Kevin Ohashi - Entrepreneur I Love Learning New Things.

NameSilo CEO explains the background of the fast-growing registrar.

NameSilo seems to have come out of nowhere.

The domain name registrar doubled its domains under management in just one year. It is usually among the top ten registrars each month in terms of new .com registrations.

So where did the registrar come from and how has it grown so quickly? I asked CEO Kristaps Ronka some questions to find out the story.

DNW: What’s the history of NameSilo? Who created it and when?

NameSilo was created by a trio of entrepreneurs in Phoenix Arizona who started the business in 2010. Through their hard work and dedication, they built the platform on their own from scratch and got accredited with ICANN. Having set the foundation and having looked at the domain name registrar landscape, they saw their opportunity in building a business focused on providing the lowest-cost domains, so as to deliver the maximum value possible for customers. Over the next couple of years, the platform grew, both in domain count and functionality. Not only did the team build out value-added services such as domain parking, e-mail forwarding as well as account security features like domain defender and 2-factor authentication, but also started to expand beyond solely domain name registration by building out a low-cost Marketplace to allow customers to buy and sell NameSilo domains.

It took some time for the business to hit its stride and for word of mouth to spread across the industry but by August of 2017, NameSilo joined the top 1% of ICANN accredited domain registrars with over 1 million active domains under management. And since then, the growth has only amplified – today, NameSilo is now one of the fastest growing domain name registrars in the world with over 2.5M active domains under management.

DNW: What is Brisio Innovations and when did it come into the picture?

Brisio Innovations (now NameSilo Technologies) is an investment issuer and a Canadian public company (CSE:URL). We purchased NameSilo through Brisio. NameSilo was the first deal of its kind for Brisio where, instead of investing in the company, we fully acquired the entity. The business opportunity and potential synergy became apparent between the team members and the deal was structured to provide ample resources, both financial and human capital, for NameSilo to continue the current growth trajectory. The acquisition was completed in August 2018 and the team has been rolling since.

DNW: Who is NameSilo’s target customer?

NameSilo’s target customer is anyone seeking low-cost domain name registration services without compromising on quality or support. Generally, the user will be savvy about domain names and prefers the DIY approach. They would have an extensive domain name portfolio, making the cost savings gained through us that much more substantial. An exemplification of this target customer would be someone or a Small/Medium Business providing hosting services – they use us for their domain name registrations and focus their time on actually building the hosting service and customer base.

DNW: The domain registrar business is cutthroat. What differentiates NameSilo?

We have built our business on providing the lowest everyday pricing while not compromising on the quality of our platform, features or support. This customer-first approach has enabled us to achieve the success we’ve managed thus far, so we don’t want to sway too far from it. We have had exceptional growth through word of mouth. We continue to strive for improvements in all our products and services on a daily basis. Our feeling is that as long as we’re delivering on these fundamental offerings, success and growth will follow.

DNW: Are you part of Sedo MLS or Afternic DLS?

Yes, we are a part of SEDO MLS & Afternic DLS to provide additional avenues for our customers to buy and sell domain names.

DNW: Are the original founders still with the company? Who leads it now?

The founders are now in an advisory role.

My background is the following: I co-founded a company called AdParlor in 2008. We were a social media advertising company offering a third cost model – cost per acquisition on Facebook. We sold in 2011 to a company called AdKnowledge out of Kansas City. I am an entrepreneur, developer, advisor.

Our CMO, Endrit Muca, joined NameSilo from AdParlor shortly after we took over the business. Our new COO is Arthur Poghosian and our new CTO is Eugene Melnichenko. Both have joined us from NamePal.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. Investment firm to acquire domain name registrar NameSilo
2. NameSilo doubles in size in just one year, crosses 2 million domains
3. NameSilo hits $20 million in bookings for 2018

New TLD company files for three trademarks on existing TLDs; readies two more namespaces.

XYZ.com is launching .Monster in sunrise this month.

New top level domain name company XYZ.com LLC filed three trademark applications last week that match the slogans it uses to market three top level domain names.

The applications are for:

• Express your passion  (.theatre)
• Advancing online security  (.security)
• Claim your space  (.storage)

XYZ.com has 10 registered trademarks.

