Name Intelligence’s DomainTools has something like half a million registered users, and the company blog has an Alexa ranking much greater than any other industry blog, so I applaud Jay Westerdal for the marketing effort he is putting forth for the upcoming Domain Roundtable conference auction. While many industry auctions seem to rely on emails and press releases announcing the domain names that will be auctioned, Jay has been writing up mini-reviews for some of the better names that are due to be auctioned in a little over a week. As we get closer to the auction, I anticipate seeing more auction names released.

While the ideal marketing effort would be to distribute informational kits about each domain name to potential end-users, I think Jay’s effort goes above and beyond what other auction houses do (he may already be marketing to end users behind the scenes for all I know). With auction commissions reaching up to 20% per sold name, you would think auction houses would really be marketing the domain names in auction to get the best prices for each name. I think this is a great step.

Since end-user businesses should be able to justify spending the most for a domain name, they would be the most likely target. I look forward to the day that domain auction houses market certain generic domain names to the potential end user audience. Educating end users on why they should purchase a generic domain name to support their marketing and branding efforts will be the key to fully unlocking the true value of generic category killer domain names.

If you still haven’t signed up to attend the Domain Roundtable conference, you still have a few days to do so. If you vote in the Name Intelligence User Choice Awards, you will be given a coupon to save $50 off the registration fee. Although it says the voting ends 4/11, it doesn’t look like it has been disabled yet, so you might want to check it out ASAP.

A few weeks ago Jay blogged about requesting reinclusion in Google for a domain name.  Recently, I purchased an important domain name even though it wasn’t listed in Google.  I bought the name along with an information-rich website, and following Jay’s advice, I requested that my name be reincluded in Google.

After a few days, I noticed some traffic from Google on the website.  Interested, I did a Google search (as I had done before), and now appearing as the #1 listing is my domain name.  I wasn’t aware that I could ask Google to review my website for reinclusion until I read Jay’s blog, and I would like to publicly thank him for pointing this out.

In a blog post on November 11th, Jay Westerdal asks his blog readers for their opinions on whether DomainTools’ controversial Registrant Search tool should be taken down. Although I think it is a cool tool, I believe I have a strong case for why it should be taken down, and my case is supported by evidence provided by Jay in this morning’s blog post, “Chameleon typo squatters.”

In Jay’s newest post, he discusses how some people attempt to mask their identity by registering domain names using other companies’ registration information, with the only difference being the admin contact email address. Jay cites the example of the domain name GoogleWishes.com, which appears to be owned by Google, but uses a different contact email address.

With the Registrant Search tool, this domain name would presumably be listed in Google’s list of domain names, when someone performs a Registrant Search using “Google” as a query. Because the email address differs from the actual email address used by Google in their domain registrations, this domain name does not appear to be owned by Google. However, GoogleWishes.com would appear in the list along with other Google properties such as Google.com, GoogleMaps.com, GoogleVideo.com, and many more.

I know you can whittle down your results by entering more information (such as the usual admin contact email), but if a person ordered the results based on what appears in the Whois.sc/Google.com listing - (Registrant Search: “Google Inc.” owns about 8,211 other domains), this name would probably appear.

Although the domain name GoogleWishes.com would probably not hurt the image of Google, a devious person could severely impact a competitor’s or opponent’s image by registering pornographic or trademark infringing domain names in someone else’s name. Unless a careful examination is made of each name in the list, the Registrant Search tool could be damaging to the victim of a “chameleon typo squatter.”

Jay Westerdal is the founder of Name Intelligence, Inc. the parent company of DomainTools.com.  Jay’s company offers a number of helpful tools, the most popular being the Whois look up tool which includes a ton of extra data from around the web in, all in real-time.  I’ve used the Whois.sc service since I became involved in the domain business, and the Whois history tool has been helpful in allowing me to do my due diligence when purchasing domain names.

Jay’s company now offers a service that ranks dropped domain auctions, based on a number of different criteria.  Additionally, the company has stored every DNS change since 2001.  His services are so unique that he now has clients such as the FBI and the FTC using their tools to track down scammers and people that abuse domain names.  Also, DomainTools was the first company to offer Domain Insurance. 

Jay’s first job during college was for a hosting company as head of domain registrations. Since then he has gone on to form a number of new corporations; Jay is CEO of Spry.com Web Hosting which currently has about 20 employees.  Jay is an active industry domain blogger, and he is heavily involved in ICANN.  I read Jay’s blog daily, and I think this is one of the most valuable domain news outlets.

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1.) EJS: What was the first domain name you ever purchased, and do you still own it?

JW: “My first domain was Westerdal.com”

2.) EJS: What has been the biggest surprise/development in the domain industry over the last couple of years?

