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Thoughts on NameBright?

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Saw a nice post on DNW about namebright and now the bright orange banners here on namepros. Does anyone have any firsthand experience with them?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I have experience with the platform. But I am a biased user given I work for the TurnCommerce and put a lot of work into the development of it...

You won't find too many people to review the platform yet as the platform just re-launched late yesterday. But I am more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Even more field suggestions or take input.
 
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Can't find renewal pricing anywhere. Is it the same as registrations/transfers?
 
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Renewals are the same price ... almost always. We are going to be clarifying that on the site tomorrow. The cost to register / transfer / renew are the exact same price for most extensions. Definitely the same price for .com, .net, .org, .info, etc.

Most of the extensions that have different pricing between register / transfer / renew are lesser used country code TLDs like .AF, .GS, .PE, etc. If you stick to the common TLDs the prices should be the same.
 
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https://www.namebright.com/Pricing Here's their price list - Looks like there are a few new registrars cropping up with very competitive pricing, they don't appear to accept PayPal yet I imagine that might not be too long down the road.
 
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Yes, we are looking into Paypal right now. I don't think it will be too difficult to get that built in.
 
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I transferred an expiring name from godaddy to namebright as a test. I am really impressed with the namebright platform. It's seamless and easy to navigate. I would rank it up there with the top registrar panels for sure. The only issue I had was an error with the domain name and auth code on the initial transfer. Once I ran the transfer without the code, it was fine. It was easy to update the auth code afterwards. The transfer was complete in less than 15 minutes or so.

I also like the two-factor authentication option. I use it with my godaddy and name.com accounts, so that's definitely a plus. I haven't used the domain casing option, but that certainly looks intriguing. I would definitely consider moving some domains to namebright. It would be nice though to learn more about the company - stability, trust, etc. - from domainers here at namepros.
 
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Yes, we are looking into Paypal right now. I don't think it will be too difficult to get that built in.

Great to hear, will be looking in to giving you a try when you do.
 
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Rebies, will namebright be offering backorder services as well? do you know if namebright has a pre-release agreement with any auction houses yet, for expired domains. thanks
 
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:talk:

i see the "icann accredited registrar" logo on your site, but "namebright.com" is not listed on current icann list.

are you under an umbrella or is accreditation pending?

Thanks

imo...
 
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agentscarn - thanks for the great review! If you find any issues or anything confusing let us know! We are all about making the experience as easy as possible so domainers can be more efficient. We have all sorts of tools we did not have time to get into the initial launch but will be putting in as we get the time. And we are all about hearing suggestions for what you want to make this platform the best.

Rich - I will hint you might be onto something. But we don't want to get into exact details at this point. And no, we don't have any agreements with auction houses for expired domains.

---------- Post added at 01:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 PM ----------

Biggie - we are accredited. Right now it is "TurnCommerce, Inc. DBA NameBright.com", we have been meaning to move this over to just be NameBright.com. (IANA ID is 1441)
 
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Any chance Namebright will offer whois privacy for free all the time, and not just on the first year?

Namesilo has default whois privacy for free all the time. And their domains are just 8.99. Namebright has domains for 8.53, cheaper but add 2.95 for privacy and it totals 11.48. That's 2.49 more expensive. If i got 20 domains, i would be paying almost 50 bucks more per year extra cost.
 
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another great way for reberry to get expired domains :)
 
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another great way for reberry to get expired domains :)

If ya wanna get expired names on the cheap start a registrar. If ya wanna buy domains that make parking income start a parking company and anonymously buy all your customers income producing domains. :bingo:
 
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alien51 - I was unaware that NameSilo was offering privacy protection for free. We will have to see what the overall consensus is with privacy protection at $2.95. I do see your point though, with more domains privacy protection does become more prohibitive. A few months ago we discussed a low pricing option for privacy protection on a category basis - with 20 domains or 2000 domains for the same price. There was a technical complexity that made us put this on the shelf before launch. We might consider that again though as you have a valid point.

Jasonn - expiring domain names is not the intention in building NameBright. We built a great piece of software that I am EXTREMELY proud of. This has been a very large project over the last few years and I want to share the tools we have access to ourselves with domainers, to help them be more successful. I believe that bringing domainers in eventually brings in more end users. Domainers sell domains, push them to the buyers and that becomes a driving force for our registrar and creates growth.
 
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@rebies well it is a valid point Jasonn makes and what you posted maybe true but that does not make the two things mutually exclusive. Maybe you built a great piece of software to share to act as Trojan horse that leads to getting expired names on the cheap. I am not knocking you, this is business, not a public service and no one in domaining is saving the world.

