Kevin Ohashi - Entrepreneur I Love Learning New Things.

How this domain investor has built his portfolio to over 5,000 domains.

Elkhan Agamirza’s domain name portfolio has been doubling in size every year and now stands at over 5,000 domains. He takes a detailed view into what end users want to buy, scooping up domain names that many domain investors overlook based on traditional metrics. In this show, you’ll learn how he approaches domain investing and the bottom line sell-through rate and the revenue it generates.

Also: Supreme Court rules on domains and trademarks, State Farm’s generic woes, and Namecheap’s growth.

Sponsor: Donuts

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

Post link: Elkhan Agamirza – DNW Podcast #293

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Domain registrar wants to patent ways to suggest domains based on various non-search data.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) has filed U.S. Patent and Trademark application number 16/235333 (pdf) for “recommending domains from free text”.

The application describes a way to generate domain name suggestions based on data and free text rather than a user searching for keywords.

From the application:

The disclosed embodiments automatically recommend domain names by making use of data provided by the users: 1) during creation, by the user, of a web hosting or other account; and/or 2) mining and making use of the relevant data within the content of files within the repository. The creation of a hosting account may include collecting user input from the user, using a graphical user interface (GUI) and one or more GUI components displayed on a client computer. This user input may include the user’s name, email address, physical address (including street address, city, county, state, country, etc.), username, title for the repository or collection of files (e.g., a website title), description of the repository or collection (e.g., a website description), any other sentence of notes associated with the repository, a business category associated with the user’s business, etc.

Once the user hosting account is established, the user may upload the files to the repository, or otherwise transfer the files through the network for storage. The disclosed system may then use the provided user input, and/or content within the provided files, to automatically identify the main concept from a collection of identified keyword within the rich amount of text contents, while eliminating other irrelevant concepts. These irrelevant concepts may include, as non-limiting examples, stop words, grammatically incorrect phrases, and terms or phrases common to all websites (e.g., “about us”).

Thus, the disclosed system determines how to generate meaningful domain name recommendations based on relevant concepts, which also remove irrelevant keywords or phrases, thereby providing one or more domain names that are shorter and easier for the user to remember.

GoDaddy has a number of domain search and discovery patents, including one that uses image data.

The application was filed on December 28, 2020 and the USPTO published it last week.

Post link: GoDaddy files patent applicaton for “recommending domains from free text”

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Kassey Lee explains why this domain is valuable.

I regularly listen to the Josh.co Daily Podcast to get daily updates on the domain market. In a recent episode, Josh mentioned the sale of 89CP .com for a very strong price of $5,000.

Josh is right when he says 8 and 9 are good numbers and C and P good letters. Here’s a detailed explanation.

8 and 9 have no intrinsic Chinese meanings. However, 8 rhymes with many Pinyin words such as Fa (发=making a fortune), Ba (吧=bar), and Ba (爸=father). 9 also rhymes with many Pinyin words such as Jiu (久=long time), Jiu (救=rescue), and Jiu (酒=wine). Together, 8 and 9 can become Fa (发=making a fortune) and Jiu (久=long time) to mean “making a fortune for a long time”.

On the other hand, CP is an acronym for more than 300 Pinyin phrases, such as Cai Piao (彩票=lottery ticket), Cang Pin (藏品=collector’s items), and Che Pai (车牌=license plate). CP is often seen as “lottery ticket” by investors.

When you put 89 and CP together, they match very well, giving you the meaning “making a fortune in lottery ticket for a long time”. So, 89CP .com can be used to build a lottery site.

Now, I must reiterate the fact that numbers have no intrinsic Chinese meanings and an acronym can stand for hundreds of Pinyin phrases. This means I can give 89CP a different meaning, such as Bai Jiu Cai Pu (百酒菜谱=hundred kinds of wines in the menu) if I want to use it to run a restaurant.

Still, a domain made up of number and acronym is not easy to remember despite the meaning creation process. If the end user had a bigger budget, I would certainly recommend getting the 4-letter domain BJCP .com in place of 89CP.com.

Seeing the good sale of 89CP .com, you may get excited and want to invest in 4-character domains. Wait! Make sure you look at the daily sales of four character domains reported by Shortname.com to get a dose of reality.

Post link: Here’s why 89CP .com sold for $5,000

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Kassey Lee investigates recent numeric domain name sales.

Numeric domains up to 4 digits (4N) are actually used by Chinese companies. However, those beyond 4N are not often found in use but mostly traded among investors. In this article, I’ll review some 4N domains sold in the three months between March and May this year.

6115.com sold for $50,000. 6115 .com.cn is a B2B portal which claims to have more than 10,000 daily visitors looking for business partnership. The site title is Zhong Guo Bai Ye Lun (中国百页轮网=China louver wheel network) but it does not seem to be related to the numeric domain. Often, I see numeric domains in use but no Chinese meanings are given. 6115.com could be a good upgrade for the company.

2633.com sold for $37,000. 2633.com.cn provides tax and accounting services. The company was founded in 2003 and currently has about 50 employees, including professional accountants and business registration specialists. 2633.com would be a nice upgrade. On the other hand, 2633.cn is currently listed for sale at 150,000 yuan or about $21,000.

