I've known Phil Harris for many years. He was one of the first people I know who invested heavily in the new gTLD domain names. Phil still owns a portfolio of about 2,000 one word and one letter domain names in these alternative extensions, and he told me he is approaching seven figures in sales […]Catchy.com

Throughout the last several years, the size of my portfolio has ballooned. For many years, I kept somewhere in the ballpark of 400 – 500 domain names in my portfolio. It has now grown to more than 2,000 domain names and counting. With a larger portfolio, I pay more attention to domain name renewals. When […]Catchy.com

This morning on X, Sedo's Senior Domain Broker Dave Evanson announced the sale of Betz.com for $240,000: Just sold https://t.co/kS0IM6aSq8 for $240,000! Congrats to buyer and seller! dave evanson (@SedoDaveEvanson) December 17, 2024 The domain name is currently registered under Whois privacy at GoDaddy, so the buyer is not yet known. There are num...

As ICANN continues its preparations for the next round of TLD applications, the organization is hiring to fill roles that will help with these new domain name extensions and applications. Last week, ICANN posted a job opportunity on LinkedIn that might be of interest to someone who currently works in the domain name space. ICANN […]Catchy.com

For the past 15 years, Bob Mountain has held senior roles at NameMedia (then parent company of Afternic) and GoDaddy. During his tenure, Bob's area of expertise has been business development and partner management, serving in different C-suite and Vice President roles. Bob shared some personal news with me that he is allowing me to […]Catchy....

GoDaddy has been running a private auction featuring domain names from its NameFind portfolio. I have been following the auctions and bidding on a handful of domain names I like. Yesterday, I won the auction for Molasses.com. As I shared on X, it was won, paid for, delivered, and a landing page was launched within […]Catchy.com

Yesterday afternoon, Atom.com released its updated automated domain name appraisal tool. The tool is free to use and offers some insight into its value – as best as an automated appraisal tool may be able to do that. The company published a blog post to set expectations for the tool and how it can be […]Catchy.com

Liquidity Group, a company that is billed "as a leading AI-driven direct lender operating a multibillion-dollar portfolio globally," made a significant domain name upgrade. Liquidity Group acquired the Liquidity.com domain name. It had been using LiquidityGroup.com for its web presence. The company appears to use the shorter "Liquidity" in much of ...

I keep most of my domain names registered at GoDaddy because I find it is easier to manage a portfolio at one registrar. Throughout the year as I acquire domain names at auction, my other registrar accounts grow. I have domain names at Network Solutions, Namecheap, Dynadot, NameBright, and probably a few other domain registrars. […]Catchy.com

Update: After publishing this article, I heard from Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie (Freelancer is the parent company of Escrow.com). Matt told me the information in the article is incorrect, and these countries were added to the "do not service" list in error. Matt's full statement to me is here: "The article is erroneous – we […]Catchy...

I have spent more money on non-.com domain names this year than ever before. My perspective is that startups are using them as less expensive alternatives to .com domain names, and the number of companies operating on non-.com domain names continues to grow. This, in my view, has led to more aftermarket sales of non-.com […]Catchy.com

Andrew Allemann wrote about the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) statement about the .com registry extension agreed upon with Verisign. As a domain investor with a couple thousand domain names, the most eye-catching aspect of the statement was seemingly related to the prices charged by domain investors: "NTIA rec...

Artificial Intelligence can be a time saver. For domain investors, it can make it easier and quicker to create marketing copy to help promote a domain name. Over the last couple of years, domain name sales platforms and domain investors have utilized AI tools to help generate sales copy for their domain names. This can […]Catchy.com

This afternoon, Joshua Schoen reported the $199,995 sale of Fluid.io. The domain name was sold at his BIN price via Afternic, according to a screenshot of the sale email he shared on X: I woke up to a great email this morning stating that https://t.co/hunpBobiWv sold at my BIN price of $199,995. I've had many […]Catchy.com

The 2025 NamesCon Global conference will be held in Miami, Florida next year, according to an announcement from Soeren von Varchim. In addition to the location change, the conference will also be held later on in the year and will take place from November 5-6, 2025. I believe NamesCon is still the largest annual domain […]Catchy.com

The Internet Commerce Association has revealed the nominees for the Lonnie Borck Memorial Award and the inaugural Trailblazer Award. Both of these awards will be given during the ICA annual meeting in Las Vegas in January. ICA members are now able to vote for the award winners using a rank choice voting system. The nominees, […]Catchy.com

A startup called Aries introduced itself yesterday, and its brand matching Aries.com domain name is was what caught my attention: Introducing https://t.co/g4JFITQbYE The first ever open platform for traders, investors, and developers. pic.twitter.com/EBVJn2Ncnh Aries (@Aries) November 19, 2024 From what I can tell, it looks like Aries started out ...

Among other things, MarkMonitor is a corporate domain name brokerage. The company often represents and advises major corporations when they are in the market to acquire a specific domain name. In addition to domain name acquisitions, MarkMonitor helps its clients sell valuable domain names that are no longer needed. MarkMonitor publishes a list of ...

Yesterday morning, I noticed a handful of expiry auctions on GoDaddy Auctions that had a $1 opening bid. The typical starting bid for these types of auctions is $25, so that caught my attention. Most of the other auctions I visited yesterday had the standard $25 opening bid. $1 expiry auctions at @godaddyauctions? pic.twitter.com/a90XMe1gbQ [̷...

The .IO ccTLD extension could possibly be "phased out" if sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is moved to Mauritius. My feeling is that it is highly unlikely the .IO extension will be removed given the number of businesses using .IO domain names. There is still a chance it could happen, and businesses would be forced […]Catchy.com...