JW: “I think Transfer Fullfillment by Snapnames is the biggest thing that has happened to the industry. It has eliminated drop catching as we knew it. Then Snapnames was sold for $37 Million, then NameJet appeared out of no where to dominate the market place.”

3.) EJS: What needs to happen to make the domain investment business more mainstream?

JW: “For domain investing to be more mainstream. There needs to be two things. More transparency and greater liquidity options. Domains are too hard to sell right now and there is no good resource to track the sales. What DomainTools did for Whois History we hope to do with Domain Sales in the aftermarket. We want to completely redefine how transparency works.”

4.) EJS: Let’s get personal… Laptop or Desktop, and what brand?

JW: “My computer has Two 30-inch monitors and a few GB of ram from Dell. I also use a IBM Thinkpad.”

5.) EJS: What is the biggest threat to the domain investment business?

JW: “The biggest threat is lack of transparency in the parking revenues. Google is so closed about how they calculate revenue shares you know they must be making millions of dollars each day from it and they don’t want to let go of that. The market is ready for a truly disruptive market move.”

BONUS QUESTIONS!

6.) EJS: Where do you see Name Intelligence (and you) in five years?

JW: “DomainTools and Name Intellingence will be involved in a lot more aspects of Domaining. We just recently got into Live Auctions and the sky is the limit from there. Domain Financing, Domain Insurance, Domain Monetization, and Tagging. We will be associating clips and notes about each domain so that the history of a domain is more rich.”

7.) EJS: While a majority of domain investors choose to be private, you were one of the first active domain bloggers. What is the driving force behind your blog, and what motivates you to be one of the main sources of information and news for the domain community?

JW: “Yes, a lot of domain investors are quite about the Industry. By being open and sharing my prospective it can only help the industry grow. We live in a connected world and blogs in this industry were only a question of time. I don’t share everything either. I sit on things sometimes if it is not news worthy or if someone else has done a good job covering it.”

NameJet, which launched yesterday, is a new company entering the competitive deleting domain acquisition area of the domain business. In a partnership with Network Solutions, NameJet will be responsible for acquiring and auctioning Network Solutions’ deleting domain names. According to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington,

“NSI, exercising a change in control termination clause, notified Snapnames/Oversee today that they were terminating their agreement and simultaneously launched Namejet with a rival registrar eNom (eNom is owned by Demand Media).” - Source: TechCrunch

This development was reported on Jay Westerdahl’s blog on October 1st. His report included information about a trademark application made by Network Solutions for NameJet.

It looks like starting the Snapnames Seller Program was a smart move for Snapnames, but I hope they don’t lose their active bidder audience, which is the reason I personally listed many names with Snap. So far, I have had success with the program, and I must say their customer service is fantastic.

DomainTools Announces the Public Launch of Registrant Search

Jay Westerdahl’s DomainTools team has just added another useful tool to its portfolio. Registrant Search allows users to do a reverse domain search to see what domains a person or company owns. It can also be used for other reverse searches, such as a geographic search to see how many domain names are registered in a particular town (28,412 in Nashua, NH for example).

Until today, this tool has been in use by DomainTools staff for 8 years, available only upon special request. Although I don’t really have much use for the tool, it is interesting to see what other domain names companies or individuals own. The only downside to this tool is the expense, but Jay said that the price may come down depending on the amount of use.

Congrats to Jay the DomainTools staff for their continued outstanding work.

Thanks to Jay Westerdahl for bringing this to my attention.  The brainchild of Anthony Peppler and Sania Faucher, CarryOn.com is a 501c3 non-profit charity that allows domain owners to donate their adult domain names in lieu of monetizing them, letting them drop, expire or cancelling them.

Owners of domain names are occasionally in a bad position when they want to cleanse their portfolios of “dirty” names.  With domain tasting being so popular, pretty much any dropped/cancelled/expired domain name is picked up by someone and monetized.  Since domain owners are indefinitely listed on the virtual ownership paperwork, they are forever linked to every domain name they’ve owned.  CarryOn.com allows domain owners to donate their domain names without having to worry about them falling into the wrong hands.  Domain owners may also be eligible for a tax deduction.

This type of service could also be beneficial to owners of domain names with trademarks in them.  However, I believe this would be too risky for any charity, as the charity could become liable should the trademark owner seek financial compensation under the ACPA.  Additionally, the former domain owner would technically remain liable for owning it at one time.

Someone recently asked me which domain blogs I read on a daily basis, and I listed them below:

Frank Schilling’s Seven Mile Blog

Owen Frager’s The Frager Factor

Sahar Sarid’s The Conceputalist

Jay Westerdahl’s DomainTools Blog