3049.com sold for $33,600. 3049.cn provides data servers, SSL certificates, domain registrations, and other IT services from 15 sites outside China. The numeric domain matches the company’s name 3049 Shu Ju (3049数据= 3049 data). With its global reach and current size, the company should benefit from upgrading to 3049.com.

1740.com sold for $20,508 and is already listed for sale at 218,000 yuan or about $31,000. This would be a decent flip if the domain can be sold within a short time. 1740 rhymes with Yi Qi Si Ying (一起思赢=think to win together).

6439.com sold for $25,505 an is already listed for sale at 238,000 yuan or about $33,000. This would be a decent flip if the domain can be sold within a short time. 6439 rhymes with Le Shi Xian Jiu (乐世仙酒=angelic wine providing a generation of pleasure).

0778.com sold for $64,000 and parked. 0778.com.cn is listed for sale at 23,600 yuan or about $3,300. 0778.cn seems to be for sale too, indicating the number as the dialing code for Hechi (河池), a city in the Guangxi region. 0778 rhymes with Ni Qu Qu Ba (你去去吧=please go, with implication to do something).

Post link: Decoding recent numeric domain name sales

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A food manufacturer, a travel site, and a wallpaper company bought domain names.

ccTLD domain purchases staked their claim among end users this week. Half of the end user sales at Sedo I uncovered were ccTLDs.

Here’s a list of some of the end user domain name sales from the past week. You can review previous end user sales lists here.

Encrypt.org €6,500 – This excellent domain now forwards to the site for Project Millipede, which promotes technologies that enable privacy.

DoubleDipper.com $6,995 – Hilton Whole Green Millers Ltd bought this domain. It is a food product manufacturer in Canada that is best known for its peanut butter substitute, WowButter. Will this be the name of a new product?

PaperPal.com €6,500 – Cactus Communications bought this domain. It bills itself as a science communications firm. Beyond that, it’s hard to understand what it does other than use buzzwords. I think it’s like a PR company for science. This domain might be for a client.

AutoKredite.de €4,999 – Forwards to AutoKredit.de – a website in German for those seeking financing, loans and other financial assistance for car purchases and more. This appears to be a defensive registration for this alternative spelling of their main website.

Point.me $4,800 – Point Me is a section of BoardingArea, a site for frequent flyers. The domain is forwarded to PointmetothePlane.boardingarea.com.

PVH.de €4,500 – This high-value 3-letter .de domain forwards to PrinzvHessen.com, a new umbrella brand for tourist and gastronomic sub-brands of the Hesse Culture Foundation.

LustHome.com €3,850 – Wallpaper Warehouse, an e-commerce site for wallpaper and related home decor products. This is probably a home decor brand.

FSLV.com $3,500 – This domain was bought by Brookfield Properties, a global real estate services company that manages and leases one of the largest retail portfolios in the United States. This domain could be for one of their new or existing shopping center properties.

PoolUeberDachung.com $3,125 – Forwards to DesJoyAux.de, a German pool and pool cover builder and manufacturer.

MeinSquare.de €2,500 – Forwards to EasySquare.com, an app for mobile devices designed to simplify all processes and business dealings related to real estate.

Super.com.mx €2,500 – Forwards to SuperCarniceria.com, an online grocery and fresh food delivery service in Mexico.

Pos-Service.de €2,000 – Forwards to PosService.de. This is the website for POS Service GmbH, a German POS and IT solutions provider.

Post link: 12 end user domain name sales including 6 ccTLDs

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Make sure to do the research to verify it.

I recently found a .com where the matching .cn is already developed. Because the second level domain is registered in another extension, does it mean I have a potential end user buyer for the .com?

The domain is EaseToy .com. It was dropped and can be registered for only $10 as of this writing. The domain contains two common words totaling 7 letters. ExpiredDomains.net indicates the matching .cn is registered and dotDB reports 26 similar domains. Because I don’t judge a domain by its look, I decided to do my research and visited EaseToy .cn.

At a glance, EaseToy .cn looks like a genuine website. It has product info, a news section, and even a picture of the reception desk of the company. However, there is something unusual.

First, the page title is wrong. It shows a media company from the northern part of China but the company info indicates a molding machine manufacturer from the southern part of China.

The Chinese language version used is wrong. The contents are written in traditional Chinese which is used mainly in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan but not in mainland China where simplified Chinese is the standard.

The domain’s name (“toy”) does not match the line of business (“machine”) of the company.

Most puzzling are links found at the bottom of the home page which apparently will take you to some adult sites. This just does not make sense for a machine manufacturer.

My puzzle was cleared when I pasted some of the contents into Google search, which led me to the real site at TWZYJX .com (Taiwan Zan Yang Ji Xie). TWZYJX .com is real but EaseToy .cn is only a copy.

Therefore, it is unlikely EaseToy .cn will upgrade to EaseToy .com. Further analysis using dotDB and Google search could not uncover any potential users of EaseToy.com, so I decided not to acquire EaseToy .com.

My experience highlights the importance of research. Also, when investigating sites that aren’t in your language, you may want to get help from someone who speaks the language.

Post link: Is the end user prospect for your domain a genuine one?

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Year-over-year revenue grows 38% in Q2.