In July of 2022, I was told about a GoDaddy change that was made with the hope of successfully delivering more GoDaddy Auction wins to customers. I believe the policy change is that if a GoDaddy registered domain name isn't renewed 3 days before an expiry auction, it is no longer allowed to be renewed. […]Catchy.com

At our town's annual meeting, there was a discussion about paving a secondary road. The non-critical infrastructure project was needed to be done at some point, but it had been put off for a few years. The town seemed pretty split on whether or not to spend the low millions on completing the project. Towards […]Catchy.com

A little over a week ago, I came across Diamond.com, and I noticed its coming soon page. When I scrolled down, I saw a message indicating that it was owned by a company that has been in the diamond industry for many years. The last time I heard about Diamond.com back in 2018, it had […]Catchy.com

NameBio does a very good job of tracking down and reporting domain name auction results. Domain investors aren't the only people who use NameBio to find domain sales data. Domain brokers and domain name buyers use NameBio to get intelligence on domain names they want to buy. Once a year in a domain name sale […]Catchy.com

Domain investors have another option to transact domain name sales. Dynadot Founder and CEO Todd Han announced that Dynadot customers can now import their own leads onto its marketplace sales platform: You can now bring your own lead at Dynadot. We handle payment and pushing the domain for you. The commission is just 5%. This […]Catchy.com

As you know, the United States held its Presidential election yesterday, and Donald Trump won the election. In addition to this win, the Republican party will regain control over the US Senate as well. I am hopeful the new administration and its business policies will be good for domain investors and their domain investments. One […]Catchy.co...

A month ago, I shared the results of my first month with Afternic "Boost" enabled on my account. Technically, the Boost features were previously enabled for everyone, so it was the first month where people could either pay a higher commission rate on Afternic sales or opt out of the Boost program. The first month […]Catchy.com

In an April of 2024 SEC filing, Cuentas reported the $303,000 acquisition and $301,000 sale of the https://t.co/IbEH9vgoJx domain name. Both transactions occurred in 2023. My guess is the name was acquired from a domain investor. 1/3https://t.co/UOMCfXSn41 pic.twitter.com/ozM5V2ATJ9 Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) November 1, 2024 I was looking throug...

The ICA is seeking nominations for two domain industry awards, and the nomination deadline has been extended to this coming Sunday (11/3). All members of the domain name community are invited to submit a nomination. ICA members will vote on the award winner from the list of nominees. The two awards are the Lonnie Borck […]Catchy.com

A colleague emailed to ask me why I am not working with a specific landing page service he has been using. I neither have enough domain names to really give a company a fair shot, nor do I have the desire to set up many accounts at different platforms, giving access to private data to […]Catchy.com

The second application round for new gTLD applications seems to be gearing up. ICANN has slowly been releasing new information about applying for a TLD in the 2nd round of applications. According to ICANN's website, the next round of applications is expected to commence in April of 2026. I couldn't even take a guess at […]Catchy.com...

I do diligence on a prospective buyer because I like to know who is on the other end of an inquiry/offer email. In general, most people will reply with their full name and email address. Some people may reply with a fictitious name or nickname to try and retain some level of anonymity. For the […]Catchy.com

In September, I reported on the sale of the Rocket.com domain name. Rocket.com was sold for an undisclosed amount of money in a deal overseen by Andrew Miller of Hilco Digital. Following the sale, the domain name was transferred to CSC under Whois privacy, leaving the identity of the buyer unknown. I have been periodically […]Catchy.com

The OOV.com domain name was acquired for $400,000. The news was announced by Saw.com, the domain brokerage that helped its client privately acquire the domain name: Pleased to announce we facilitated the sale of Oov(dot)com for $400,000! A premium, three-letter domain like this offers unmatched brand potential. Interested in elevating your brand wi...

When I have a legal question regarding domain names, I usually discuss it with attorney John Berryhill. My feeling is that I would rather pay for John's legal expertise than to wing it. The domain industry is fortunate that John regularly offers insights and wisdom on public venues like Namepros and X at no cost. […]Catchy.com

When a domain name is listed for sale on Afternic, there are many ways a prospective buyer can become a "Lead." A lead is a prospective buyer of a domain name who, instead of buying the domain name immediately via BIN options, has engaged with an GoDaddy or Afternic broker. Sometimes a lead is a […]Catchy.com

Following the news that GoDaddy is retiring Dan.com, the company launched a migration page to transfer domain name sale listings from Dan.com to Afternic. I did not have a ton of faith that this migration would be seamless, so I opted to proactively delete all of my active listings on Dan.com and not worry that […]Catchy.com

Earlier today, Identity Digital distributed a press release announcing its partnership with the government of Anguilla to manage its .AI ccTLD. Now at more than half a million domain registrations, I believe .AI must be one of the fastest growing ccTLD extensions ever. As I understand, the entire .AI namespace has been operated by a […]Catchy...

This weekend, in preparation for a scavenger hunt hike with our kids, I got a bit sidetracked and began looking up associated domain names. One domain name I came across stood out to me because of the landing page that was shown: This was surprising to me because I know the longtime domain registrant, and […]Catchy.com

Liner is a AI-driven search engine for students and researchers. The company operates on the off-brand GetLiner.com domain name. Last week on X, the company announced a $29 million Series B funding round: We're thrilled to share ‘s $29M Series B funding round, led by InterVest and Atinum Investment, with support from Samsung Ventures, [̷...