The company is getting ready to launch/relaunch two top level domain names this year: .Monster and .Baby. It acquired .Monster from jobs company Monster Worldwide and will launch it in sunrise this month. It acquired .baby from Johnson & Johnson.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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1. XYZ.com wins .college top level domain auction
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Follow these two tips to avoid having the same thing happen to you.

I almost lost a good domain name due to expiration this week. I learned some lessons, so I’m recounting what happened to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.

I won the domain name in a NameJet auction nearly a year ago and the domain was at Register.com. It’s a fairly good domain name; I had two different inquiries on the domain last year including one from a large company.

Yesterday I received a DomainTools registrant alert that showed that the domain changed from my company name to Perfect Privacy, LLC. That’s the proxy service for Web.com registrars Register.com and Network Solutions.

Concerned, I went to my Register.com account and saw that the domain expired three days ago.

I do not recall receiving any of the ICANN-mandated notices from Register.com about my domain expiring. This doesn’t mean they didn’t send them. Most email from Register.com lands in my spam box because they send so much promotional email–one per day!

These promotional emails often start with “Urgent” or “Alert” even when it’s not important. It’s just a sales pitch for search engine optimization. So it’s easy to overlook them.

Regardless of whether they sent the notices or not, here are two tips to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.

1. Use an alert service like DomainTools or DomainIQ to get notifications when your Whois changes. Unfortunately, GDPR means your info isn’t always in Whois, but you can also track domain status changes that will alert you that your domain has expired.

2. Transfer domains you win in expired domain auctions to your main registrar on a regular schedule. For example, set up a once-a-quarter reminder on your calendar to transfer domains.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Hear from 16 people who were at NamesCon Global.

NamesCon Global 2019 is in the books, and this week we’ll catch up with 16 people who attended NamesCon. After discussing some of the week’s news you’ll hear from:

Matt Barie, Freelancer.com
Marcus Glaad, DotKeeper
Margot Bushnaq, BrandBucket
Darpan Munjal, SquadHelp
Page Howe, domain investor
Deanna Camacho, GoDaddy
Stevan Lieberman, Escrow.Domains
Peter Askew (whose latest venture is BirthdayParties.com)
Ray King, Top Level Design
Kate Buckley, Buckley Media
Andrew Rosener, Media Options
Ryan McKegney, DomainAgents
Jeff Sass, Names.club
Burkay Yapağcıoğlu, Hosting Talk
Christa Taylor, MMX
Jim Schrand, Dominion Domains

Enjoy the show!

This week’s sponsor: DNAcademy. Use code DNW to save $50.

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

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Google’s registrar now the ninth biggest for .com domain names.

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers October 2018.

As forecasted, Google Domains has surpassed GMO to become the 9th largest registrar for .com domains. As of the end of October it had over 2 million .com domains under management.

Starting this month I’m combining United Internet’s main registrars to include more than just 1&1.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations.

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 893,103 (868,031 in September)
2. Alibaba (HiChina) 204,213 (133,156)
3. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 183,542 (174,114)
4. NameCheap Inc. 139,033 (139,581)
5. Xin Net Technology Corporation 135,590 (170,284)
6. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 130,915 (143,179)
7. Web.com++ 105,815 (99,859)
8. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 92,312 (85,550)
9. United Internet^ 71,257
10. NameSilo 68,758 (88,409)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations as of the end of October 2018.

1. GoDaddy* 49,222,603 (49,079,269 in September)
2. Tucows** 12,709,575 (12,751,782)
3. Endurance+ 7,240,990 (7,335,322)
4. Web.com++ 6,730,384 (6,722,165)
5. Alibaba 5,972,559 (5,852,659)
6. United Internet^ 5,675,949 (3,688,497)
7. Namecheap 4,452,551 (4,405,568)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 2,639,761 (2,522,185)
9. Google 2,005,816 (1,953,943)
10. GMO 1,975,188 (1,979,668)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy and Wild West Domains
** Includes Tucows and Enom
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions and Register.com
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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3. .Com Winners & Losers

Organizers issue report summarizing keynotes.

If you missed last week’s NamesCon conference in Las Vegas, the conference organizers have put together a great summary of most of the events on the keynote .Global stage. It’s called the NamesCon 2019 Trend Report.

