Namemon - Domain Market Monitoring Blog
Written by Ed Muller Monday, 23 November 2009 10:03
ICANN opened the forums for the latest gTLD Guidebook draft in October and closed the commend period yesterday. As always, both very relevant and constructive support and criticisms were lent to the board along with misleading commentary, personal slights and offhand remarks. A larger body of authors have added their thoughts to this latest round and even some noted firms have made their expectations clear.
Among the list of larger corporate entities making contributions to this comment period were Yahoo! Inc., Neustar, Demand Media,, GoDaddy, AT&T, IBM, Visa and Nokia.
Also adding their weight were some frequent contributors including George Kirikos, CADNA and the ICA.
Of note were the number of comments from companies branding themselves ".TLD" or "DOT-TLD" representing their expected gTLD which they hope to be awarded in the future.
As usual we added our comments, this time in regards to the notable open language of gTLD pricing which leaves a gaping hole for Verisign to raise rates on .com and .net domains to hundreds of dollars per year without restraint.
Here are the links for general comments as well as our comments on gTLD pricing.
Written by Ed Muller Wednesday, 18 November 2009 09:16
The Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comment on proposed amendments to the Free Annual File Disclosures Rule, also known as the "Free Credit Report Rule."
The Credit CARD Act of 2009 requires the Commission to issue a rule by February 22, 2010, to prevent deceptive marketing of “free credit reports.” Specifically, the Act requires that certain advertisements for include prominent disclosures designed to prevent consumers from confusing them with the federally mandated free annual credit reports.
For example, for any Internet site offering free credit reports, the Commission proposes a requirement that, before the consumer may obtain a credit report from that Web site, suchsite must first display a separate landing page with the required disclosure:
“This is not the free credit report provided for by Federal law. To get your free report, visit AnnualCreditReport.com or call 877-322-8228.”
In addition, the Commission is proposing to amend the Free Annual File Disclosures Rule to restrict practices that may confuse or mislead consumers as they attempt to obtain their free credit reports. The Commission proposes to amend the Rule by delaying such advertising until after consumers obtain their free annual credit reports, and by requiring other measures.
The full original content is here: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/freecredit.shtm
Written by Davine Busch Saturday, 14 November 2009 07:54
This week we saw a mix of activity at GoDaddy. Powerhouse LLL domain SLS.com went for over $20,000 on the auction platform while other keyword domains went for less. Here's a breakdown of this week's results:
| Domain Name | Current Price  |
Bids |
Time Left |
|||
|
$705 |
47 |
|
|||
|
$23,255 |
67 |
|
|||
|
$1,004 |
60 |
|
|||
|
$335 |
42 |
|
|||
|
$205 |
17 |
|
|||
|
$301 |
52 |
|
|||
|
$880 |
29 |
|
|||
|
$503 |
64 |
|
|||
As many domain buyer know, this weekend through November 4th is the TRAFFIC extended online auction for domains. As usual, we have a few of our elite stash in the auction and hope you'll participate. This is the first time we have ever listed any of the names below for sale, so if you are interested in purchasing them this might be your only chance.
- AccompanimentTracks.com
- Common term for recorded Music Tracks to accompany a solo artist - much like Karaoke
- Exact term match for "Accompaniment Tracks" on Google is over 6,000 per month with $1 max bid and heavy ad competition. At least 10 advertisers appear in a minimum search results page.
- No other domains with 'accompaniment' in the domain name appear in the SERPS so this is an ideal place to develop your own site for Accompaniment Tracks.
- AutomatedSoftware.com
- Commonly associated with Automated Blog Software (Auto content generation) or Automated Forex and Software Testing
- Average Cost per Click near $4.
- Over 40,000 broad search matches on Google, Wordtracker total broad searches at 180
- DoubleDeckerBus.com
- Over 12,000 global monthly searches for the exact phrase and $1 max bid.
- Exact Wordtracker term match at 43 with 147 total searches, including 'double decker bus for sale' and 'new london double decker bus'.
- The most common way of getting around in London by bus, and more common in the US in the past year as "greener" buses are all the rage.
- MobileWebBrowser.com
- We began development of Mobile Web Browser last week but if no one buys it at auction we will continue development. We can include the current site in the sale if the buyer reaches out to us in advance.
- Trend graph for the search term Mobile Web Browser on Google Insights for Search shows heavy upward movement and news coverage.
- Wordtracker score of 86 for the exact term, and 247 for a broad match, including "free mobile web browser" and "mobile web browsers".
If you have any questions about the above sales, please contact us directly.
Written by Ed Muller Monday, 19 October 2009 08:05
There are a number of methods to spot trends in domaining. One is to read sales reports for Sedo, Snap and many of the new auction platforms such as Bido, Epik and others. Another method is to read boards such as this which summarize results in posts. Lastly, you can simply look at the results in expiring or pre-release aftermarket product platforms such as Namejet and GoDaddy.
In today's post we examine two different Carousel TLDs, and differences in both price and bidding.
On September 12th and 13th of 1996, Carousel.net and Carousel.org were registered by Roger Burgess of The Carousel Network Organization. Over the next 13 years, both received backlinks and had sites built on them, though only Carousel.org got listed in dmoz and potentially had a pagerank 1 at expiration. However, as a general rule domain buyers tend to market .orgs as a lesser caliber than .net for the same terms.
While this would generally be a well-followed rule, lately most .org domains are nearly equal to .net of the same quality, and attract just as many bidders. On Friday and Saturday at GoDaddy's auction platform, Carousel.net hit a max bid of $425 while Carousel.org reached a top bid of $907.
This discrepancy can't be accounted for by the mere presence of a dmoz listing or possible PR1, both of which together might add $50 to the top price of a domain. The difference between Friday and Saturday bidders seems to be diminished by the fact that most of the bidding began days before either domain hit its final day. Is this simply the price someone paid to corner the Carousel market? If so why was competition so much higher on the .ORG vs the .NET when the term Carousel does not appear to offer any significant advantage as a keyword?
Carousels are still bought and sold on the open market for fairgrounds and circuses, so certainly that would put the advantage squarely on NET, but for some reason, ORG won out. Is there a word association bidders see between Carousel and an ORG domain? Has demand actually shifted?
We have been touting single word dictionary Orgs for some time (though we also own a good quantity of Nets) as we expected this type of market flip on some generics that could be construed as both non-profit or commercial. NET has officially drifted into "commerical-only" ground and we think it's time to start getting your fingers on some good ORGs.
Written by Davine Busch Friday, 16 October 2009 07:35
A few nice names are on GoDaddy for this Friday, October 16th 2009. More than few items over $1,00 which is a strong showing for the little auction platform.
WinOne.com $2,338 - An odd bid makes this one look suspicious, but then again, some bidders always use high proxies so it could be quite true.
FLR.org $1512 - A decent 3 letter domain with history and US traffic stats.
Annandale.com $3893 - A big US City with lots of potential. Certain to go for a small fortune.
All the auctions end today, October 16th so keep your fingers at the ready.
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