A little over two weeks ago, a security breach involving GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting accounts, was widely reported. The news received coverage in tech publications like TechCrunch, as well as mainstream publications like Reuters. It was important news considering the breadth of the breach and potential impact it could have on GoDaddy customer...

Operate.com was sold today for $190,000 in a public auction on NameJet. It looks like there were more than 100 bidders who participated in the auction with at least a backorder. Operate.com was one of the Thought Convergence domain names put into auction at NameJet. According to NameBio, this is the largest sale on the […]

A couple of weeks ago, I received a $4,000 offer on a domain name I acquired in auction for $69 in October of 2020. The domain name was priced at just shy of $20,000, and I have not received any other offers or inquiries for it in the last year +. I offered to reduce […]

Aside from a dozen or so non .com domain names I registered over the years, I have been strictly a .com domain investor. On my NameJet and GoDaddy auction filters, .com is the only extension checked. There may be value elsewhere, but .com domain names are the focus of my business, and I do not […]

Another major corporate rebrand was announced today. This time, the news involved the publicly traded financial services company, Square. The company unveiled a new parent brand name today called Block, which encompasses Square, CashApp, Tidal, and another newly created cryptocurrency brand called Spiral: Were changing our company name so we can gi...

I received an email from NameJet announcing a special auction that is filled with exceptional, privately owned domain names. The NameJet website also has banners on-site announcing the auction. These domain names are owned by Thought Convergence, a company co-founded by Ammar Kubba and Kevin Vo. Some of the domain names that are included in […...

I came across another domain industry job opportunity that might be of interest to someone familiar with the business of domain names. Name.com is looking to hire a Sr. Traffic Acquisition & Growth Manager. This is a remote position, and I don't see a specific location requirement for this job although the posting states "Applicants […]...

GoDaddy posted a job listing that might be of interest to someone who is familiar with the domain investment space. GoDaddy is hiring a Marketing Manager who will work on the company's Domain Registrar and Investor Business Unit. This is a fully remote role for someone in the US or Canada. Here's an excerpt from […]

A UDRP was recently filed against the valuable Tips.com domain name at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF). The decision was just published, and the three member panel ruled in favor of the domain registrant who will retain the domain name. The registrant was represented by attorney Zak Muscovitch. A quick glance at the UDRP might […]

I don't do much outbound marketing to sell domain names these days. In the past, I spent a fair amount of time reaching out to prospective buyers, and the timing of emails is important. I don't have the data to share what day or time of day is best to send emails, but I do […]

Over the weekend while reviewing a Dropping.pro list of domain names coming up for auction that day, I saw a domain name that stood out to me. It's the unique name of a popular beer in the .com extension. The domain name had been registered for many years before expiring and dropping. I am pretty […]

On Wednesday, GeekWire reported on the $100 million funding round of a real estate startup called Place. The company is now valued at $1 Billion, and it wisely uses Place.com for its website. Most interestingly to domain investors, the article shared that Place.com was acquired for $3 million. Jeff Eckhaus spotted the sale price and […]

In October, Afternic made a significant upgrade to the user control panel in a beta platform that became available to all sellers. The objective was to integrate some of GoDaddy's look and feel as well as provide functionality upgrades for Afternic customers. I've been toggling back and forth between the beta and classic version, and […]...

In 2018, the Crypto.com domain name was reportedly acquired for $12 million. Perhaps because the sale price was never confirmed, it was not added to the DNJournal sales archive for 2018, where it would have ranked at the top of the chart. Since that time, Crypto.com has become a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrency […]

I was chatting with a Chiropractor friend yesterday about domain names. He has been into cryptocurrency trading for several years, and we regularly chat about that despite the fact that my knowledge is generally limited to what I read on my Twitter feed. Yesterday, my friend asked me about .ETH domain names, and admittedly, I […]

According to NameBio, Panet.com was acquired for $5,752 via auction at DropCatch.com in September of 2020. A company that operates on a Panet ccTLD filed a UDRP against the domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the single member panel ruled in favor of the complainant. You should have a look at […]

In a press release distributed this morning, Namecheap unveiled its domain name marketplace platform for users to buy and sell domain names. In addition, Namecheap will also auction its expiry stream of domain names instead of sending expired domain name to GoDaddy Auctions. The marketplace quietly launched a few weeks ago, and there are now [̷...

TechCrunch just published an article about a $75 million fundraising round for a collectible card startup called Alt. The startup had previously raised $31 million in funding: Collectible card trading platform Alt raises $75M as it eyes other asset categories and preps its mobile launch https://t.co/DvPJDhy4Dd by @grg TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) Nove...

In the domain name management control panel at GoDaddy, there's a Buy & Sell drop down menu. Within that menu, there is a Domain Broker Service link that takes customers to a status page with all of the Domain Broker Service inquiries received on their domain names. These inquiries are from GoDaddy's Domain Broker Service, […]

For the last few years, I have found domain investing to be a bit less fun than before. Business has been quite good for the last several years, so it's not the money issue that has made it less exciting. I haven't really been able to pinpoint the issue until I was chatting with a […]

This afternoon, security researcher and blogger Brian Krebs shared a link to a Robinhood corporate blog post disclosing a "security incident:" Investment platform Robinhood says a security incident led to the theft of email addresses for ~5 million customers. It's safe to expect an uptick in phishing schemes targeting Robinhood users. https://t.co/...