The report has photos and summaries of:

• What’s Next for NamesCon Global with Soeren von Varchmin, Braden Pollock, Bill Sweetman, Andrew Rosener
• Building a Safer Internet and Fighting Abuse, Pinky Brand
• Learn How to Price and Sell Your Portfolio, Haseeb Tariq
• Data Rules: Rolf Larsen, Bhavin Turakhia, Richard Merdinger, Akram Atallah
• Proven gTLD Strategies For Global Reach: Rolf Larsen
• The More Language Changes: Erin McKean

Even if you were in Vegas it’s unlikely you caught all of the keynotes, so this report is a great way to recap what you might have missed.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Website builder makes last-minute ad buy for Sunday’s Super Bowl LIII.

Website builder and domain name company Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) will have a commercial in this year’s Super Bowl, making it five Super Bowls in a row for the company. It was a last minute ad buy so it is repurposing a previous ad with supermodel Karlie Kloss.

The Wix Super Bowl commercial will promote Wix’s SEO Wiz and Pro Gallery tools.

Both Squarespace and GoDaddy, which have advertised in previous Super Bowls, will not have commercials in Super Bowl LIII.

Here’s the Wix ad:

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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A video game platform, a forex broker, and co-working company bought domain names last week.

This week the NamesCon live domain name auction brought in $2.3 million in sales. And while there were certainly some end users raising paddles, most of those sales were to domain investors. On the end user front, I uncovered 10 sales at Sedo and one that Greg Ricks sold on his site PerfectName.

Here are the end user domain sales. You can view previous lists like this here.

Olsen.com $51,511 – GLC Softwares builds a number of software products. Its CEO also runs Mastermind.com…and his middle name is Olsen. (This sale was on PerfectName.com.)

Play.de €30,000 – The nameservers for the domain changed to online-casino.de, although the original online games site of the previous owner is still resolving.

PaulValentine.com €24,000 – Jeweler Paul Valentine, which uses the domain name paul-valentine.com.

IAmYours.com $9,000 – The domain forwards to IAm-Yours.de – so this is an upgrade for this German clothing brand.

MoonCast.com $5,000 – It’s hard to say who bought the domain, but the site has a logo of a moon. Perhaps a podcasting service?

Pro.Group €3,000 – Forwards to FXPro.com, self-proclaimed “World’s #1 Online Forex (FX) broker”.

CrewWallet.com $2,999 – This domain was purchased by Apollo Ship Chandlers, Inc. which provides cruise ship catering services.

DrDerm.com $2,999 – This domain was purchased by the Utah Valley Dermatology group that currently uses UVDerm.com for its website.

CreditCardGenerator(.)com $2,600 – I’ve read the home page a couple of times. As best I can tell, it’s selling peoples’ credit card numbers.

FortNetworks.com $2,500 – Fort Network is a Spanish internet/phone/TV provider.

WorkLodge.com $2,499 – A co-working space that has several locations in Texas and Florida.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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NamesCon auction tops $2 million and extended auction closes in two weeks.

This week’s NamesCon domain name auction in Las Vegas grossed $2.3 million in sales.

Five domain names sold for six figures:

OL.com $900,000
Leads.com $435,000
DomainNames.com $370,000
DJs.com $130,000
Stop.com $110,000

The auction went much faster than previous ones as the auctioneer and organizer Monte Cahn did a good job moving the bids and hammer.

An extended online auction is taking place on NameJet and will close on February 13. Last year Great.com sold for $1.2 million in the extended auction, so the $2.3 million total is sure to rise.

Here’s a full list of sales from the live auction:

