I’ve written several times about various domain name email spam (scams) out there. There is one in particular, now, that seems to be very persistent with their sending of emails. The Subject of the email that you receive is usually “DomainName.com Notification” where “DomainName.com” is the name of a domain name that you own. The scam is the essentially the same–they’re trying to get you to worry that you have not paid for “search engine optimization submission expiration of your domain”. [Read more…]

As I previously reported, Apple is registering nonsense domain names and then deleting them after three years. This latest round of dropped and deleted domain names involves 21 domain names. [Read more…]

In this mobile-first world that we’re in, emojis like 😉 and 🙂 are becoming increasingly popular. Google’s search results do, in fact, support emoji characters. Especially in domain names. And, since we’re all using our mobile phones now, and have emoji keyboards built into our phones, it only make sense to consider an emoji domain. [Read more…]

Are you in marketing, like I am? Do you have a marketing-related blog and want the ultimate marketing blog web address? Well, here is your chance. The dot blog domain name extension, .BLOG, is launching on November 21, 2016. If you want to purchase (pre-register) www.marketing.blog for your marketing blog, then you can do so for a mere $139,999.99 over at GoDaddy: [Read more…]

If you’re wanting to transfer a domain name away from the Network Solutions domain name registrar, then their response is typically delayed. They will email you the domain name transfer code 3 days after you request it. [Read more…]

It’s been a long time coming. Dot Brand, the part of the New TLD domain name endings, are now officially here, I’d like to declare. While we have already had several Dot Brands use their branded TLDs for websites and microsites, it’s now that Google has launched their Keyword blog that I can say that Dot Brand is officially launched. [Read more…]

One of the main arguments that I keep being presented with by those who don’t like the New gTLD domain endings is this: New gTLD domain name owners lose traffic to .COM domain names. For example, if I own www.billhartzer.horse, then I will lose traffic to someone mistyping my domain name, and adding .COM to the end like this: billhartzer.horse.com. Many who are not fans of the New gTLD domain extensions (endings) claim that you should NOT buy a New gTLD domain name because you’ll lose traffic to .COM. [Read more…]

A few years ago, back in 2014, I set out on a personal quest to try to answer a question that I had: Will using a keyword rich New gTLD domain name for your website help online marketing efforts? I have to say that so far (as far as I know), I’m the only one out there who have used real world data in an attempt to answer this question. While there certainly have been skeptics and those who question the results, I knew going into this that there would people who will try to poke holes in everything I did. [Read more…]

Backordering a domain name is going to start costing more money starting soon. Both Snapnames and Namejet have announced that the price of backordering a domain name is going to increase from the base of $69 to $79. While you won’t pay the backorder fee unless the drop catching service catches the domain name for you, the price is going up.

Namejet.com sent an email today explaining their price increase: [Read more…]

One of the issues that seems to be plaguing the New gTLD domain name extensions is public acceptance. It’s a hurdle that those selling these new domain name extensions have to overcome. As the public gets more familiar with the fact that there are domain name endings other than .COM, .NET, and .ORG, I’m certain that more of the New gTLD domains names will be sold. Most websites are adopting to the fact that there are new domain name extensions out there, such as .email, and even .ninja (I own www.Bill.Ninja), and most online forms are beginning to accept email address that’s not a .COM email address. What I found hilarious, though, was the fact that some spammers don’t even understand the New gTLDs. [Read more…]

Facebook has acquired the domain name AccountKit.com and they have also just recently registered a lot of typo domain names related to AccountKit.com. Usually when a company registers a lot of typos for a domain name, they plan on using that domain name publicly–and expect that people might mistype the domain name. [Read more…]

Based on domain name registrations by Microsoft in the past few days, Microsoft appears to be working on a project called “Microsoft Madeira”. It could also be called “Project Madeira”. I haven’t seen anything related to this yet based on a Google search: [Read more…]

Is Apple going to finally move to their new TLD (Top Level Domain) .Apple soon? Well, if new domain name registrations are any indication, there are 10 new ways that may show proof of that. Apple recently registered 10 new domain names that all end in their brand name, Apple. [Read more…]

Google is using promoted Tweets on Twitter to promote the use of new gTLD domain names. This is the first time that I’ve seen a promoted Tweet from Google Domains that is specifically that “hundreds of new domains are available”. [Read more…]

Again, on January 9th, Apple register another 682 (six hundred and eighty two!) nonsense domain names. I’ve been following these nonsense domain name purchases since they started purchasing them a while back. Here are a few of the domains on the latest purchase: [Read more…]

I’ve written about this before. And it’s been a while since Apple has registered a set of nonsense domain names. On December 31, 2015, they did it again, they registered 62 new domain names that consist of just nonsense characters. From what I can tell, they don’t really mean anything. Here are a few of the domains that they recently registered: [Read more…]

It’s that time of year. Holiday shopping, spending time with family and friends, and looking back at the past year. It’s been a fabulous year, and I thought that I’d mention a great deal that we are having over at Verified Domains. Between now and the end of 2015, you can take 50% off any Verified Domains service. [Read more…]

I was just interviewed by Borja for the Money Diver podcast about domain names and choosing the right domain name. As a part of this podcast, Borja and I put together a domain name related contest. [Read more…]

As you may be aware, I am a big fan of the new gTLD domain name extensions, there are hundreds of them already in General Availability. So, I was hunting around today, using the technique below, to find available domain names and names that I wish to pre-register.

I found that the first owner of Bill.Ninja failed to renew the domain name, so I was able to pick it up at a minimal cost. I consider that a huge win for me, as it’s a great, short, domain name. I even set up a short email address on it, as well. [Read more…]