Domain Magnate

Answers.travel Sold for $3.3 million - it was first reported 2 months ago, but recently sprung a more heated discussion in sight of the depressing economy and the ridiculous amount for an unpopular extension.

Naturally this is the biggest (and possibly the only) .travel sale to date. Despite the shocker it appears to be true as was reported by credible sources: businesswire, reuters.

Different explanations were proposed, from a ‘fake sale’ to ‘money laundering’, tax evasion et. But I can add that I’ve seen enough stranger things happen in domaining over the last few years to know that anything is possible. However don’t get your hopes up, good domains are still good and bad is going to remain bad..

Update: March 5, 2009 - I have just use this codeto renew and bunch of domains and it still works. If .com is what you’re after you don’t need any other godaddy codes!

I was just renewing some domains at godaddy and as usually had to do a little research to find the best coupon codes. People like to post large lists of codes, where most are expired, or simply don’t work and you have to check each of them to see which saves you the most money. Especially now with the recession in full speed domainers try to save every penny on the costly renewals.

So to make it simple, I’ll just list one code I used:

yhkw105a  - dot com  renewals and new registrations at $6.99 (+ $0.20 ICANN fee) - the cheapest price currently available at godaddy.

In related news, Godaddy’s market share in domain registrations is 26.7%, compared to eNom’s 8.3%, Moniker 2.6% and Fabulous only 1.2%. A Godaddy monopoly, when it comes, will definitely not be a good thing for domainers here..

Here is the recent registrations stats for End of June 2008, or the latest data available. Top 3 tlds, .com, .de and .cn make up over 100 million domains, .net pushed to the 4th place.

We can see an enormous growth in .cn registrations, but this is mostly due their extremely low price. Many sites offer Chinese domains for just $0.13, yes, 13 cents only!

.co.uk is now slightly above .org and with UK pound going strong unlike the US dollar, the recent week’s sale of Phones.co.uk for $345k and LegalJobs.co.uk for $40k in addition to the previously reported sale of Cruises.co.uk for $1.1. Million comes to show how big the .co.uk tld is.

Apotheke.eu (”pharmacy” in German) sold for $81K last week and as the EU expands and grows tighter we can expect the .eu names to grow as well.

.asia is the new kid on the block and while many consider this new extension completely useless, there was one good sale in dnjournal last week: LasVegas.asia for $30k.

New Vawe of Fake ICANN Emails is out trying to get your logins and password to steal domains, so be warned. A few reports were posted on DNF.

Update: ICANNResolve.com site is down now.

To:    [email]xxxx@xxxxx.com[/email]
Subject:    ICANN - Domain Upgrade Notice
Date:    Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:22:08 +0200
From:    “ICANN” <icann@icannresolve.com>

Dear Domain Account Holder,

You are being sent this notice from ICANN due to the fact that you
currently own an active domain name. ICANN is currently upgrading all
domains from their registry database.

The upgrade will introduce new control options for your domain and
easier
access. The new upgrade is required by the registry. All domain users
are
expected to submit their domain information manually at
[url]http://www.icannresolve.com/email/link.php?M=821&N=5&L=1&F=T[/url] with the
required information for ICANN to apply the required updates. read more »

ICANN sent a notice of breach [PDF, 81K] to ICANN-accredited registrar Red Register, Inc. based on Red Register, Inc.’s failure to comply with the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (”UDRP”). Specifically, Red Register failed to comply with UDRP Rule 16(a) and paragraph 4(k) of the UDRP despite repeated requests by ICANN and the National Arbitration Forum (“NAF”). These rules require registrars to communicate plans to implement UDRP Provider decisions and implement those decisions.

Consistent with the breach provisions of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (”RAA”), ICANN requested that Red Register, Inc. act within 15 days to cure the cited breaches. If Red Register, Inc. fails to cure the breaches cited in ICANN’s notice of breach, ICANN will pursue all remedies available under the terms of the RAA, including termination. read more »

Dot MX - Mexican domain names registry reached 250K registrations.

DomainNews reports:

NIC Mexico (Network Information Center México), the registry and administrators of the .MX cctTLD, is announcing that on April 28th, 250,000 .MX domain name registrations have been reached.

