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You thought TLD meant Top Level Domain? Well not on this page! This is Domain Name Journal's version of TLD - The Lowdown -  filling you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry!

November - December 2004 Archive

Afternic.com has announced an interesting new parking program that will take effect Jan. 3, 2005. The well-known domain sales venue is teaming up with two of the top-ranked PPC parking providers in the industry; Fabulous.com and DomainSponsor.com to produce the new program called Afternic Choice. It will allow Afternic members to park their domains with the new partners or with the company's current in-house program and retain a For Sale sign that points to their Afternic listings regardless of where they choose to park. They will also continue to earn Afternic referral commissions regardless of which parking provider they choose. Different domains can perform quite differently from one provider to another, so this solution will allow Afternic customers to easily pick and choose their parking provider for each domain on a mix and match or global basis... In one of the biggest internet business deals to date, Ebay has purchased Rent.com in a transaction worth a reported $415 million. Rent.com, a thriving site that allows landlords to advertise properties for lease, has annual revenues of about $40 million. Ebay will pay $30 million in cash with the remaining $385 million coming in the form of Ebay stock. Though there's no way to separate the value of the domain name alone from the underlying business, the publicity surrounding a $415 million deal that involves a high profile domain name should only help strengthen the value of quality domain names overall...Having returned to the top of the drop catching game, SnapNames.com has made a move to solidify their position by gaining exclusive auction rights to domains expiring at BulkRegister.com. A similar arrangement with NetworkSolutions.com had already restored fortunes at SnapNames, a company that pioneered the drop catching business. They had lost ground when competitors rolled out high revenue auction systems that gave them the resources to acquire more names than Snapnames could with their inexpensive flat fee model. Snap finally switched to its own auction format and leapfrogged the competition by forging the new exclusivity agreements... Sedo.com, a frequent leader on our weekly domain sales charts, went out of their way to announce the lowest sale ever on their site Dec. 13. Sedo wanted everyone to know Logifact.com went for just $60 to publicize their new reduced commission structure. The old $60 minimum fee is out, replaced by a flat 10% charge across the board (thus the seller of Logifact.com paid just $6). At the same time Sedo announced the addition of a special section on their site where all domains are priced below $300... A new online radio show called Domain Masters, dedicated to teaching listeners how to register and build websites, monetize website traffic and protect online brands is now airing each week on WebMasterRadio.FM. The show airs Wednesdays at 7pm U.S. EST. The premiere show aired December 15th and featured interviews with Dr. John Berryhill, an attorney with the intellectual property firm of Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman P.C. and Noel McMichael, Vice President of prominent Search Engine Marketing firm Marketleap. WebMasterRadio.FM was launched November 17, 2004 at the WebMasterWorld Conference in Las Vegas. This 24-hour free internet radio station produces original programming and specialized content for domainers, webmasters, SEO�s, and those just starting internet businesses...The new .PW registry is now open for business. .PW is the country code for Palau but on Dec. 15 it opened to registrations worldwide. Billed as the Privacy Web, .pw has anti-spam features built in to its system...BPath.com has rolled out a new private label search engine submission and optimization service that individual registrars can market on their sites under their own name. One of the first major registrars to utilize the product is Stargate.com who debuted it under their own "Hyper Submit" label Dec. 1. Stargate's VP for Business Development Don Welbourn said the company was attracted to Bpath�s solution because of "the seamless integration into our website and the fast implementation�. ..Strategies for successful internet marketing will be the theme of a conference in Ft. Lauderdale , Florida Tuesday, December 7th at the Sheraton Design Center Hotel (seminar runs from 8:00am to 10:30am). The Keynote speaker will be Jay Berkowitz, CEO and Author of the new book �The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing�. Berkowitz said, �I will share strategies that any business can use to drive more traffic to their website and to convert the site traffic to sales. In addition, attendees will learn how to get their site ranked highly in Google searches, how to run online advertising campaigns with positive return on investment and how to take advantage of the ten leading trends in internet marketing.� Attendees can call (954) 949-7579 or visit this link to register... Sedo.com is predicting big things for the UK's .co.uk domain extension. The popular sales venue has acquired Domain.co.uk to use as a platform to promote the extension. In a new press release Sedo said an average of 80,000 new .co.uk domains have been registered monthly in 2004. The aftermarket is booming too. They said 2004 marked the first year five-figure .co.uk sales had been reported...The largest domain transaction of all time was announced Nov. 23, 2004. Seattle based Marchex, Inc. said they have reached an agreement to buy a portfolio containing tens of thousands of domains from Name Development Inc. in a deal worth just over $164 million. Name Development appears to be a corporate entity holding domains owned by Yun Ye's Ultimate Search, a pioneering company in the pay per click (PPC) field. Marchex said the deal is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2005... SnapNames.com has filed a lawsuit against ICANN claiming "tortious interference with implementation of a "waiting list service" (WLS). The 21-page lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles on Nov. 18. There is a link to the full suit on Bret Fausett's blog here...America.us has moved from the registry's reserved list into the hands of one of the major .us investors, Chris Zouzas. The domain is obviously a perfect match for the extension and would have to rank among the very best possible  .us properties. At this time, Zouzas told us he could not detail how managed to pry the domain away from the registry and at what cost.


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