Domain name registrar Namecheap generated $49 million in revenue during Q2 2020, the company reported to Domain Name Wire. That’s up almost 38% over the same period last year and up 7.6% quarter-over-quarter. First-half revenue was $94.8 million, up $22.1 million, or 30%, over H1 2019.

The company had a net increase of 565,000 domains under management and now has 11.3 million DUMs.

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall said he anticipates that the company will surpass 12 million domains under management in Q4 of this year.

During the second quarter, Namecheap added over 308,000 new customers, a 93% increase over the same period last year. Year-to-date, Namecheap has added 528,000 new customers, up 58% from the same period last year.

“In these uncertain times, we are proud to be able to continue to operate at full capacity, offering our industry leading 24/7 customer support, while being able to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our entire workforce, who all continue working from home,” said Kirkendall.

Post link: Namecheap revenue continues its surge in Q2

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Companies can’t register all domains that can be used to attack them.

Patriot Act’s website calls attention to tax prep software company efforts to hide their free options.

Last year, Intuit registered lots of domain names defensively as reports surfaced about its nefarious tactics with TurboTax. It had lobbied the government not to make its own tax filing software by offering to provide a free option. Then it hid its free option, including blocking it from being indexed by Google.

Intuit registered domains like f*ckintuit.com, turbotaxscam.com, and intuitexposed.com to prevent people from using the domains to attack it.

I’ve long argued that these defensive registration exercises are futile. The choices are endless if someone wants to register a derogatory term with a brand in it. Here’s a case in point: Intuit missed TurboTaxSucksAss.com.

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj created a website using the domain. It calls attention to the free file options that tax prep companies try to hide.

You can watch the episode covering TurboTax below.

Post link: Intuit missed TurboTaxSucksAss.com

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Amazon registered over 75 domains for the arena it’s calling Climate Pledge Arena.

Photo courtesy Amazon.

I can’t wait to watch a live hockey game again. It certainly won’t be until next year, and it’s likely to be in Seattle’s completely refurbished arena.

Last week, Amazon announced that it bought naming rights to the arena where Seattle’s NHL team will begin play in 2021. Instead of calling it the Amazon Arena, it named it the Climate Pledge Arena.

Some might call it greenwashing, but the name will certainly keep Amazon under the microscope when it comes to its environmental impact.

Amazon.com registered over 75 domain names in conjunction with the naming. Most of these are for defensive purposes. The list is below:

amazon-cparena.com
amazonarena.net
amazonarena.org
amazonautonomouscars.com
amazonbasketballarena.com
amazonbasketballcourt.com
amazoncarbonzeorarena.com
amazoncarbonzero.com
amazonclimatearena.com
amazonclimatepledgearena.com
amazoncparena.com
amazonhockeyarena.com
amazonhockeyrink.com
amazonridehailing.com
amazonridehailingvehicles.com
amazonrink.com
amazonsclimatearena.com
amazonsclimatepledgearena.com
amazonseattlesportsarena.com
amazonsportsarena.com
amazonzerocarbon.com
amazonzerocarbonarena.com
aws-arena.com
awssportsarena.com
climatepledgearena.net
climatepledgearena.org
climatepledgebasketballcourt.com
climatepledgebasketeballarena.com
climatepledgecarbonzeroarena.com
climatepledgecourt.com
climatepledgehockeyarena.com
climatepledgehockeyrink.com
climatepledgerink.com
climatepledgesportsarena.com
climatepledgestadium.com
climatepledgezerocarbonarena.com
codingtoolkit.com
countdown-to-carbonzero.com
countdown-to-netzero.com
countdowntocarbonzero.com
countdowntonetzero.com
cp-arena.com
cparena.com
join-lead-change.com
joinleadchange.com
seattle-cparena.com
seattleclimatepledgearena.com
seattlecparena.com
the-amazon-arena.com
the-aws-arena.com
theamazonarena.net
theamazonarena.org
theamazonbasketballarena.com
theamazonbasketballcourt.com
theamazonclimatepledgearena.com
theamazoncourt.com
theamazonhockeyarena.com
theamazonhockeyrink.com
theamazonrink.com
theamazonsportsarena.com
theawsarena.com
theawsportsarena.com
theclimatepledgearena.net
theclimatepledgearena.org
theclimatepledgebasketballarena.com
theclimatepledgebasketballcourt.com
theclimatepledgecourt.com
theclimatepledgehockeyarena.com
theclimatepledgehockeyrink.com
theclimatepledgerink.com
theclimatepledgesportsarena.com
theclimatepledgestadium.com
theseattleclimatepledgearena.com
climatepledgearena.us
theamazonarena.us
theclimatepledgearena.us

 

Post link: Here are the domains Amazon registered for the Seattle arena

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Kassey Lee explains why this domain, which sold at auction last month, has a bounty of potential buyers.

HuangGuan.com sold for $30,728 on Godaddy Auctions on June 15, and I think it is a good deal for the buyer. Here’s why:

1. Huang Guan represents a prestigious brand: 皇冠 (crown). A prestigious brand can be worth billions of dollars, so its matching .com will be priceless.
2. The domain is short, with only nine letters in the name, which appeals to Chinese companies because “short” is loved. Remember the craze for 2-letter domains?
3. It’s 2-pin, which is the most popular type among Pinyin names. You see 2-pin names everywhere in China, for example Bai Du (Baidu.com), Jing Dong (JD.com), and Mei Tuan (Meituan.com).
4. There are many potential buyers for this domain. Baidu’s corporate credit database lists more than 100 Chinese companies using “皇冠 (crown)” in their names. Similar results can be found in Crunchbase and Baidu URL search.
5. Huang Guan has multiple meanings. In addition to “皇冠 (crown)”, Huang Guan has other meanings, too, thus allowing you to create other brands. Some examples are 煌观 (brilliant view), 凰冠 (phoenix hat), and 黄馆 (yellow building).