This new threshhold turns out to be highly promising for the increasing use of .MX domain names, given the accelerated behavior of registration in the last years; and considering also its 24% annual growing rate. It took 15 years to get the first 100,000 .MX domain registrations, and only two and a half years to add another 100,000. Therefore, reaching the amount of 250,000 .MX domains in just a single year is very satisfying for NIC México and they expect a much shorter waiting period to register next 100,000 .MX domain names. read more »

Qualified businesses and professionals can reserve their business names, trademarks, and personal names on a first-come, first-served basis prior to the rule changes using EnCirca’s ProForwarding service (http://www.encirca.pro). Trademark owners may protect their intellectual property in advance of any rule changes by using EnCirca’s ProForwarding service as well.The dot-pro public comment period is over and RegistryPro and ICANN have received overwhelming support for their proposed changes to the dot-pro registry. The public show of support takes dot-pro one step closer to enabling all licensed professionals from anywhere in the world to register dot-pro domain names that work just like dot-com domain names.

Dot-pro currently supports Lawyers, Medical Doctors, Accountants and Engineers. Examples of businesses and professions that will soon be eligible for dot-pro include: Architects, Dentists, Educators, Chiropractors, Veterinarians, Surveyors, Plumbers, Inspectors, Investment Advisors, Real Estate Brokers, Insurance Brokers, Nurses, Opticians, Optometrists, Podiatrists, Psychologists, Therapists, Social Workers, Building Contractors, Electricians, Patent and Trademark Examiners, Court Reporters, Police and Fire Safety Officers and any other profession where an official credential is required for a business or individual to offer services.

Qualified businesses and professionals can reserve their business names, trademarks, and personal names on a first-come, first-served basis prior to the rule changes using EnCirca’s ProForwarding service (http://www.encirca.pro). Trademark owners may protect their intellectual property in advance of any rule changes by using EnCirca’s ProForwarding service as well… more

Apparently the Soviet Union is still alive. Except for Soviet Union emblem t-shirts being a hot item in Russia now, Russian webmasters don’t want to break their connection to the shady communist past and keep fighting ICANN to protect the obsolete .su extension.

Read more on the matter here

ICANN is still attempting to delete the obsolete SU (Soviet Union) extension but having little success. While they have managed to decommission the .YU (Yogoslavia) extension successfully last year, they are finding rebellion among Russian webmasters, ISPs and the Registry itself. read more »

.me is about to be launched. Sounds pretty good for a personal site. I think many people would like it and it has many cool possibilities, like kill.me, love.me, hug.me, pay.me etc. A tld that is also a word!

.ME Registry officials today announced the roll-out plan for .ME, the new domain name extension. .ME is expected to be utilized as both a personalized Web address and as a catchy business marketing tool around the world.

The registry will begin accepting .ME applications in May, for the start of what is known as the General Sunrise Period, a time when only trademark owners can apply. However, registrars who sign up before that time can start accepting Sunrise and Landrush applications and pre-registration requests, as soon as they’d like. As was the case with .ASIA, multiple parties will be allowed to submit applications for the same domain name. Domain names that receive more than one application will go to an auction process. .ME Registry officials today announced the roll-out plan for .ME, the new domain name extension. .ME is expected to be utilized as both a personalized Web address and as a catchy business marketing tool around the world.

The registry will begin accepting .ME applications in May, for the start of what is known as the General Sunrise Period, a time when only trademark owners can apply. However, registrars who sign up before that time can start accepting Sunrise and Landrush applications and pre-registration requests, as soon as they’d like. As was the case with .ASIA, multiple parties will be allowed to submit applications for the same domain name. Domain names that receive more than one application will go to an auction process. more

Interesting registry statistics published on domainnews.com

There were almost 33 million new domain names registered in 2007 according to the fourth quarter 2007 Domain Name Industry Brief published by VeriSign. This brings the total of domain names registered to more than 153 million domain name registrations worldwide across all of the Top Level Domain Names (TLDs). This represents a 27 percent increase over the same quarter last year, and 5 percent growth over the third quarter of 2007.

Of these registrations, the .com and .net adjusted base surpassed 80.4 million domain name registrations at the end of 2007. This represents a 24 percent increase year over year and a four percent increase quarter over quarter. The adjusted base grew by 3.5 million domain names in the fourth quarter and 15.4 million over the entire year. New .com and .net domain name registrations were added at an average of 2.5 million per month in the fourth quarter 2007 for a total of 7.5 million new registrations. read more »