DOMAINPRICESALE TYPE ol.com900000Floor leads.com435000Phone domainnames.com370000Floor djs.com130000Floor stop.com110000Floor mywebsite.com70000Pre-Auction mez.com29000Floor chatsites.com21000Pre-Auction bg.net20000Floor xga.com20000Floor traceroute.com14300Internet abdul.com13000Floor np.net13000Floor cannabiscompany.com12000Floor repossession.com11000Internet smartdrugs.com9500Floor fk.org9000Internet coordination.com8000Floor solvent.com7600Floor insurance.us7000Internet qv.net7000Floor 70s.com6000Floor shoerack.com6000Floor dietsupplements.com5500Floor ibar.com5500Floor xm.co4500Floor pathological.com4200Internet dieticians.com4000Floor dingy.com4000Internet glucose.org4000Floor illc.com4000Floor numerals.com4000Floor startupfunding.com4000Floor safevape.com3600Floor multiplexer.com3500Floor start-up.com3500Floor corporatebrand.com3200Floor lotus.net3100Floor thebes.com3000Floor localapp.com2600Floor abomination.com2300Internet vap.net2100Floor poov.com1900Floor purged.com1800Floor tms.net1800Internet byuc.com1600Floor antiqueappraisals.com1500Floor coat.net1500Floor rfc.net1460Internet flexible.org1300Floor carpetflooring.com1200Floor chelsy.com1200Floor medschools.com1200Internet mpm.net1200Floor ncb.net1200Floor salvager.com1200Floor surgical.center1200Floor enfl.com1100Floor makingnoise.com1100Floor sharp.net1100Floor byga.com1000Floor city.directory1000Floor nutritionalproducts.com1000Floor bathroomsink.com900Floor billiardgames.com900Floor debtprograms.com900Floor rkn.net900Floor welcomegift.com900Floor bellybuttonrings.com800Floor internetmarketingservices.com800Floor readinglessons.com800Floor pfkc.com700Floor tourism.global700Floor bab.org600Floor qt.club600Internet vok.net600Floor vti.net600Internet bzl.net500Internet een.org500Floor escort.io500Internet lcsm.com500Floor prostitute.org500Floor vab.net500Internet cheapflights.global400Floor equation.org400Floor lasvegas.events400Floor solarbackpack.com400Floor sportswear.co400Floor vm.club400Floor xaf.net400Floor craft.info310Internet

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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2. NamesCon auction was a coming out party for new TLDs
3. NamesCon live domain auction results and extended auction info

Annual General Meeting will be in the domain capital of the world in 2021.

ICANN will hold its 2021 Annual General Meeting in Seattle.

ICANN has officially selected Seattle for its 2021 Annual General Meeting. The meeting will take place October 23-28, 2021 at the Hyatt Regency Seattle.

Seattle is home to more domain name companies than any other city. It’s the home of Donuts, Amazon.com, DomainTools, Epik and Top Level Spectrum. It also has Enom (Tucows), Google Domains and GoDaddy. DNAcademy is based there and it will soon be the new headquarters for Domain Name Wire, too.

Here’s the lineup of ICANN meetings between now and then:

ICANN65 (Policy) June 2019 Marrakech
ICANN66 (Annual General) November 2019 Montreal
ICANN67 (Community Forum/Spring Break) March 2020 Cancun
ICANN68 (Policy) June 2020 Kuala Lumpur
ICANN69 (Annual General) October 2020 Hamburg
ICANN70 (Community Forum) March 2021 TBD
ICANN 71 (Policy) June 2021 TBD

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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3. What the new RAA means for YOU, the domain registrant

Just about everything above-the-fold is ads.

For all of Google’s talk about how website owners need to provide good content above the fold, not just ads, Google.com has become a bunch of ads. Today I was searching for “domain name” (no quotes) and this is what I saw above the fold:

There are four ads on top. The only organic content is from Wikipedia. It’s no wonder that registrars (including Google itself) are paying to advertise for the term.

As for rankings, here’s what I currently see on the first page of results (I was not logged in to Google when searching):

1. Name.com
2. Domain.com
3. Wikipedia
4. Network Solutions
5. Google Domains
6. BlueHost
7. Verisign
8. Namecheap
9. GoDaddy

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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NamesCon concludes its run in Las Vegas.

.Com pricing panel at NamesCon. Photo by Ron Jackson.

NamesCon 2019 finishes today in Las Vegas with expert roundtables. This was the sixth and final installment of the conference at The Tropicana in Las Vegas. Next year the conference moves to Austin.

If there’s one thing for sure, it’s that no one will miss the Tropicana. It’s not exactly the crown jewel of Las Vegas.

As for this year’s conference, I feel like the enthusiasm level was up a bit from last year. Lots of optimism. We’ll see how that plays out in the year ahead.

On Tuesday I participated in two panels. In the first, I interviewed Blake Janover of Home.loans and Mike Kugler of Vacation.rentals about their experiences with their domains after paying $500k for them. While some of the questions were about new top level domains, this was also a chance to talk to two end-user buyers. They aren’t domain investors; they bought domains because they want to capitalize on the value of good domains.