How much can HuangGuan.com be sold to a Chinese company? When it comes to end user pricing, there is no fixed rule. It depends on the desire and also affordability of the buyer, which is illustrated in the stunning $30 million sale of Voice.com to Hong Kong-based blockchain startup Block.One in 2019.

Post link: Is this domain really worth $30,728?

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The insurance giant really wants this domain name.

Earlier this year, insurance giant State Farm lost a UDRP for the domain name TheStateFarmBowl .com.

The owner of the domain argued that he bought it to sell wooden bowls in the outline of states. Get it? State ‘farm bowls’? (His plans seem to have been delayed because he still hasn’t developed the site.)

This loss came on the heels of losing a similar case for the domain BigStateFarmAgent .com because it could be read is ‘big state’ ‘farm agent’.

State Farm was miffed at losing the seemingly football-themed TheStateFarmBowl .com domain to go along with its defensively-registered StateFarmBowl.com. So it filed a second time with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain.

There are limited cases in which a company can file a UDRP a second time. According to the WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0:

Panels have accepted refiled complaints only in highly limited circumstances such as (i) when the complainant establishes that legally relevant developments have occurred since the original UDRP decision, (ii) a breach of natural justice or of due process has objectively occurred, (iii) where serious misconduct in the original case (such as perjured evidence) that influenced the outcome is subsequently identified, (iv) where new material evidence that was reasonably unavailable to the complainant during the original case is presented, or (v) where the case has previously been decided (including termination orders) expressly on a “without prejudice” basis.

For example, had the owner of the domain started selling insurance, then State Farm might have a legitimate reason to refile. But none of the exceptional circumstances applied here, so the panelist declined to render a new decision.

Post link: State Farm tries (again) to get a State Farm Bowl domain

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Court rules that Booking.com can be trademarked.

The Supreme Court of the United States issues its ruling about a trademark for Booking.com.

In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled today that Booking.com can trademark Booking.com.

For background on the issue, listen to DNW Podcast #285.

Booking.com sought the trademark, only to be rebuffed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which argued that it’s generic. The USPTO argues that adding .com to a generic term—like adding “Company”—can convey no source-identifying meaning.

The Supreme Court disagreed, writing:

That premise is faulty, for only one entity can occupy a particular Internet domain name at a time, so a “generic.com” term could convey to consumers an association with a particular website.

Furthermore:

Under these principles, whether “Booking.com” is generic turns on whether that term, taken as a whole, signifies to consumers the class of online hotel-reservation services. Thus, if “Booking.com” were generic, we might expect consumers to understand Travelocity—another such service—to be a “Booking.com.” We might similarly expect that a consumer, searching for a trusted source of online hotel-reservation services, could ask a frequent traveler to name her favorite “Booking.com” provider.

So under limited circumstances, companies can trademark a generic term + .com (or perhaps another top level domain).

But that trademark won’t grant the company protection of the generic term of the second-level domain. Booking.com acknowledged that the Booking.com mark would be weak. It will also not allow it successfully go after anyone who uses the generic term ‘booking’ in their mark.

The court wrote:

Guarding against the anticompetitive effects the PTO identifies, several doctrines ensure that registration of “Booking.com” would not yield its holder a monopoly on the term “booking.”

In fact, Booking.com said it would not go after companies such as ebooking.com, or others that use the term in their name or domain name. It seems that the protection this trademark will provide is against someone, say, promoting themselves as booking.com on their website or naming their hotel Booking.com.

The full decision is here (pdf).

Post link: Supreme Court: Booking.com can get its trademark

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Domain was registered a decade before the spa company started its business.

A spa franchising company has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking for the domain AccessSpa.com.

Philip Savino, who apparently has some connection to a spa franchiser called Access Spa, filed the dispute with World Intellectual Property Organization.

The owner of the domain name registered it in 2009. Access Spa was created last year, according to the dispute.

It’s impossible that the domain registrant could know that a company was going to use the brand starting ten years later. Therefore, the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.

Panelist Warwick Rothnie wrote:

…the long period of several years between the registration of the disputed domain name and subsequent commencement of use of the trademark by the Complainant (and even longer period before registration of the Trademark) should have made it very clear that the Complaint could not succeed. On the record in this case, the Complaint should never have been filed.

Post link: Spa services company tries reverse domain name hijacking

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Kassey Lee explains how you can find expiring domains that may be valuable both in China and the rest of the world.

Even though I live outside China, I still want to include China in my domain investment strategy. This is because I have seen the spectacular rise of the Chinese economy and I want to ride this tidal wave of opportunity.

I know some investors acquire numeric or Pinyin domains in order to target the China market. However, I don’t want to take this route because it limits me to selling to one country; I want to cover the entire world.

