Domain Name Wire Podcast

How are your domain sales so far this year? Mine…not so great. On today's show, I share in-depth numbers about my sales in the first half of 2024: sell-through rates, top level domains, where I acquired the domains and more. I also hypothesize about why my sales might be down.   Also: Squarespace domains under attack, Dot Earth, .App, and an antitrust challenge against GoDaddy Sponsor:   Sav.com b...

Last month, a consortium of advocacy groups asked the US government to take action against the .com contract with Verisign. On today's show, Matt Stoller, research director for American Ecomomic Liberties Project and author of The BIG Newsletter , discusses why he calls Verisign an "economic termite." While my reading of the NTIA agreement with Verisign suggests it can't be renegotiated in a way t...

I write about domains getting stolen all of the time. On today's show, I interview someone who helps people recover those domains. Bill Hartzer explains how domain names commonly get stolen and the ways to go about recovering them. Interestingly, many of the times someone reaches out to him saying their domain was stolen, that's not really what happened.   Also: .com prices, alo.com lawsuit, Ben C...

New top level domains have been out for a decade now. One of the most interesting top level domain companies is XYZ. It's known for .xyz, but now operates a total of 35 domain extensions. On today's show, XYZ founder Daniel Negari reflects on the past ten years, discusses his marketing approach, and what's in store for the future.   Also: ICA dates, auctions, and more   Sponsor: Sell your domains...

Imagine flipping a hand registration into an $85,000 sale in 8 days. My guest on today's show, Michael Santiago, did just that. It's not without controversy, though. What would you do if this opportunity presented itself to you? Michael tells the story, along with how upgrading a domain name helped his press release business soar, ultimately resulting in a seven figure exit for him.   Also: Spaces...

Sometimes, letting go of domain name is the hardest part. But not for my guest this week, domain investor and entrepreneur Yoni Belousov. Yoni is a long time domain name investor, and on today's show he talks about letting go of your loser domains and operating an efficient portfolio. (Yoni has about 80,000 domains.) We also talk about Yoni's acquisition of the .link top level domain name, the pro...

Nick Huber knew his company's domain name was a problem, so he paid $400,000 to get a better domain name. On today's show he explained how the company searched for a new domain name and negotiated a payment plan to close the deal for somewhere.com. He also discusses his many other companies and how much he paid for domains for his companies Webrun, AdRhino, BoldSEO, ReviewBoss, Titan Risk, Bolt St...

Paul Nicks has a new role at GoDaddy as VP, Domain Investor. The move is due to somewhat of a shift in how domains are registered and how the company views domains, so it's important for domain name investors to understand what's going on. On today's show, Paul talks about the changes, who is leading the various domain teams at GoDaddy, and what Paul's biggest initiatives are for domain name inves...

On today's show, domain investor and Efty co-founder Doron Vermaat returns to the show to talk about some of his latest domain sales. He compares his results in 2023 to 2022, and shares some sales (including a .io domain for $70k). If you need some inspiration, Doron discusses how domain investing has helped him buy his first house. We also talk about some of the features that are in the works for...

NamesCon 2024 is just weeks away, and it's not too late to register to attend.   On today's show I preview the event with two interviews. First, I speak with Soeren von Varchmin, Chairman of the Advisory Board at NamesCon. Soeren tells us what to expect at this year's show, including fantastic keynotes with Vint Cerf, Matt Mullenweg, and Paul Mockapetris.   Then, Monte Cahn and Scott Pruitt of Rig...

We often hear about domain name sales, but the public sales just scratch the surface. Many more sales are never made public.   Some of these sales happen on DomainAgents . On today's show, DomainAgents CEO  Ryan McKegney discloses that his company brokered a three letter domain name for $2 million earlier this year.   Ryan also discusses what he's seeing in the domain aftermarket right now. Spoile...

Darpan Munjal has been a guest on this podcast many times, but he gets a different introduction this time: CEO of Atom .    That's because his company Squadhelp recently rebranded as Atom and moved its site to atom.com.   On today's show, Darpan discusses why his company outgrew its old name and how it used its own platform to review potential names for the rebrand.   He also shares the work the c...

