. Patrick’s day the domain and hosting promos are just so awesome it feels like a leprechaun just throw some golden coins at you. I remembered last year, I think I got 5 domain names for only 0.99 cents a month.

It doesn’t mater whether if you are an Irish or not, St. Patrick’s Day is fun to celebrate. The parades and the discounts at malls and department stores are amazing and people are always looking out for it. For the past days, I  actually been scouring the net for some domains and hosting discounts. I found a couple of domain providers which gives decent discount as a promo for the St.Patrick day and you can see the discounts right at their homepages.

One of the domain name provider that gives great discounts for their St. Patrick’s day promo is EuroDNS, a european focused domain name provider which obviously handles the usual .uk and .ie domains. Although you can find cheaper .uk domains in GoDaddy and namecheap compared in EuroDNS, their .ie offering this week is really cheap. Ireland’s official domain extension is .ie and they are usually pricy to get but you can get is with a promo code in EuroDNS for only 18 euros.

I was actually expecting to see a St.Paddy day promotions at GoDaddy’s homepage and other top US based domain and hosting companies just like last year but I was a bit disappointed to see none of them capitalized on the much awaited holiday. Although, I was able to find really cheap domain names from GoDaddy on their .me domains and using GoDaddy coupon codes I was still able to slash up to 20% discounts on some .com domains. You really don’t need a holiday when it comes to coupon codes from GoDaddy for it is year round. You just sometimes need to be a little patient in finding some coupon codes.

Anyways, If you are interested in getting yourself an .IE domain then you got a pot of gold from EuroDNS but for me I passed because I have no use for it. I decided to purchase though using a coupon code at GoDaddy a .me extension and a .org from namecheap domain provider today.

Happy St.Patrick’s Day Everyone!

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VeriSign DNIB – Internet Bulging With Over 225 Million Domain Names

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Andy

As per the latest Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) published by VeriSign, 5.9 million domain names were added in the last quarter of 2011, pushing the total worldwide count across all domains to over 225 million.

VeriSign DNIB

VeriSign DNIB

The 5.9 million names added during the 4th quarter represent a 2.7 percent growth, and this is the fourth straight quarter with over 2 percent growth. This makes 2011 a huge year with a 10 percent domain name growth.

More than 20.4 million domain names have been registered since the fourth quarter of 2010. The high rate of growth has pushed the .com and .net TLDs to 113.8 million names, with a massive 7.9 million additions during the fourth quarter of 2011.

There was no change in the order of the top 5 biggest TLDs, which remain .com, .de, .net, .uk and .org. In terms of country code top-level domains (ccTLD), of which there are almost 300, the top 5 new registrations were for .de, .uk, .tk (Tokelau), .nl and .ru.

VeriSign estimates that 88 percent of .com and .net domain names actually resolve to a website. This is important because when a domain name resolves to a website, it makes a huge positive impact on the renewal rate.

Of course, there are nuances here to consider, such as whether it is a single page or multi-page site. Single page sites are often under construction place holders or brochure-ware, parked pages, and parked pages for generating ad revenue. None of this is of much help in terms of motivating renewals on a long-term basis.

But at present, it looks very rosy with fourth quarter renewal rates went up to 73.5 percent. Domain name system query load during the fourth quarter was 64 billion, with a peak of 117 billion. That’s 8 percent higher than the daily average during the same quarter in 2010.

In short, sale of domain names is booming, renewals are booming and the number of people visiting websites is booming. Can’t ask for more…

Read the full March 2012 DNIB for Q4 2011 at verisigninc.com.

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US Claims Right to Shutdown Any .Com Domain

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Andy

What seemed like a routine cat and mouse game between federal United States agencies and illegal online websites has blown up into a huge controversy over how much control the US maintains over the internet.

The whole controversy began with the U.S. pursuit of Bodog.com, which is run by Canadians and registered in Canada.

It’s an online betting site, which is illegal in the US, meaning that they cannot take bets from or make pay-offs to US citizens.

But they were indicted for doing just this, and the US initiated proceedings to shut them down. One would assume that the US would go to the Canucks to ask them to get the Canadian registrar to shut down the site.

But the US took a shortcut and went straight to Verisign, which has the contract from ICANN to manage the .com and other generic top-level domains (gTLD). Verisign complied with the US “request” and changed the Name Server records for Bodog.com so that the site now redirects to a takedown page, instead of the server hosting the pages put up by the owners.

Wired.com looked into this subject in a little more detail to see if this was standard operating procedure in such cases, and it turns out that the official position – as stated to Wired.com by a US customs enforcement spokeswoman, is that the US reserves the right to seize or shit down any .com, .net and .org domain name if it is in violation of US law, regardless of the law in the country where the site is registered.

Way it works when they want to shut down a site is that the US usually serves court orders to Verisign, which manages .com, .net, .cc, .tv and .name, and to the Public Interest Registry, which manages .org domains. Both are based on US soil in Virginia, and so is ICANN, which is based in Marina del Rey, California.

In case you have a site at risk and want to back up your large files, there’s a service called YouSendIt.com to store and share large files. I just used this YouSendIt.com Promo Code to get a free trial.

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Web Construction

Domain Name Disputes and Its Nature

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Emman Alcide

A domain name dispute occurs when there is a complainant of an existing domain. Usually, it involves violation of trademark such as confusion or high degree of similarity with the domain name and a trademark of an existing brand or company. Domain name disputes is rampant due to cybersquatters who registered domain names with similar names to top brands or person in order to use it for profit through PPC (pay-per-click), adult content or link exchanges.

Just like with my previous post, about Microsoft filing a case against the UK-based internet company and its number of domain containing the name “bing” and using it in gaining profit through PPC. When it comes to domain names, it is not enough that you are the first person to register that domain name, trademarks are protected even in the internet and if your domain name shows that it has been used in bad faith and it leads confusion or with high similarity to an existing trademark then Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) steps in to settle the complaints on a domain name.

So what are the factors UDRP considers in taking actions of a domain dispute:

  • Whether the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights.
  • Whether the respondent has any rights or legitimate interests in the domain name (for example, the legitimate offering of goods and services under the same name).
  • Whether the domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith .

The UDRP consists a panelists of experts in domain and trademark settlement and it involves an extensive administrative process in determining the result of the dispute. the panelists decision is in accordance with the law and the domain holder/owner is being ordered to return the domain name to the trademark owner if the complainant has been found to right with his accusations but in the case if there has been no bad faith found or similarity of trademark or a generic domain name then the domain holder can retain his rights to the domain names.

An example of a generic domain name would be “dogfoods.com”, you will be having a hard time convincing the panelists of UDRP of a domain dispute but it does not mean that your case will not heard. Common domain disputes are those belonging to celebrities and popular companies. If you are planning in using a trademark as a domain name without permission then it is wise not to do it at all because it can end of waste of time and money and you might be asked to give up all the rights of the website once the trademark owner discovers it.

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