In my extensive reading and research, I have found a way to help me target both China and the rest of the world. This can be done by acquiring domains meeting the following three requirements: (1) English, (2) .com, (3) .cn developed.

An English .com domain enables me to sell it to the entire world while its .cn aspect indicates the name has potential in China. Here is how I implement the idea.

Every day, I analyze over 10,000 domains provided by ExpiredDomains.net. To facilitate my work, I have set up a number of filters. If I want to include China in a filter, I turn on the following settings in ExpiredDomains.net.

Section Setting Dictionary Word Domains English Original gTLDs com Name in selected TLD is registered cn

This filter will give me a list of English .com domains with the matching .cn registered. I still need to visit the .cn to determine if it is already developed and by an end user.

By using this method, you can acquire domains that can be sold to both China as well as the rest of the world. Make sure to use a service such as Afternic fast transfer to list the domains so that they are also available in China for easy purchase by the local buyers.

Post link: A quick expired domains tip for finding valuable domains

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3. Single letter domains in China

Do these four-character domains have upgrade value?

I look at domains from the Chinese perspective because of my background. In this article, therefore, I’ll review some 4-character domains sold in May and also check their corresponding .cn and .com.cn usage.

ZZ88.com sold for $13,750. ZZ88.com.cn is an info portal, covering areas such as recruiting, house rental/sale, and dating. However, most entries are dated. The domain only partially matches the site title, where ZZ stands for Zheng Zhou (郑州). Because of this, an upgrade to ZZ88.com is not very likely. Instead, ZZXX.com would be a better choice.

L0VE.com sold for $3,500. Be careful and note that it is “0” (zero) not “O” (letter O) in the domain. L0VE .com.cn forwards to FD7999 .com which is a simple lottery site. So, an upgrade to L0VE.com is not very likely.

111V.com sold for $3,433. The domain already has a for-sale page with a BIN price of 28,880 yuan or about $4080. However, I don’t see much profit in flipping this domain at the stated price.

MG99.com sold for $2,999. MG99.com .cn forwards to 1081223 .com which has a couple of links to casino sites. So, an upgrade to MG99.com is not very likely.

FH38 .com sold for $1,003. FH38 .com has been developed into a lottery site. The domain only partially matches the site title, where FH stands for Feng Huang (凤凰=phoenix). 38 is a good number because 3 suggests “alive” and 8 is “making a fortune”. However, the site title does not seem to have anything to do with the number. FHCP.com would have been a better choice.

LAB8.com sold for $711. LAB8.cn is a portal of mobile games that can be downloaded. The domain does not match the site title, so an upgrade to LAB8.com is not very likely. Instead, Labi.com or LBSY.com would be better choices.

ZT77.com sold for $703. It already has a for-sale page with a BIN price of 18,880 yuan or $2670.

CA66.com sold for $665. CA66.cn is a simple page with links to other sites such as 中国月饼.公司 (meaning “Chinese moon cake” on IDN extension .company) and 中国浏览.中国 (meaning “China browsing” on IDN extension .china). The domain does not match the site title, so an upgrade to CA66.com is not very likely. Instead, ZGLL.com would be a better choice.

As you can see, most of these purchases do not have a likely upgrade to the existing users of the domains using .cn and .com.cn extensions.

Post link: Reviewing 4-character domains sold in May

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Related posts:

1. Reviewing 4-character domains sold in January
2. How to sell domains to China
3. Three steps to Chinese end user research

Checking in on blockchain domains one year later

Last year I interviewed one of the co-founders of Unstoppable Domains. I’m checking in with another co-founder this week, Brad Kam, to see how it’s going. The company offers blockchain-based domains such as .crypto that it says can’t be censored. We discuss the challenges of operating domains on an alternate root, if offering uncensorable domains has a downside, and compare the domain to blockchain alternatives.

Also: Layoffs at GoDaddy, a record-breaking .ai sale, TrueName and more.

Sponsor: DAN.com

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

Post link: Are these domains unstoppable? – DNW Podcast #292

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Related posts:

1. Domain name due diligence – DNW Podcast #148
2. Soeren von Varchmin – DNW Podcast #165
3. One Word Domains – DNW Podcast #287

Alvin Brown provides a tutorial on how to use the GdAuctionsBiddingWS_v2 api to search and retrieve domain names listed on GoDaddy Aftermarket by keyword.

Today’s tutorial is a bit tricky. Why? Well, you’ll need to have access to GoDaddy’s old API: GdAuctionsBiddingWS_v2.

You’re likely not familiar with this API by name, yet if you’ve been around domain investing long enough, then you’ve likely experienced or heard of auction bots and auction bot sniping.

Yeah, I know, I know… This tutorial likely stirs the pot a bit for those who do not have access to the api. That’s not the intention of this tutorial.  Nevertheless, for those that do have access and would like to make use of the API, well, this tutorial is for you.

But no worries for those of you who don’t have access to the original API, I’ve kindly provided a few tutorials for GoDaddy’s most recent API. Read more on how to get started using GoDaddy’s more recent API.