The second panel was about .com price increases. Derek Newman did a great job moderating the panel, including asking questions back to people in the audience to add value to the panel. Elliot Noss has such a great historical perspective on .com and added a lot. Zak Muscovitch represented the Internet Commerce Association and domain owners’ interests. I talked a bit about the adversarial relationship that has popped up in the past months between Verisign and domain investors, including some of its biggest registrar customers. While Verisign has a duty to its shareholders to make as much as it can from .com, its sudden about-face on domain investors after spending 10+ years courting them and creating tools to help them buy more domains is startling. By the way, Verisign didn’t sponsor NamesCon this year after doing so in the past.

I interviewed lots of people at the conference for Monday’s podcast, so stay tuned for that.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Come to my two sessions today at NamesCon.

The third day of the NamesCon conference in Las Vegas is about to begin. I’m on two panels today that I invite you to attend.

At 11 am I will chat with Blake Janover of Home.loans and Mike Kugler of Vacation.rentals about their $500k new top level domain purchases. We’ll talk about what they’ve seen with SEO, how their customers have responded to the domains and more.

At 1 pm I will take part it what will surely be a lively discussion about how much Verisign gets to charge for .com domain names. Derek Newman will moderate the session that also includes Elliot Noss of Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) and Zak Muscovitch of Internet Commerce Association.

I look forward to seeing everyone today.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Reports show domains as an investment and the latest trends.

Escrow.com (ASX:FLN) released two reports this morning with data on the domain name market.

The first is a comparison between domain name returns and returns of other asset types such as stocks, real estate and bitcoin. It calculates returns based on domain types, such as two number, three letter, etc. It shows that overall returns aren’t spectacular but that the asset class is more stable than some others. One dataset I’d love to see is a rate of return of domains that have been transacted more than once on Escrow.com.

The second report is the company’s inaugural Domain Investment Index giving data for Q4 2018. Here’s a high-level look:

Total domain transaction volume on Escrow.com

As you can see, transaction amounts have slipped for a couple of quarters but were up in Q4 2018 compared to Q4 2017.

The report also breaks down median prices of domains by length over time. There’s also a chart showing dollar volume by country.

You can review both reports here (pdf).

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Paul Nicks delivering his keynote at NamesCon.

This is a live blog of Paul Nick’s keynote at NamesCon this morning.

Paul Nicks shared some valuable data about domain investing.

YoY sales of aftermarket domains from third party inventory were up 41% on 29% increase in inquiries.

30% growth in conversion rate the day they changed the presentation of domains in the purchase path. They added valuations, valuation reasons, video and a bigger presentation.

Sales were up 87% in Latin America, 60% in Asia, 56% in EMEA, 47% USA. (These numbers are all higher than the 41% number; keep in mind that they don’t have location data on all sales, but I will check with Paul to check this discrepancy.)

All regions had average sales prices of $1,822 or more. Average sale price is fairly consistent across regions.

Nicks said there are lots of types of investors at GoDaddy:

1. High volume investors doing closeouts, reg fee and selling on average $300-$500
2. High value investors buying $2,000+ and selling $20k+
3. “Sweet spot” investors buying $30-$60 and selling average $2,000-$5,000.

Nicks advises against #1 and #2 for new people entering the market. He thinks the third option is best.

Domains with 5-14 characters have higher demand and value. 80% of GoDaddy’s sales fall within 5-14 characters.

92% of sales are .com, followed by 2.6% for .org, 1.5% .net and 1.4% .co. Avg. selling price of $2,268 for .com. .Com and .Org number of sales were up YoY; .net and .co were down.

Top 6 new gTLDs sold on GoDaddy’s aftermarket (in order): .app, .xyz, .club, .life, .shop, .online. .XYZ average sales price was the lowest of these six at $924, .online highest at $2,452. Keep in mind that none of these are among top 10 sellers.

Regarding GoDaddy’s automated appraisal tool, 59% of sales on Afternic’s network were within $1,000 of appraisal price and 89% within $2,000. Nick says adding valuations is helping sell more aftermarket domains.

Half of all leads of GoDaddy’s own portfolio come from landers, not registrar searches.

GoDaddy recently started testing GoDaddy-branded landers. This change alone increased conversion 10%. They also internationalize their for sale landers with local phone numbers.

