Domain Name Wire Podcast

This week the domain name industry will converge in Austin, Texas for NamesCon 2020. To preview the action, I talk to Michael Cyger of DNAcademy about which panels he's attending. Then, I speak to Monte Cahn about the live domain name auction taking place on Thursday.    See you in Austin!

A domain investor's journey is often filled with ups and downs. On today's show, I talk with Nikul Sanghvi. He was selling vinyl records online when he got bogged down by carrying so much physical inventory. He started investing in domain names in 2009 and didn't have much success at first. Then, in 2015, he got his big break: a six figure sale that helped him buy a new home for his family and sta...

Domain name brokers Amanda Waltz and Jeffrey Gabriel have teamed up to form Saw.com. On today's show, the two discuss what brought them to this point and their decision to start a new brokerage firm. They also explain what they are seeing in the market and what's hot right now.   Also: NamesCon agenda, Lotto.com, domain sales and more

My guest this week is kind of the OG of domain name sales landers. Tom Klosowski created a script back in 2006 that let domain investors create their own marketplaces and 'for sale' landing pages. This is before hosted services were all the rage, so he later turned this into a hosted service called Domain Market Pro. On today's show, Tom explains the origins of his service, important things to hav...

This week you'll get predictions for 15 people (including me) about what to expect in the domain name industry next year. I also asked people what their biggest surprise was during 2019. It's a great way to close out the year. Happy new year!

Bill Sweetman of NameNinja is back on the show today, and I promise you're going to get a ton of ideas from this show. Bill spends his days helping companies buy domains, and today he talks about his strategy for identifying the right person at a company, figuring out the profile of who should contact them, communication channels and some zany ideas to get a response when all else fails. LIke send...

2019 is coming to a close. A year ago, 18 people made predictions about what would happen in the domain industry this year. Who was right and who was wrong? You'll find out this week when you listen to the predictions people made. I'll also recap the predictions I made and whether or not they came true. Also: .Org pricetag, Ethos talks, fractional domain ownership, NameSilo's rank 

Does making tweaks to domain sales landers lead to increased sales? That's one of the questions I ask Doron Vermatt, co-founder of Efty, on today's show. We also discuss Efty's sales volume, how to optimize sales and what it's like running a business that caters to domain investors. 

This week I catch up with domain broker James Booth of Phenom.com (formerly BQDN.com). We first talked in 2016 when he was just starting in the domain industry and had already brokered $5 million of domains in his first six months. At the time, 95% of his transactions involved people in China. In this episode, James gives his take on the implosion of the Chinese domain market. He also explains wha...

I spent last week in Montreal at the ICANN meeting. While there, I sat down with Namescon CEO Soeren von Varchmin to talk about January's conference. After many years in Las Vegas, NamesCon is moving to Austin. Soeren explains why it's moving and why you should attend. He also explains how running a conference for the domain business is different than for the hosting business. Also: Tucows sells i...

Some people are good domain name investors. Others are good site developers. Richard Lau and James Morfopoulous are a rare breed; they are both good domain investors and site developers. They built up Resume.com and sold it to Indeed. Now they are creating Logo.com. Hear what they have to say about the value of a good domain when developing a business. Also learn what types of domains they buy, ho...

Two weeks ago, Shane Cultra and I discussed some improvements we wanted GoDaddy to make. On today's show, GoDaddy VP of Aftermarket Paul Nicks comes on the show to discuss some of the fixes and improvements the company is making. We also talk about the future of the aftermarket and where domain investing fits into the broader domain name ecosystem.

Building links and authority for a new website is hard but there's a way to skip a lot of the work. Today's guest, Sean Markey, explains how to find expired domains and turn them into websites to leverage their search value.    Also: Scratch.org, cybersquatting disputes, Sedo and more

GoDaddy has made many improvements to its domain platform. What more can it do to make the experience better for domain investors going forward? On today's show, Shane Cultra and I discuss some ideas for the company that dominates the domain name aftermarket.   Also: Pablo Escobar, domain hijacking, .UK, .Uno, and Tucows sends its cows out to pasture.  

This week I talk with Katja Speck and Tom Keller about ID4Me. Katja is the managing director of ID4Me, and Tom Keller is a board member whose day job is Head of Domains at 1&1 Ionos. The best way to think of ID4ME is an easy way to log into the websites, similar to signing in with Facebook or Google, while maintaining control over your data . (Of course, there's a lot more to it.) It's based on DN...

Why do small business owners register the domain names that they choose? On today's show we'll talk to five business founders, most of them solopreneurs, about the domains they picked and how they selected them: 7-time Guinness World Record holding Juggler Niels Duinker, who uses ComedyJuggler.com and JugglingWorkshop.com . Danielle Cuomo of VirtualAssistUSA.com . Side hustler Jason Stum, who sell...

This week I talk with Matt Overman, the SVP of sales at Donuts, the company that offers 240 domains in new extensions such as .money and .expert. Matt explains why his company is reducing the price on over 1 million new top level domains that are marked as premium, including moving most of them to non-premium status. He also responds to some of Michael Berkens' comments about new TLDs and gives ex...

Woven CEO Tim Campos comes on the show this week to talk about his company acquiring the domain name Woven.com. Campos it the former CIO of Facebook and is internet savvy, but he still found immense value in hiring a broker to acquire the domain. He also discusses the importance of getting a good .com domain name for his business. Also: A big legal bill, Destruction.com, and Google connects with D...

Domain investor Mark Levin return to the Domain Name Wire Podcast to talk about how he's investing in 2019 and his results. The year is only 8 months old, but he's already smashed last year's sales total. Today, he explains: what he's buying, how much he pays for domains, how and where he sells them, and much more. I learned a lot from this interview and will incorporate some of Mark's ideas into...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fights for civil liberties, free speech and privacy on the internet. The non-profit is vocal about domain name policy, and it's latest salvo is over the new .Org contract ICANN signed. While others focus on the removal of price caps, EFF (which uses a .org domain) is concerned about the extension of URS and other provisions to the agreement. On today's show...

Jeffrey Black registered IMI.com in 1994. Over two decades later he found himself in court spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to prove that he wasn't cybersquatting on a concrete company's brand by registering the domain. On today's show, Black's attorney Mike Rodenbaugh walks us through exactly what happened: why Black registered the domain, how this case proceeded all the way to a...

Radix CEO Sandeep Ramchandani discusses the current state of new top level domain names from his perspective. We discuss how much premium domains should cost, if domains under management is the right metric, switching costs of domains, and much more. It's an interesting discussion.

Matthias Conrad joined Sedo as its new CEO at the beginning of the year. On this show, Matthias talks about his impression of the domain aftermarket—and Sedo—after about half a year on the job. Conrad explains how he thinks Sedo can improve, what the aftermarket needs to take it to the next level, and some data including Sedo's median domain sales price. Also: Change at the top at GoDaddy, MicroSt...

Want to grow your audience and business? One of the hottest things to do right now is to be a guest on podcasts. On today's show, I'll explain step-by-step how to leverage podcasts. This is a great opportunity for domain name companies and domain investors, as well as people who have built an online business. Also: Verisign's earnings, Whois spat resolved, private jet, and Web.com's acquisition