For today’s tutorial, the GdAuctionsBiddingWS_v2 API offers nearly 20 different methods to interact with the GoDaddy Aftermarket, including but not limited to the following:

• EstimateCloseoutDomainPrice
• GetAuctionDetails
• GetAuctionDetailsByDomainName
• GetAuctionList
• GetAuctionList2
• GetAuctionListByAuctionType
• GetAuctionListByAuctionType2
• GetAuctionListByAuctionTypeAdultBidsCloseDays
• GetAuctionListByAuctionTypeAdultBidsCloseDays2
• GetAuctionListByAuctionTypeAdultFilter
• GetAuctionListByAuctionTypeAdultFilter2
• GetAuctionListByAuctionTypeAndDates
• GetServiceStatus
• GetTermsOfServiceUrls
• InstantPurchaseCloseoutDomain
• PlaceBlackorder
• PlaceBid
• PlaceBidOrPurchase
• PlaceBidWithPurchaseProfile

Today’s tutorial focuses on the following two API methods: GetAuctionListByAuctionType and GetAuctionListByAuctionType2.

In short, both methods allow for searching the aftermarket based on a keyword, auction type, and search type.

The difference between the two is that the GetAuctionListByAuctionType includes beginsWithKeyword and auctionType, whereas GetAuctionListByAuctionType2 includes keyWord, auctionType, and searchType in addition to pageNumber and rowsPerPage used by both methods.

For the sake of time and providing an example script that can be downloaded, I won’t dive into the line-by-line details, but I will provide a high-level overview of the example code.

First things first, you must have access to the GdAuctionsBiddingWS_v2 API. If you don’t, then there is no reason to continue this tutorial. This is the mission-critical step of all.

And for the record, GoDaddy is not allowing or issuing access to anyone else.  However, if anyone does have the midas touch to in managing to gain access, then bottle and package up how you did it and sell it — an army of folks await!

As for the tutorial itself, the first thing to note about the example script, which implements the GetAuctionListByAuctionType2 method, is that the following variables and their respective string values must be defined:

• pageNumber – value is set to the numeric value of 1.
• rowPerPage – value can be set to one of the following: 15, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, and 500.
• keyword – value can be set to a desired keyword phrase contained in domain names, excluding spaces and special characters, minus hyphens.
• auctionType – value be set to one of the following: auction or buy now.
• searchType – value can be set to one of the following: most active, featured, expiring, ending soon, buy now, closeouts, bargainbin, and a-z listings.

The keyword ‘domain’ is used as the keyword variable value in this example, which returns a list of domains in auction containing the keyword ‘domain’.

One thing I was in the dark on are the actual values for auctionType and searchType variables. I cannot confirm those are the actual variables to be used, but guessed based on the values I discovered using Developer Tools to inspect the search elements on GoDaddy’s Aftermarket web page.

If anyone knows with certainty about these values, do feel free to chime in with comments in the comments section below.

Now that variables are defined with their respective values, the SOAP request and response can be made using the GetAuctionListByAuctionType2 method. While PHP provides a SOAP class nowadays to make the request, I’ve purposely chosen to use cURL and handcraft the SOAP header and body request (as shown below).

SOAP 1.2 Request

The above example SOAP is a 1.1 Request. If you’re using SOAP 1.2, then the following request can be used as a start point:

SOAP 1.2 Request

The aforementioned example requests, specifically the SOAP 1.1 body and header, are implemented in the example code.

One thing to note is that GoDaddy API credentials from the most recent API release is needed to authenticate the API request.

In the example code, be sure to replace the X’s in the line of ‘Authorization: sso-key XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX’ with the proper API credentials.

Once the API credentials are created, the API can be authenticated and request successfully made using the SOAP API WSDL url (see example code to obtain url).

Being well on our way to successfully making a SOAP request, the next thing to prepare for is the SOAP response and how to parse it — see the examples below:

SOAP 1.1 Response

SOAP 1.2 Response

The focal point of the SOAP response is the GetAuctionListByAuctionType2Result element, which contains a string of auction data (see example code below).

<Auction ID=”327387240″ Name=”ROCKETFLY.NET” Traffic=”3″ BidCount=”0″ Price=”$5 USD” ValuationPrice=”$418 USD” TimeLeft=”11H 7M ” RowID=”1″/>

For each domain returned, the aforementioned Auction element is return for each matching domain and contains the following attributes:

• ID – auction ID
• Name – the matching domain name
• Traffic – supposed the number of times a domain is viewed
• BidCount – the number of bids
• Price – the current price of domain in auction
• ValuationPrice – the GoDaddy GoValue or Estimated value of domain
• TimeLeft – time remaining in auction
• RowID – the record id or occurrence id of the domain

Again, not diving deep into the details, but to correctly parse the SOAP response, you’ll need to use the following PHP built-in functions: str_ireplace, htmlspecialchars, simplexml_load_string, json_encode, and json_decode.

In short, each aforementioned function helps to clean and transform the SOAP response into XML and into a workable PHP array to access the Auction element attribute data contain specific domain data.

If you load the file to a web server and view it via a web browser, then you should see a list of domain names likely containing the ‘domain’ keyword or keyword you set, if any domains are available for the defined keyword.

And that’s the tutorial folks!

Closing Thoughts

Of course, that’s not really the tutorial in its entirety. That’s just all we have time for today.

This tutorial could be extended in a number of ways. For example, one of the ways to extend this tutorial is adding the ability to parse and then store data in a database for analytics purposes — if you’re all about data-driven domain investing.

