DomainMagnate brings you an exclusive interview with “trendicator” from namepros, who Had YXL.COM Stolen and Recovered It. Read through for first hand tips on how to keep your names secure and what you should do in case your domains get stolen.
– details about yourself, occupation, age, location.
my friends call me Max. I am a Chinese man in his handsome early 20’s
my username at namepros is trendicator
– How long have you been into domaining and how did you get into it?
i’ve been domaining for 2 years now. When first started, i was still at university, and tried to get a website for myself to impress girls, so i thought. One thing led to another, i began to stock up domains.
– How many domains do you own, what is your primary focus, e.g. .com generics, country tlds, short domains. .mobi etc?
i own about 800 domains, most of them are .com. i don’t really have a particular focus or a plan of some sort…to me, as long as i think it’d worth something, i’d buy it…
– Your top 3 domains/sites?
top 3? probably YXL.COM (currently on auction at sedo), PianoTube.com (developed), ChineseFoodMadeEasy.com (developed)
– What is your favorite registrar and parking company?
my favorite registrar has to be godaddy.com. favorite parking company is sedo.com.
– How did the theif stole your domains?
my computer was compromised by some keylogging trojan virus, and my anti-virus software did not even detect it which means whatever login, passwords i used at whatever websites, the hacker knew. he ended up taking control of my gmail accounts, godaddy accounts, sedo account (sedo suspended my old account and sets me up with a new one), namepros account and a few other accounts… subsequently he stole 788 domains of mine…
– How did you manage to recover them?
I basically contacted godaddy.com and told them what happened, then I was asked to fax them an undo request form and my photo id. About three days later, i got YXL.com back. The rest of the domains were in a different Godaddy account and i did not update some of the whois info as i should’ve, so i stand a good chance of losing quite a few of them….
– What is your advice to other domainers to prevent having they names stolen
- update your whois info if you don’t want to lose your domains…
- Keep your computer secure…if something looks wrong with your computer, it probably is; so reinstall your computer, believe you me, it’s worth it. that’s the only way that you can be sure that you’ve rid of the viruses.
- keep your email accounts secure; my emails were compromised, and i subsequently lost my domains; i’m just glad that i got my email accounts back in the end….if you use gmail.com, read this: http://mail.google.com/
support/bin/answer.py?ctx= gmail&answer=45938 - set up different accounts at godaddy…using different passwords…so even if one of your accounts is compromised, you wouldn’t lose them all
- keep a log of your domains just in case…godaddy wouldn’t give me a list of my lost domains for security reasons…so even though i know the number of domains i lost, i don’t know exactly what they are….even if you’ve got receipts of them, it takes a long time to compile the list (if you’ve got many domains, that is)
– What do you think will happen with the domaining industry in the years to come?
As for the future, conventional domain names are here to stay unless a revolution of internet takes place which i doubt will ever happen in the next 20 years. Net Neutrality is important, if some bad ass politicians get their way, we all stand to lose a lot…
– What do you think are the current best opportunities in domaining?
Opportunities arise everywhere, everyday, it’s just that some spot them early and some don’t. pay attention to what’s happening, read the news (google news and domaining.com are pretty good to start with) and find your own domain niche…Due to the state of the economy, the market is a buyers’ market by large; it’s time to buy and buy them cheap…
– If you were able to go 15 years back in time and register 5 .com domains when they were all available, what would be on your list?
if i could turn the clock back 15 years, i’d buy Sex.com, Porn.com, Fuck.com, adult.com, xxx.com….i’m sorry, what can i say, sex sells…..
Max, thanks for the answers and hopefully these tips will help other domainers avoid similar thefts!
Good luck with the YXL.com auction – ending in less than 5 days
Michael, thanks for this interview and your kind link to yxl.com auction at sedo.
I’ve got another few hundred domains back already, and godaddy.com got back to me just yesterday, and they told me that it would take a bit longer to investigate the rest of the stolen domains.
it seems that i’d lose about 200 domains as those are the ones that i did not update the whois info on…
a good lesson learnt..
Out of interest do you know how the keylogger got on your machine?
Sorry to hear of your troubles man. I sold YXL.com to you, so I was really surprised to get an email from you asking to sell it back for less. Turned out it was the hacker. Glad to hear you recovered it, and good luck with your auction!
Wonderful ! very good info. keep it up.