In July of this year, Domain Gang published an article about Tilt.com. The domain name had been owned by Airbnb and was reportedly stolen from the company when the Whois registrant email domain name was acquired by a third party. Tilt.com was then registered to Greenberg & Lieberman, an Intellectual Property law firm and domain […]

An inglorious record has been set at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2021, and we still have nearly two months remaining in the year. From what I can see on the WIPO case filing page, it appears that more UDRP cases have been filed this year than in any prior year. WIPO UDRP […]

According to a tweet from the Twitter account of Domaining.com, the Domaining.com website may have been compromised. I have not independently confirmed the veracity of the tweet: Urgent: https://t.co/yvF1mB9mIF has been apparently compromised, login has been closed. We were not story any CC data but change your password in other services if you wer...

The largest sale in last month's Great Domains auction at Sedo was Portugal.com for $350,000. As with all auctions, a domain name is not really considered sold until the transaction is processed by the platform. It looks like the sale of Portugal.com has gone through, according to a tweet from Sedo: Our themed auctions are […]

If you are an investor that owns .US domain names, you might consider adding the .US Town Hall forum to your calendar on November 4, 2021. The event annual event livestream is open to the public and gives participants an opportunity to learn more about the .US registry and its operations. Live .US Town Hall […]

A little over a week ago, I read that Facebook was planning to rebrand in a fashion similar to the Google / Alphabet rebrand. The idea behind the rebrand was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's promise to plan to turn the company into a metaverse-focused business. The news, as I understand, was first reported by The […]

Every once in a while, someone asks domain investors if there is a tool that would be helpful if it existed. I think it would be helpful if there was a domain name price monitoring tool. The tool would allow investors to keep a list of domain names listed for sale on Sedo, Afternic, Dan…etc. […]

Albert Schimmel, Owner and Founder of BuyMyName.com (and formerly of Sedo), shared a comic on LinkedIn that resonated with me. "A domain name is like a joke… if you have to explain it, it's not that good" You can see the comic on Albert's LinkedIn page: I think it's very true with limited exceptions. If […]

Navigator.com has been acquired by Google. The Whois record for Navigator.com became public for the first time since 2018, and the registrant is now Google LLC. The acquisition was first reported by Jamie Zoch on Sunday morning: Google LLC acquires ultra premium generic domain name Navigatorcom from its past domain owners according to whois records...

In response to my article yesterday, a couple of people suggested asking for equity from wanna-be startup entrepreneurs who can't afford to pay for a domain name. I like the idea of having equity serve as upside in a deal, but in practice, it is more challenging than simply asking for and getting the equity. […]

People don't seem to understand that domain investing is a business, and domain investors run their businesses to make money. In the last handful of days, I was asked if I would be willing to ‘let [a domain name] go' for offers that were not even close to what I paid to buy them. In […]

I have a small percentage of my domain names resolving to pay per click landing pages at Uniregistry. When I checked in on my PPC earnings this afternoon, it showed zero revenue was earned since October 1. The traffic figures seemed to be consistent, so there is an issue with revenue reporting. I reached out […]

According to data from Betalist, as shared by Marc Khlbrugge on Twitter, .com usage amongst early stage startups has been on the decline. The data that was shared shows .com usage was 78% ten years ago and it has declined to 56% most recently: .com usage amongst early stage startups has declined from 78% […]

Ned OMeara shared a post on LinkedIn, and he gave me permission to share it here because the message is important. Domain registrants, and particularly domain investors, need to create a plan to protect their business assets for when they die. Ned shared a story about a client of his who purchased one of his […]

When someone emails to ask, "would you sell X for $xx,xxx?" I look at as a fishing expedition. Some may also call it tire kicking, but people who ask about buying a domain name at a certain price are usually more interested in fishing for the right number rather than simply kicking the tires on […]

In September, I noticed that Gorillas.com had a Media Options landing page with a $500,000 asking price. What was interesting to me is that Gorillas.com has been owned by NameFind, the domain name portfolio company owned and operated by GoDaddy. I shared what I noticed on Twitter: Looks like @MediaOptions is brokering the generic and […]

In a blog post published yesterday afternoon, Coinbase announced that it would soon launch Coinbase NFT. According to the article Coinbase NFT will become "a peer-to-peer marketplace that will make minting, purchasing, showcasing, and discovering NFTs easier than ever." My guess is that Coinbase NFT will be found within the original Coinbase.com we...

Dan.com announced a partnership with Media Options that will allow Dan sellers to work with Media Options to negotiate a deal on their behalf. The news was sent to Dan.com customers this morning, and a press release with details about the partnership was published this morning. Sellers on Dan.com can now hand off their domain […]