Now it’s worth mentioning that searching for domains can be easily completed using GoDaddy’s Saved Search functionality, including a daily email of your saved searches right to your inbox.

However, this type of search is only a snapshot for the time in which it is taken, whereas the API can be automated to run on the minute, hour, day, week, etc — year-round if you will.

Emails are forever locked in your inbox until you take action, unlike the exponential flexibility of scripting and automating against the API, which could operate with and without us — sleeping or awake, busy or bored.

If you have questions or comments about this tutorial, chime in below in the comments section.

Thanks and that’s all for now!

[ DOWNLOAD EXAMPLE SCRIPT ]

Post link: How to Search GoDaddy Domain Auctions using the “old” API

© DomainNameWire.com 2020. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. 3 Tips to Discover Expired Domains Available at Hand-Registration Fee
2. Sedo and Pool Explain Employee Policies for Bidding
3. EDR: A look at 150 expired domain name auctions from the past week

Kassey Lee investigates Chinese end users for these recent four-letter domain purchases.

Here are some 4-letter domains sold in May, viewed from the angle of finding end users in China for domain upgrades. Remember that I always check both .cn and .com.cn as both are popular in corporate China.

TTMJ.com sold for $7,000. TTMJ.com.cn is for sale and its owner has suggested the following Chinese meanings which I do like: Tian Tian Mei Ju (天天美剧=good theatrical work in play, opera, TV series, etc every day), Tian Tian Mei Ju (天天美居=good residence every day), and Tian Tian Ma Jiang (天天麻将=Majong every day). The domain can be used in a variety of business fields.

KRKR.com sold for $2,288. KRKR.cn seems to be a B2B business portal. The site claims to have daily visits by tens of thousands of companies to find business partners. Unfortunately, the domain does not match the site title (中国雾机网=Zhong Guo Wu Ji Wang). ZGWJ.com would be a better upgrade possibility.

MJCP.com sold for $1,712. It already has a sale page with a BIN price 58,880 yuan (about $8,300). The domain may have many Chinese meanings, such as Mei Jin Chao Piao (美金钞票=US bills), Mai Jin Che Piao (买进车票=buy bus/train ticket), and Meng Jing Cai Piao (梦境彩票=dreamland lottery ticket).

DXZB.com sold for $1,072. DXZB.cn is a site that provides funding to startups. The company name is CDX Partners so the domain does not match the brand. Because of this , an upgrade to DXZB.com is not very likely. CDX.com would be a better upgrade possibility.

SFST.com sold for $1,200. SFST.com.cn may be a video app or gaming platform but I could not see details of the home page likely due to geo-blocking.

WYFC.com sold for $1,200. WYFC.com.cn is a real estate legal site but the domain only partially matches the site title, where FC stands for Fang Chan (房产=real estate). Because of this, an upgrade to WYFC.com is not very likely. FCLS.com would be a better upgrade possibility.

CPJD.com sold for $1,055. CPJD .com.cn may be a lottery site but the domain only partially matches the site title, where CP stands for Cai Piao (彩票=lottery ticket).

Post link: Reviewing recent 4-letter domain sales

© DomainNameWire.com 2020. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. Reviewing 4-letter domains sold in April
2. Reviewing 4-character domains sold in April
3. This four letter domain sold for a high price

A pet food company, an artificial intelligence company, and a water filtration company bought domain names.

There were many good end user sales at Sedo this past week, including the Expert.ai sale I wrote about on Tuesday.

Here’s a list of some of the end user domain name sales from the past week. You can review previous end user sales lists here.

Expert.ai €95,000 (about $108,000) – Expert System SpA bought this domain. It uses the domain ExpertSystem.com.

JBCapital.com €15,000 – JB Capital Markets is an investment firm focused on international institutional investors and investment opportunities within Spanish markets. It forwards the domain to JBCM.com.

VAFO.com $13,500 – VAFO PRAHA is a privately-owned family company in the Czech Republic that produces and distributes premium pet food.

JetLuxe.com $12,500 – JetLuxe is a private jet charter company.

Nomadism.com $12,499 – The domain name forwards to design studio Mad/Studio. The domain might be for a client.

SplinterWorks.com $7,000 – Splinter Works Ltd A UK design company that produces sculpture-like pool slides, freestanding bathtubs that look like hammocks, and more. It currently uses Splinterworks.co.uk for its website.

HearingAidClinics.com $5,000 – This domain is used as a lead-gen site to connect users to hearing care providers in their area.

BHI.co $5,000 – Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss, LLC, is an investment firm in Dallas that is focused on institutional investors, mutual funds, etc. It currently uses BarrowHanley.com as its website.

Moodly.com $5,000 – Bosstab makes tablet kiosk stands and Point of Sale equipment for businesses. Moodly sounds like a good brand for one of those kiosks that asks how happy you are with the service.

Kahraba.com $4,900 – El Sewedy Industries Group bought this domain. It is an electrical manufacturing company based in Cairo, Egypt. Kahraba means Electrified in Arabic.

TalentCare.com $4,500 – Forwards to talentcare2020.wpengine.com, a site in development for a job services and recruiting firm.

Aquamor.com $4,500 – TST Water has changed its name to Aquamor. It provides water purification products and services.

