DomainTools Blog

We’ve finalized the list of domains and activated bidding for the Leap Day Auction that will close on February 29 at 11am PST. We also put a few of the January domains back up and lowered the reserves on those domains 10%. Our review team selectively focused and added new domains to the auction list. All of the new domains have a reserve price of $250 or less, so if high reserves on names have prevented you from jumping into the domain business, this is a great time to get in the game. Those who have an appetite for domains with lots of potential should also be pleased with this list.

Overall, this auction presents an excellent opportunity for experienced domainers and recent entrants alike, and we’re excited to see how this plays out.

Be sure to look closely at the Overture rankings (the “Ovt” column) and the Google cost-per-click number (the “CPC” column). We actually missed some great names on our first pass through the list because we weren’t looking closely enough at those numbers. Make sure you review them carefully so you don’t make the same mistake we did!

You’ll find the Leap Day domains starting with lot 176 on the bid page.

And remember, all the bids are starting at $250 or less, so there’s no reason not to participate. We are also actively working on the list for the Live San Francisco auction. We are looking for great generic domains so please submit them.

A few weeks ago, during the Tucows fourth quarter and year-end 2007 results conference call, Tucows President and CEO, Elliot Noss, made reference to the fact that Tucows has been building up an extensive portfolio of domain names over the past few years. He promised to provide some transparency into those domain holdings in the coming weeks. Just today they released details about the size and makeup of their domain name holdings, including a list of 100 “Gems” of the Portfolio. You can read more about the about the Tucows Portfolio online as they are starting to open up about the domains.

Tucows commented,

“Our strategy to acquire expiring domain names differs from that of some other large Registrars who have focused on domain name auctions. Tucows believes that there is substantial value in holding on to these domain names, both in terms of monetization through pay-per-click advertising, but also in terms of the resale or lease of high-value domains to individuals and businesses that understand the intrinsic value of a high-quality domain name.”

My take on all this is, Tucows is building real value. Once main-stream investors factor in how much the Tucows portfolio is worth, the price of Tucows stock should rise accordingly. However, I think the stock is well under-valued and will stay that way for a while. Main stream investors are always late to the game. The market cap on Tucows is currently at $50MM, almost an all-time low. In the 2001 bubble Tucows reached just over $15 a share, it is now down to $0.68 a share. If Tucows continues buying up valuable domain names at registration prices I can see the value of the company doubling in the next 2 years. However that is only my opinion and “no” I don’t own any shares of Tucows.

I started to browse their portfolio using some DomainTools magic and they have some killer domains: SkateBoarders.com, Francisco.com, Marker.com, COO.com, Hardy.com, Liberals.com, Macy.com, Marlin.com, Nickels.com, Rhea.com, Coward.com, Crochet.com, GreyMarket.com, GoldenRetrievers.com & Retrievers.com.

We have a brand new tool! We just released “Registrant View” on Typo domains. Our current view on the typo tool only showed what typos existed, our new view now shows who owns them rather then having to click through to view the owner’s name and then separately track the results in excel. It literally takes hours to perform that step manually. Our users have been asking for more transparency and easier access to typo reports which don’t require so much manual work.

Here is a screenshot of the tool. You can click on the image below and you will be taken to the search that generated this image.

Matt Cutts will be speaking at the Domain Roundtable in April. Matt is well known in the SEO community as the most visible enforcer behind the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Matt is a great source of all things Google and most importantly he is an expert on Google Search Engine Algorithms. I qualify him as an expert because he literally wrote some of the original Google algorithms and he is listed on several Google patents. Matt held Top Secret clearance while working for the NSA prior to joining Google as one of the first 100 employees. If you have any questions that you would like to ask Matt this is the perfect opportunity. General questions that relate to everyone are the best kind, it is hard for him to answer a direct question about your particular site while a thousand people are watching. The more general the better.

We will be hosting a “Matt at the Roundtable - Question and Answer session” where he will be answering questions that people send in prior to the event. If you want to ask Matt a question please email them to mattcutts [at] domainroundtable.com, we will be selecting the best and tossing the rest. The questions will be asked to Matt live at the event. We will pass along the questions that require Matt to do some legwork prior to the event so that he can dig deep and find your answers to your “impossible to answer” Google questions. Make sure to send them prior to April 11, 2008, to guarantee they are reviewed for Matt’s Q&A! So lay it on us, email us your hardest questions. And don’t miss out on your chance to hear all the wisdom from Matt - register for the Roundtable now!

We want to thank Fabulous.com for being one of our corporate sponsors of the Roundtable this year. Without great sponsors like Fabulous, special events like these would not be possible.

It appears that all TrafficZ customers have received a notice by email today they may be the target of a phishing attack. This particular website was hosted in China (Beijing - Chinanet Jiangsu Province Network). I did some research on my own and it appears that not only are TrafficZ’s customers targets but so are GoldKey’s customers. A Registrant Search on the phisher quickly showed the other target was GoldKey customers. Below is a copy of the email I received from TrafficZ:

“Several of our clients have received emails spoofing the email address of TrafficZ personnel. The title of these emails usually read “TrafficZ | Domain Termination Notice”. The “notice” states that one of your domains has been deleted from your TrafficZ account and to visit Traffiz.com within 72 hours or your account will be blocked. The sender is listed as Deborah Amar, one of our Client Relations Specialist. If you click on the link to visit the TraffiZ.com, you will be directed to TrofficZ.com, which bears close resemblance to TrafficZ.com. This is a phishing attempt to try and capture the username and password of your TrafficZ account.