Tested with a customer changing from PPC page to for sale page, sales average per month went from $50k to $150k within a month. Has changed month to month but still much higher overall revenue than PPC lander. Clarification: this was from a PPC only with no for sale message to a for sale only.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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2. GoDaddy paid $50 million for two latest domain portfolio acquisitions
3. GoDaddy “for sale” tweak leads to 41% more aftermarket sales revenue

In a keynote at NamesCon this morning, Radix founder Bhavin Turakhia ran through some of the metrics that Radix considers when marketing its top level domain names.

One takeaway is that China isn’t all it’s cracked up to be for new top level domain names. It’s good for boosting registration numbers but longtime revenue is limited.

Radix calculated registrations in 2017 and calculated that China accounted for 44% of new registrations but only 27% of renewals and just 9% of renewal revenue. Here’s a slide showing renewal estimates:

Radix’s domains are in blue and you can see the renewal rates are substantially higher outside of China. This probably has a lot to do with how domains are priced in China vs. elsewhere.

Here’s another interesting comparison:

It’s interesting to see renewal share vs. initial registrations. Again, I think this has to do with how the companies source their initial registrations and their pricing.

Turakhia says Radix uses first year renewals as its metric, not initial registrations. Whenever it undertakes a marketing campaign it runs an analysis to show that it will be profitable. It might not be profitable the first year but over time it needs to see a path to profitability.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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2. Radix delays new TLD launches until tomorrow
3. Froyo and sandwiches starting conversations about new TLDs at SXSW

Learn about the HSTS preload list and how to add your domain (or entire TLD) to it.

This week Ben McIlwain of Google talks about SSL on domain names, particularly the HSTS preload list. Learn about the benefits of adding a domain name to this list and how an entire top level domain can be added.

Also: Prince settles, Scratch.org lawsuit, NamesCon, WordPress.com deal and Vegas, Baby!

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

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. All about SSL – DNW Podcast #101
2. Google adds more of its top level domains to HSTS preload list
3. Sandeep Ramchandani, CEO of Radix – DNW Podcast #183

Three great keynotes to attend today.

NamesCon is entering its second day today at the Tropicana in Las Vegas.

40% of attendees this year are first-timers, a surprisingly high number that might suggest a renewed interest in the domain business.

There are several noteworthy keynotes to check out today.

At 10 am, billionaire Bhavin Turakhia will take to the stage. Along with his brother, Bhavin founded Directi, Radix and Media.net.

GoDaddy VP and GM Paul Nicks presents at 11 am. He will give a data-driven presentation on how to invest in domain names.

I’m also interested in domain broker Kate Buckley’s “Storytelling in Sales” keynote at 1 pm.

The full agenda is here.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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2. Women in Domaining comes to NamesCon
3. Women in Domaining returns at NamesCon

Pull out your cowboy boots and get ready for lots of BBQ.

Austin, Texas will be home to NamesCon in 2020.

NamesCon is heading to the Lone Star State for its 2020 show.

Soeren von Varchmin, CEO of NamesCon/CloudFest, announced the news in the opening session at NamesCon in Las Vegas today.

The dates haven’t been selected and NamesCon is seeking input on the time of year. It is considering either January or early September. Having lived in Austin for over 20 years, I can say that January is hit or miss for weather and early September is still very hot.

NamesCon is considering having multiple walkable venues as part of the event. With companies like GoDaddy, WPEngine and Google downtown, it would be interesting to have some events at satellite corporate venues. (There also might be a Uniregistry office in Austin by that time.)

I find it a bit ironic that NamesCon is coming to Austin right after I move from the city, but I look forward to coming back to visit.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. Water Night at NamesCon is open for registration
2. Women in Domaining comes to NamesCon
3. Women in Domaining returns at NamesCon

Video promotes .Online domains vs. longer domains in .com.

Radix has launched a marketing campaign for .Online using the slogan “Business is tough. Make your domain name easy with .ONLINE.”.

It released a video in conjunction with the campaign, and I think it’s rather clever. A woman is watching TV commercials and tries to visit the advertisers’ websites. But they have long, hyphenated .com domain names and she can’t type them in before the commercials end. The final commercial is a company using .online, and she is able to quickly type it in.

It made me chuckle, and it’s Friday, so I’m embedding it here.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. .Online is just the beginning of new TLD partnership announcements
2. Get .online this week…
3. Radix publishes second time renewal data for some TLDs