DNF Blog Author News
Do We Really Care About Long-Term Plans?
Rick Schwartz penned a long post today, highlighting his vision for the next 20 years – partnering with interested parties to develop his extensive portfolio of premium domain names. It is a delightful read, as most of Rick’s work is. And it is a very appreciable sentiment – to build slow, build steady, and create long-term value.
But it is a sentiment that will fall on deaf ears, I’m afraid.
63,400 New TLDs
That’s the potential number of new TLDs we could be dealing with if every one of the 1,268 registrants for ICANN’s gTLD program decides to use its 50 TLD application limit.
It’s hyperbole, of course, since almost no registrant will apply for 50 TLDs, and there will also be significant number of applicants for the same TLDs. But it just goes to show the sheer number of TLDs the market could be flooded with within an year should the gTLD program be stretched to its maximum possible limit (plus, it makes a very catchy headline).
Tracking 5L.com Startup Exits Since 2011
5 letter dot coms have been a favorite among domainers seemingly because of their ‘end-user’ potential. I remember seeing the forums flooded with ingenuously concocted 5L dot coms (‘WoWoo.com, Potol.com, and so forth) pushed with the promise of $x,xxx returns for a reg-fee investment.
As I’ve become more involved with the tech-startup scene over the past two years, though, I’ve come to realize that 5L dot coms were as much of a fad among startups as they were among domainers.
Estonia: The Hot Startup Destination You Didn’t Know About
The Silicon Valley and the Silicon Alley – separated by the breadth of the United States, two established names that attract hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs every year. The Silicon Valley, with its roots deep in technology as the home of Google, Apple and countless other startups, is an obvious destination for would-be tech entrepreneurs, as is Silicon Alley (New York), a city of 8M brimming with possibilities.
And yet, it is a tiny country across the Atlantic that is slowly emerging as one of the world’s hottest startup destination.
The Dwindling Returns of SEO
Millions of webmasters across the world woke up on Tuesday to see traffic and revenue crash by 50% or more after Google released its latest update – dubbed ‘Google Penguin’ – on the 24th of April. These were sites that had a clearly outlined SEO strategy: lots of backlinks (many from dubious sources), comprehensive on-page SEO, and keyword optimized content. And yet, they tanked, down 200 places or more in many cases.
If you weren’t pecked by the Penguin, congrats – you are among the lucky few!
But most did. And that is making many question the merits of SEO.
Put simply: is SEO financially feasible anymore? And do the dwindling returns of SEO make it worth dabbling in anymore?
My Picks From Moniker’s Disappointing Spring Auction Line-up
MakeAnOffer.net, PetPal.org, and QMVU.com?
The Moniker ‘Premium’ Spring auction is well-underway, but the line-up leaves a lot to be desired. I’ve noticed a gradual decline in the quality of names being put up for sale at these supposed premium auctions (including Sedo’s Great Domains auctions) – cannibalized, no doubt, by Schilling’s DNS – with stratospherically high reserves and names that make a mockery of the word ‘premium’.
Neustar Q1 2012 Results: Revenue up 37% to $200M, 12% Increase in Domain Names Under Management
Neustar (NYSE: NSR), which runs the global registgry for .biz, and .us TLDs and provides back-end registry solutions for .co, .tel, and .travel domain names, announced its first quarter results for 2012. Revenue is up 37% to $200M for the quarter, with Enterprise Services (which includes the company’s DNS and registry operations) bringing in $39.49M in revenue – a increase of $3M from the same period in 2011.
IE Domain Registry Considering Holding Auction of Two-Letter .ie Domains
Irish domain registry (IEDR) hopes to raise cash for charity by offering two letter .ie domains for sale.
.IE domains have been on something of a roll of late, which registrations topping 175,000, thanks to a 12% increase in domain registrations in the first three months of 2012, compared with the same period in 2011. Ireland is quickly growing as a startup-hub, with Dublin as the center of a thriving entrepreneurial community that has embraced the .ie TLD wholeheartedly.
The Google SEO Over-Optimization Penalty is Here. What Can You do to Save Your Sites from it?
On Tuesday, a new Google algorithm – Panda 3.5 – went live. While the update targets webspam, over-optimized sites haven’t escaped its crosshairs either. The forums are already filled with angry rants from affected parties that have been hit with this ‘over-optimization’ penalty that had been swirling through the rumor mills for months. While I won’t offer any comments on the quality of update and its eventual effects on Google’s SERPs (which, prima facie, are atrociously bad), I will offer advice on how to protect your site from being hit with this penalty now, or in the future.
Advertisers Seek Independent Probe into ICANN Security Breach
ICANN gTLD misadventures invite marketers’ wrath.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has written to the U.S. Department of Commerce, seeking an independent probe into the security breach at ICANN, according to MediaPost.
ANA CEO and president, Bob Liodice, wrote, “the marketing and internet communities are concerned about ICANN’s vulnerability” – a sentiment echoed by domainers and all parties invested in the new TLDs. – in the letter addressed Lawrence Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information at the Department of Commerce.
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