Properly.net $3,500 – 3MD Solutions, LLC, a transportation and fleet management company in Illinois. I’m not sure what they will use the domain for.

ProESports.com $3,499 – Pro Esports Gaming is an online gaming site.

SanLuisPotosi.com $3,300 – COMMET, an international supplier of a wide range of non ferrous, precious and minor metals, metal residues, ores and concentrates, bought the domain. It is based in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

TheArt.Net $2,700 – This is interesting. It forwards to an Instagram page selling original artworks, sculptures and prints under the name The Arts Net, Inc.

Zener.nl €2,640 – Zener provides installation and maintenance services for telecommunications and renewable energies.

DasLab .de €2,500 – This website will be used for Covid-19 testing. Das means ‘the’ in German.

SEOBase.com $2,000 – This domain was purchased by Apilayer GmbH, a German software company that develops a suite of APIs & cloud-based SaaS applications.

ThreeHouse.com $2,000 – This website is still in development with a logo, an “Opening soon” message and “Hotel Apartment Home”.

Post link: 20 end user domain name sales up to $108,000

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Related posts:

1. Two weeks of end user domain sales at Sedo
2. These end users just bought domain names
3. Kasperksy buys Unhackable.com (and other end user domain name sales)

[Editor’s note: The world has entered into a recession for the first time since the great recession. The causes are very different, but one thing is certain: uncertainty. In this post, Bala GR, Head of Business Intelligence at Radix, evaluates what happened to domains during the last recession and what might happen this time.]

A lot has already been spoken about the strange turn of events that have kept the global economy on the hook this year. Sure, we expected a recession; it was a long time due. What we didn’t expect was a pandemic and a worldwide self-quarantine for months on end. A few years from now, we will be looking back at 2020 with awe and absurdity in equal measure.

Talking of looking back, this year opens up the perfect opportunity to examine the 2008 recession. After all, that’s our only benchmark in these uncertain times. While a decade has since passed, there are trends that could help us make a fair prediction of what lies ahead of us this time around.

Making sense of the past

For the new domains industry, this is the first-ever experience of an economic downturn. As far as we and our new-domains-registry friends are concerned, looking at the legacy domain trends immediately before and after 2008 can be quite suggestive at this point.

So, that’s exactly what we did. We looked at whatever relevant data we could find for years before and after 2008. Was it useful? To a large extent, yes.

 

Assumptions and Data Details:

• Legacy gTLDs include .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz
  • New Registration data for .COM & .NET in ICANN Reports start from April 2007, hence data from 2003-2006 is estimated based on Blended Retention Ratios and Q1 2007 is based on Quarterly Ratios
  • New Registration data for .ORG & .BIZ in ICANN Reports start from January 2007, hence data from 2003-2006 is estimated based on Blended Retention RatiosAll data taken from ICANN Monthly Registry Reports (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registry-reports)

As detectable in the table above, from 2004 up to 2008, the DUMs were increasing by at least 20% YoY. However, in 2008, the YoY growth slowed down to 12%~, and further down to 6%~ YoY in 2009.

Assumptions and Data Details:

• Numbers mentioned above are for .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz domains
• All Data taken from ICANN Monthly Registry Reports (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registry-reports)
• 2nd and Subsequent Retention rate assumed at 85%

And as can be seen here as well, the first year renewals dipped to 45% in 2009, from a much higher average of ~58% in the previous years. This could be attributed to the overall market sentiment during that period, the quality of the names, and the general pressure on businesses.

What does it mean for us? Three words: Proceed with caution

Based on publicly available data, the domain industry, on the whole, has reported a surge in domain name registrations since February 2020. Legacy gTLDs’ new registrations have seen a 5%~ jump in March 2020 and 10%~ jump in April 2020 when compared to the average monthly registrations for 2019. (Refer to table below)

This is great news for our industry. In fact, we have seen a rise of 15-20% in registration volumes at Radix too. This is not limited to standard domain registrations; we saw a 22% increase in premium domain registrations as well and a 15% increase in premium domain revenue in March-May vs the previous 6 months.

While .online saw a 45% increase in premium registrations and a 38% increase in revenue, .store saw a 70% increase in premium registrations and a 93% increase in revenue. This is clearly an indication of the urgency across industries to go online with meaningful, brandable names.

It’s too early to celebrate, though. While we expect these registrations to be backed by meaningful usage, we have to take into consideration that this surge could be a result of knee-jerk, reactive reasons. So, obviously, we ought to be cautious when predicting the renewal rates for the next year.

However… and it’s a big however

We cannot ignore the fact that times are vastly different now when compared to 2008. The society is more dependent on the Internet today than ever before. And if that wasn’t enough, the pandemic has further accelerated the transition from offline to online for businesses across the board.

This is a unique situation for our industry. As more and more businesses, institutions, and even next-door services are going online and speedily evolving their technology usage, our industry stands to play a crucial role in this mix.

So, our guess is as good as yours when it comes to expecting the future. At Radix, we live and breathe data! And yet, at an interesting juncture like this, there isn’t any data that we can rely on 100%. For what it’s worth, we have looked at the past. As for the future, it seems to be hanging on that big “however” we spoke of above.

Post link: 2008 vs 2020: Analyzing domains in a global recession

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Related posts:

1. A recession is coming