I just bought a new Giro ski helmet the other day. Giro is a helmet company owned by sports equipment conglomerate Easton-Bell Sports. As I often do when shopping for a product, I researched who owned key category domain names related to my purchase.

I was impressed when I saw that Easton-Bell Sports owned SkiingHelmets.com and SnowboardingHelmets.com. These category defining names should either be used to funnel direct navigation traffic to the company’s main site, or smaller portals can be built, using the site as either SEO plays or to drive traffic to the main site.

When I visited both sites to see what the company was doing with them, I was disappointed. Not only are they undeveloped, but the Network Solutions landing page even has “Giro” related links.  They are essentially paying for visitors to click their own ads!

In looking at the historical thumbnails provided by Domain Tools, it appears that there was a site before or possibly a forward to the main site.  It appears that Network Solutions is now the primary beneficiary during this high season.

It’s a good strategy for a company to acquire keyword domain names, but it’s poor execution when those domain names aren’t being used.

One complaint I hear about Network Solutions is that the price of a .com domain registration is way too high when compared to other companies like Moniker, Godaddy, and Name.com.

I just learned that Net Sol is currently offering new registrations for $6.99 when you use this promo code: PCXXX04007. This is a pretty big savings when you consider the regular price of a .com domain name is $34.99 at NS.

I also noticed that Network Solutions offers a 100 year domain registration, something that might be interesting if you have a domain name you know you’ll never want to sell and want to protect. With this discount code, the cost is $999.99.

I don’t think this code is valid for transfers or renewals.

I don’t love Net Sol’s customer support, but I do know a number of companies use them, and this code will bring a pretty big savings.

As I quickly scanned my email, I saw something from Network Solutions that caught my eye. The subject was “HORSESTABLE.ORG is Available – Register it Now!” Since I own HorseStable.com (I sold HorseSupply.com earlier this year), I thought it would be smart to register the .org, to give a potential buyer some added value.

Since I don’t generally register domain names at NetSol, I emailed my Godaddy representative and asked him to buy this domain name on my behalf. He replied that the domain name has been registered for a while to Protopixel Pty Ltd, one of Dark Blue Sea’s entities.

I looked back at the email I received and I noticed that it was imploring me to buy this premium domain name in the aftermarket, which I believe is part of the Domain Distribution Network. I’ve seen plenty of upsell efforts at registrars like Godaddy working with the DDN, but this is the first time I was emailed directly instead of a point of sale attempt.

Although I felt the subject was a bit misleading with them suggesting I “register” it now, it’s still a smart direct marketing tactic. Had I been an end user client (most of their clients are), I may have opted to buy it.

This is a great example of a well-targeted direct marketing effort.

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.

A domain investor friend of mine forwarded me an email he received from Network Solutions today, with the following message:

Subject: The Domain You Searched For Is Still Available: On Sale Now!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.net    Buy Now for ONLY $19 >>
Available as of 11/09/2009

Domain names are how people find you online, how you express yourself through email or your website, and it’s what customers think of when trying to find you. Register yours today while it’s still available!

nsWebAddress™ packages include your domain name registration plus:”
….etc

I always assumed that domain registrars and companies used Whois lookup data for internal purposes, but I didn’t think a company would use it for marketing purposes. My friend doesn’t believe he did the look up from within an account at Network Solutions, so he was even more surprised that his search was emailed to him.

I know that companies monitor searches and other research, and I’ve warned people to be cautious when doing research, but it just seems a bit over the top when a company sends an email like this. It’s almost like, “don’t mind us looking over your shoulder, but you can buy that name you looked up the other day just in case you didn’t realize.“

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this is right. I would really like to know how they got the person’s email address, but I can only assume they tracked his IP address to an account there. Personally, I use DomainTools for Whois lookups.