DomainTools Blog

We’re speeding things up!

Domain Name Wire recently posted several shortcut techniques to using some of the most popular DomainTools services. The post was timely, we at DomainTools have taken great measures and made significant strides to improve speed and performance of the site itself for our customers around the world.

The single greatest improvement was the implementation of a CDN (content delivery network). We tested the performance of several CDN’s and we found Akami offered the best results. They have the largest international distributed network that helps us extend the performance benefits to our entire worldwide customer base. We completed changes to the DomainTools site to fully utilize Akami’s CDN and rolled out the changes a few weeks ago.

DomainTools also started using the Google Javascript CDN for common Ajax libraries. There is a rapidly-growing number of sites using the Google CDN for JS libraries. By using this with DomainTools, we increase the chance that our customers already have a cached copy of the libraries on their computer. This has helped boost page load and responsiveness on the DomainTools site.

Our international customers will likely notice the greatest increase in speed. However, even from my house located less than five miles from the DomainTools data center in Washington State, the number of hops were cut in half and the speed tripled. I was going through 17 hops to California, then up to Canada and back to Washington, a circuitous route that averaged six seconds – now, it’s closer to two seconds. On average, the site load improved over 200%.

See below for a sample of the performance improvements listed in seconds, “Pre” or “Post” site enhancements.

As if that wasn’t’ enough, the development and engineering team has been tirelessly optimizing the internal code base, server infrastructure and network topology. These changes, and many others we have in the works, will continue to improve the response times on DomainTools. We have even extended the changes to the Aftermarket.com live auction platform. It’s part of our ongoing commitment to enhance the service and performance of DomainTools for all our customers – domestic and international.

Domain Roundtable (DRT) 2009 is a little over a month away. The conference is in Washington, DC, June 14 – 17, 2009, at the centrally located Grand Hyatt. Laura Schmidt, Director of Corporate Events for Thought Convergence, is creating a exceptional event following the origins of DRT bringing together diverse interests.

This year’s show is shaping up to be an exciting one! In addition to the knowledgeable speakers, we’ll have sessions covering topics such as:

• domain valuation
• technology trends
• alternative monetization
• legal policies
• online tools

Discount Registration is only available for a few more days! Register by May 15th online and pay only $895; registration increases to $995 on May 16th. We’ve come up with 5 great reasons why you should attend Domain Roundtable:

1) You need to know what your domains are worth in order to get top dollar for them
2) Industry experts will brief you on all issues and policies facing the industry
3) We’ll provide information on all domain monetization options
4) There will be opportunities to network with industry insiders, as well as, influential people in related industries
5) All the cool kids will be there!

Be sure to submit your domains for the Aftermarket.com auction taking place on June 16th. Submission deadline is May 31, 2009.

Check out the Domain Roundtable site to register – now while discount is still available. It is easy to follow DRT on all the latest progress on Twitter or Facebook! We made it easy for you to not miss a beat.

Fresh Names, Reserve.com, Domain Madness Winner – To Be Announced!

The GEO-Domain Auction is heading into its last day with a full head of geo-steam and a pocket full of bidders – final auction begins Tuesday, May 5, at 12pm PDT and ends when all the lots are closed and the deals are gone.

Here is the latest news:

Fresh GEO’s
A few names had to be removed due to conflicts with other ongoing auctions – regrettable of course but prudent nonetheless. So we’ve added some stellar replacements while other sellers have approached us to include their inventory as well. Additions include:

The full inventory with data, valuations and comments is available for download.

Reserve.com Bidding at $12,000
We expect many more bids for this premium with uses in tickets, travel, hunting, money, military and beyond – a true premium generic without the premium price tag. Don’t miss this chance to grab it cheap, valued at $500,000 by DomainConsultant. Over 30 bids so far.

Domain Madness Winner!
It took some extra time, given the complexity of the scoring system, but we have found a winner – a domainer who beat all the other domainers in guessing the results of the auction.

The winner is to be announced tomorrow during the auction starting at 12pm PDT.

Bidding in action
Bidders can enter their ‘proxy’ bids up to that time after which they can only bid on individual names as they come up. Usual auction format will be used — going once, going twice, last call and sold. Once virtual gavel drops, it is sold and lot is closed.

Head to the auction page to bid – GeoDomain Auction.

Big thanks again to all who have helped and supported and been there for us. We love you all! Yeah, I said it!

DomainConsultant.com