Please be assured that the TrafficZ attorneys are doing everything in their power to end these emails and disable TrofficZ.com. If you have mistakenly entered your username and password on this phishing site, please notify us immediately, change your password and re-verify your payment information. “

I think this marks the arrival of micro-phishing. We have reached a point where domains are valuable and so are the accounts that monetize them. I think phishers are getting more creative at how they operate and now look for wealthy targets. Paypal and Bank of America move over, micro-phishing has arrived the new targets are domain owners. When a phishing group can target individual customers they are more likely to be scammed into handing over credentials. For example, I keep getting phishing emails about accounts I don’t have, like my “Bank of Scotland” account. It is hard for me to be convinced to give up my username and password to a banking website I have never visited or even registered for. However Domains have DNS information and a phisher can see what customers to target for each parking company or registrar.

Conferences: fantastic for networking ease and relaying new information. They are, nonetheless, also posing challenges for the future. The obstacle has more to do with character, and less to do with charisma, anymore. As new conferences fill the industry’s calendars, it only stands to reason that people will be choosy about where they spend their time - and their dollars. That is, a conference should really be a worthwhile experience. So, as industry conferences come of age, they are simultaneously put in a position to find a marketable identity.

Fortunately, our name says it all: Roundtable. An equal shape, a roundtable is a comfortable space designed for conversation. We are looking beyond simple networking; Domain Roundtable has education at heart. The best way to learn is to talk. So, a discussion-based conference provides a real experience in conversation among people from every corner of the industry. Taking initiative from a domainer perspective, we believe roundtable sharing is useful to a variety of people, no matter their involvement or experience with domains.

This year, we have decided to workshop with the industry. With a marketing focus, sessions and speakers will center on practical applications: building up your domain portfolio and initiating better SEO strategies. We’re even including a DomainTools workshop.

As usual, we have an exciting new line-up of speakers. To cover the latest trends in SEO, we are bringing in Vanessa Fox, Rand Fishkin, and Dave Bascom as some of the panelists. All three are top industry bloggers and sought-after speakers on the topic. Fox, formerly of Google Webmaster Central, is an internationally renowned speaker on SEO trends and technology; Fishkin, recently quoted in Newsweek, devised SEOMoz.com; Bascom, of SEO.com, offers words from nearly a decade’s worth of experience in marketing and optimization.

Of course, we cannot forget our sponsors. Through their confidence in, and direct support of, our conference, we are able to promote and put on the best conference event of 2008.

NameJet is one such sponsor. NameJet is a domain name aftermarket auction company. With exclusive access to top-level registrars’ inventories, NameJet offers an extensive list of expired and deleted domains for auction. NameJet works with Network Solutions, eNom and Bulk Register to provide real solutions for customers who are attempting to acquire domain name registration rights to expiring names and domains which have not been re-registered by their current registrant.

Visit www.domainroundtable.com for more information on sessions, DomainTools Live Auction, reduced hotel rates and ways to receive promotion codes for discounts and coupons.

We are holding a February 29th live auction. The criteria is pretty simple, we are looking for the best domains at or under $250 reserves. I don’t know how many I will accept, but if I think the domain is worth over $2000 and the reserve is listed at $250 I will pop it into the auction. We will also features all domains not sold in the January auction. There is no holding period on the domains if domains don’t sell in the auction and the commission is the standard 10%. There is no fee for listing, only commission if the domain sells. Now is the perfect time to submit some killer low value domains.

The full catalog is available now but will close on February 22nd, we will continue to add things to the list as we select them. Bidding is currently open and submission is currently open. The gavel goes down at 11am on February 29th PST.

http://www.domaintools.com/live-auction/bid.html

For those of you that have premium/generic domains. We are currently accepting domains for the Domain Roundtable live auction.

Add a domain either auction right now.

It’s official: Paul Brin of KYgallery.com got his DomainTools tattoo while in Seattle. Paul is now the proud recipient of a free Gold Membership for life in exchange for getting our logo tattooed on his arm. Paul is eager to get into Domaining and sees the Gold Membership as the perfect tool.

Many professional domainers already have a subscription to DomainTools. They’ve learned what an invaluable tool it can be. In fact, most people would prefer that we keep it secret, but with several hundred thousand viewers each day, I think DomainTools is the worst kept secret in our industry. Paul’s fresh start in domaining proves there is still room left for new people to come in.

Paul’s new tattoo is our gear logo without the DomainTools text. We actually held a contest for people to design our logo about two years ago when we switched from the primary domain of Whois.sc to DomainTools.com. The contest was a great way for our users to help us with logo design and now, thanks to Paul, tattoo design. We choose the gear logo to help communicate our ongoing efforts to process and render useful data in very creative ways.

We actually took a video of Paul getting his tattoo in case people thought this was a Photoshop graphics trick.