Domain buyer broker Bill Sweetman of Name Ninja returns to this show this week with more wacky domain name tales.    Bill has run into some interesting people while acquiring domain names. On today's show, you'll hear the tales of Pedro the Paranoid, The Satisfied Senior, The Lucky Lady, and many more.   And if you want more, be sure to go back to episode #338 for more crazy stories.   Also: Atom,...

It's been just six months since I had Fred Hsu, co-founder of D3, on the podcast. The company has made many announcements since then, and it's becoming clear that it will be one of the more significant portfolio applicants in the next round of new TLDs. Back on episode 456, Hsu explained how he wanted to bridge web2 and web3 in the right way. We're not talking about alt-root domains. We're talking...

Domain investor Richard Lau joins me on today's show.   We talk about his $1 million sale of gld.com, and how a domain buyer broker was able to help seal the deal.   Richard also explains why he hopes his sale of passes.com will turn into much more than the $70,000 purchase price, and what he's telling companies that use .ai domain names.  Sponsor: Sav.com domain auctions

Oh, Canada! This week I chat with domain investor Frank Mardian, founder of the DN.ca domain name forum popular with Canadian domain name investors.   Frank talks about becoming interested in websites when he ran a Mercedes Benz dealership, and how he started collecting domains.   We discuss some nuances of the .ca domain name extension, how Frank avoids domain sales commissions, and much more. Al...

Jeff Neuman has just about seen it all in the domain business over the past few decades. The former VP of Registry at Neustar currently serves as a lawyer and policy consultant and is the chief legal officer of Dot Hip Hop.   Jeff has attended 72 (!) of the 79 ICANN meetings and was in Puerto Rico this month for the latest meeting. On today's show, Jeff shares what happened at the meeting regardin...

Last year the world's most popular YouTuber, Mr. Beast, changed his merch store domain to .store and promoted the switch in a video viewed nearly 200 million times.   On today's show, Radix CEO Sandeep Ramchandani explains how his company worked over many months to strike a deal with Mr. Beast.   We also discuss other influencer and other marketing campaigns Radix has run and how it calculates a r...

Chris Koerner reminds me of a lot of people in the domain business: he has his hands in multiple businesses ranging from tree trimming to cryptocurrency to reselling Buc-ee's goods.   He partners with lots of founders to start businesses, and recently paid $65,000 to acquire cofounders.com to promote this opportunity.   On today's show, Chris talks about why he acquired the domain and what the pro...

This week I interview Helmuts Meskonis, who organizes the Domain Summit conference in London and owns DNForum and AcornDomains.   Helmuts had a bit of a rough relationship with some in the domain name community early on thanks to his association with a controversial person, but I had a chance to chat with him at the Internet Commerce Association meeting last month and learned about some of what he...

Once a year, domain investors Mark Levin and Logan Flatt join me on the show to discuss their sales results from the previous year.   On today's show, you learn how many domains they sold in 2023 compared to 2022, a breakdown of which top level domains they sold, how they are acquiring domain names, and what they are trying differently in 2024 to try to improve their results.   Also: Mar-a-Lago, ....

Most domain investors are passive. They list their domains for sale on marketplaces and put of "for sale" landers and wait for buyers to come to them.   A subset of investors do outbound marketing, contacting businesses that might be interested in buying their domains.   One such investor took this on overdrive recently. Ryan Ewen, founder of DomainManage.com, contacted 25,000 prospects and sold $...

Have you ever typed an email address into a web form and it wasn't accepted because your address ends in a new top level domain? Or noticed that a domain name wasn't linked on social media because the network didn't recognize the top level domain?   These are examples of a lack of Universal Acceptance of all types of domain names. Universal Acceptance means that all valid domains and email address...

2023 is in the books. On today's show, I share my domain sales results from last year including total sales, breakdown by TLD, median prices, length of domains, acquisition strategy, and more. I also share a couple of tactics I'm going to try to boost sales in 2024.   Also: Escrow.com sales, reverse domain name hijacking, and a $300k domain lost in a cybersquatting dispute   Sponsor: Sell your dom...