Recently, there has been an uptick in the number of domain names that are being stolen. I am not sure if it’s because of the worldwide pandemic and people are getting more desperate for money, or if domain name thieves are taking advantage of the changing digital and tech environment. COVID-19 is causing more of us to be online and conduct business online. But that also means that many don’t fully understand how to properly protect their digital assets, like domain names. This may be why we’re seeing more and more online scams, phishing, and online theft in general. [Read more…]

RightOfTheDot.com is holding a live, online domain name auction on February 25, 2021. They’re broadcasting this live domain name auction starting at Noon on February 25, 2021 from College Station, Texas. Pre-Bidding on these domain names is now open, and will continue up until the live auction on the 25th of February. [Read more…]

UNR, the owner of some Top Level Domains (TLDs) has decided to auction off 23 TLDs to the highest bidder. There are 23 total, including some great endings such as .audio, .blackfriday, .christmas, and .help, and .link. These are not domain names, but the endings of domain names. [Read more…]

Two different repeating three-letter, .COM domain names, FFF.com and HHH.com, have been put up for sale by the domain name brokers Brannans.com. [Read more…]

Google has lost ownership to one of their Blogspot domain names. Blogspot is the former name of the blogging service that allowed bloggers to create and post their own blog for free. Blogspot.com redirects to Blogger.com, where you can continue to create and post on your own blog. Blogspot.in is the India version of Blogspot, each Blogspot blog was redirected to the local version (typically a ccTLD). So, someone viewing a blogspot blog in India would be redirected to username.blogspot.in. [Read more…]

The domain name registrar GoDaddy sent emails to some current customers. The email, which was a legitimate email and not a phishing attempt, told the customer that they had a credit on their account. However, what is alarming is that the email being sent had the wrong amount. [Read more…]

Verisign is shutting down their DomainScope service. They will continue operating the service until 1:00 PM Eastern Time on July 17, 2020. In a recent email to their current DomainScope customers and a notice posted on their site, Verisign explained that their product development teams will be focusing on developing new features and functionality for their NameStudio service instead. [Read more…]

Updated March 9, 2020

A recent discussion about the best Domain Name industry Twitter accounts got me thinking–there are a lot more domain name influencers on Twitter than be put into one Tweet. Even though there are a lot of characters available in a Tweet now, I just cannot possibly put them all into one or two Tweets. When I originally posted this list of domain name influencers that you should follow on Twitter, it was a list of 35. Then, after a while, some of them actually deleted their Twitter accounts. So, this is an updated list.

After the initial list, I’ve listed a bunch of Twitter accounts that you should be following related to the domain name industry. [Read more…]

As a search engine optimization (SEO) and domain name consultant, one of the questions I get asked most often about domain names is whether or not the domain name or TLD (Top Level Domain) matters. Will the domain name ending have an effect on SEO or search engine rankings. Are certain domain name endings preferred by the search engines over other domain name extensions? I decided to answer this question based on search engine optimization testing and not just based on my personal and professional experience. [Read more…]

A social media influencer has been sentenced to 14 years in United States Federal prison for the attempted hijacking of a GoDaddy domain name. According to a United States DOJ press release, “Rossi Lorathio Adams II, age 27, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, also known as “Polo,” received the prison term after an April 18, 2019, jury verdict finding him guilty of one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by force, threats, and violence.” [Read more…]

Network Solutions, a Web.com company, along with Register.com, has suffered a data breach (they got hacked) in late August 2019. They did not discover this data breach until October 16, 2019. They’re just notifying customers on November 1, 2019 about the data breach. Shouldn’t they have contacted their customers to change their passwords shortly after they discovered it on October 16, 2019? [Read more…]

When someone (or a company, organization) doesn’t renew a domain name, the domain name goes through a drop process. First the domain name usually enters a period of time when the current owner can renew the domain name. It’s essentially put on hold. It then enters a period (a certain number of days) when it’s marked as pending delete, and then, at one particular date and time, it is released to anyone who wants to register that domain name. The domain expiration process goes something like this: [Read more…]

Despite the fact that I transferred a domain name from Network Solutions to another registrar (GoDaddy), Network Solutions still wants me to renew the domain name and has it in my account. I literally transferred the domain name and moved it because technically it’s not my domain name (I bought it for a client). The client only used GoDaddy as their domain name registrar, so I had to move it away from Network Solutions. However, days later, the domain name is still in my Network Solutions Account. At this point, I am assuming that if I don’t do anything, Network Solutions will charge me for a domain name I don’t own, and a domain name that isn’t even at their registrar anymore. [Read more…]

KPMG has moved to their own .BRAND TLD (Top Level Domain), the first of the big accounting firms to make the move. Previously they were using the domain name KPMG.com as their home page, and now if you go to KMPG.com in your web browser it will redirect you to their new domain, home.kpmg, which then redirects you to https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home.html. This move is yet another sign that the big worldwide brands are beginning to move on over to their own .BRAND TLD, ditching their .COM domain name. [Read more…]

Every year at the NamesCon domain name conference, ROTD (Right of the Dot) holds a live domain name auction. This year they’ve picked 641 premium domain names to run in the auction–only the best from that list will be auctioned off live at the event this year in Las Vegas. The domain names are currently up for auction at Namejet, who is listing the domains. You can bid on them right now, right here. Some have a reserve price, but others don’t. At a minimum bid of $300, there are definitely some good buys to be had. [Read more…]

The domain name Files.com recently sold for US $750,000 according to Domain Name Wire. Action Verb, LLC bought the domain name Files.com and, according to the landing page on the site, they plan on launching “powerful file management for businesses of every size”. Certainly $750,000 is a lot of money to spend, and it is a great domain name. But did Action Verb, LLC, do any due diligence on the domain name before they bought it? [Read more…]

Does Domain Name Registration Length Affect Search Engine Rankings?

This has been discussed time and time again, but since Epik is now offering Forever Registrations of domain names, I thought that I would ask Google’s John Mueller if domain registration length is a search engine ranking factor. Or, whether or not Google prefers domain names that have been registered for a longer period of time. I asked John on Twitter, and here’s what he said: [Read more…]

Zoho Corporation, also known as Zoho CRM, had their entire domain name taken down by their registrar Tierranet (aka DomainDiscover). According to a Tweet by Zoho CRM’s CEO Sridhar Vembu, they were trying to understand why the domain was taken down entirely. [Read more…]

When you buy an expired domain name, owning that domain name does not give you the legal right to any other accounts that are associated with that domain name. For example, if you buy a domain name that has an email address that was set up by the former owner, I don’t think that you don’t have rights to accounts that were set up by that former owner. [Read more…]