I recently bought a domain name from a company who hadn’t touched its domain name since the late 1990s. At the time, they were using Earthlink for Internet service, and the Registrant Contact was listed as Earthlink, while the Administrative Contact was their company contact information. The domain name was registered at Network Solutions, and although they had some control over the domain name, they didn’t have full control.

As a result of this, the owner was unable to push the domain name to my Net Sol account, and he was also unable to send me the transfer authorization code so I could transfer it to Moniker. Network Solutions required that he would have to fill out a Primary Contact Replacement form and fax it back to them to verify domain ownership.

Long story short, they said it would take either a couple or a few days to review the form and approve the change. In the life of a domain reseller – and/or anyone who has five or six figures sitting in an escrow account awaiting a domain transfer – two or three days is a long time, especially when the contact information is the only thing holding up a transaction.

After a couple of phone calls with Network Solutions, I was informed about an expedited fax number that Network Solutions has, and some type of forms are generally approved within a couple of hours instead of days. In case you ever need it, the expedited fax # I used was (570) 708-0171.

In an article I wrote about Vino.com yesterday, I mentioned that it was a category killer domain name and a couple of people commented that it wasn’t. Just like in the National Football League, I am doing an instant replay review, and the call is overturned. Vino.com doesn’t really meet the definition of a category killer domain name, although I do think it’s a brandable and memorable wine domain name.

So… what do I think defines a category killer domain name? Well, Wikipedia says the term “category killer” is a marketing term used “to describe a product, service, brand, or company that has such a distinct sustainable competitive advantage that competing firms find it almost impossible to operate profitably in that industry.”

Similarly, in my opinion, a “category killer domain name is a domain name that creates a distinct competitive advantage for a company that is in, or that wishes to enter a specific industry, where that term defines the industry or a specific sector within the industry.” A category killer domain name gives a company a consumer marketing advantage as well as a search engine optimization edge.

Some category killer domain names discussed on my blog in the past include Bobbleheads.com, Candy.com, AmericanFlags.com, Bodybuilding.com, Cars.com, and Apartments.com.