I would say do what Fabulous and Above do, the two Australian companies share their profits with the former owner, so Fabulous has a deal that their inventory goes to NameJet and the former registrant shares in the auction proceeds if someone bids.

---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 PM ----------

What is the Expiring Domains Service?

The Expiring Domains Service is a service offered in partnership with Namejet - a domain name aftermarket auction company that consolidates an exclusive inventory of expired and deleted domains from top domain name registrars and makes them available for auction.

NameJet provides solutions for customers who are attempting to acquire the domain name registration rights to expiring domains or domains that have not been registered again by their current registrant.

Some quick details about the program:

This is an opt in service and only available to those domains registered at Fabulous.com
Customers must agree to the Expiring Domain Sales Agreement
You will receive 60% of the final sales price (minus the renewal fee) for all domain names sold through this service
It is a requirement for you to agree to the Domain Inventory Management Agreement, however you are not required to list any names for sale
All expiring domain names in your account will automatically be listed for sale at NameJet, except for the domain names you have marked as "Never Sell".
The minimum sale price is US$69.00
Domain names can still be renewed for the first 30 days after the expiry date however after this date it may not be possible for you to retain ownership of any expired domain names in your account if you have opted in to this service
 
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equity78 - I understand your point. As I said previously, this is not about picking up expiring domains. It is about the bigger picture. It is about growing from domainer to registrar, and now becoming a service provider. Expanding our business to new areas, and taking all the tools we have built in the last decade for ourselves and making them available to the domain community. The "at cost pricing" is because we know this is a truly competitive arena. Just like a new anti-virus company the only way to break your way in is to lose money for a long time to build a brand people can associate with. I admit - this is not an easy task. And why our software and pricing simply had to be better than everyone else's.

To appease you - I will say - is there opportunity in expiring domains? There could be. It seems to be a part of every registrar out there. But that truly is not in my mind at all. Because expiring domains don't become something we have to work through for a year from now. Right now getting the registrar totally built has been the priority. We have not even discussed partnering with auction houses or anything like that right now. Needless to say - every registrar does something with expired domains. I will give you that.

I understand this comes down to trust and history. NameBright.com has been ICANN accredited since 2009 and has thousands of happy customers. And you won't find a sole in the domain community that we have crossed in over a decade of doing business as a company. I put my name (Andrew Reberry) behind this and behind NameBright.com. If you are happy with your current registrar that is great! If you want a change, maybe better pricing and defiantly better tools to support you... We are a new registrar in town and here to stay.
 
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Can you host your own dns for free like with namecheap? Ex: ns1.dn44.com (my domain) instead hof ns1.godaddy.com ?
 
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Andrew my post was not negative toward you making money with expired domains. I will be honest with you I want everyone I do business with making money. It actually is scarier dealing with a company that says they are not going to make money for a long time. That's how services shut down XtraNormal.com for example. In commercial transactions its always good that everyone is making money, not gouging, cheating or scamming, but everyone making money benefits everyone in the long run.
 
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dotbay - yes we do that for free. We will even do the DNS hosting for you on your "custom nameservers" so you don't have to fire up an instance of BIND on 10 servers to work for you. To do that takes one extra step that was confusing for end users so we stripped out towards the end. But I can tell you exactly how to get it done if you want. That costs us nothing and is really easy to configure.
 
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Well, Namebright or not, Reberry always gets the expired domains anyway. (pun intended)

But seriously, a Registrar built by a Domainer for domainers, well you should know what you are getting into when you and your Registrar, are thinking the same thing.

On the bad side, you can have fears that he can capture expiring domains much easily. Me, i would be more concerned about doing whois research. The fears are there, because it's an adversary, But you are regging "your" domains there for the benefits and advantages.

On the good side, they are well aware that we Domainers are cheapos. That is why we hang out at the Godaddy thread all day long. So i hope they try to beat the competition, because they know we are sensitive to pricing.

If they want to make money, maybe they would want to run an escrow service like what Moniker used to do before it went downhill. If they are true Domainers, they probably would understand our common issue regarding escrow deals that go sour (buyers who backout of deals, etc.) in places like Sedo, Godaddy, or even Escrow.com. if they can fix that, then maybe they can charge extra for covering our backs in domaining deals.
 
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equity78 - I understood that. I was just addressing the points you brought up. I did not take any offense to your postings.

I want people to be fully aware of who we are, what we do, and know that I am not shying away from criticism.

Also, don't get caught up in my mentioning loosing money part of it. If it was some small time registrar that might be scary. But we are in the top 15 "registrar families" in the world when you consider the 51 sister registrars we have access to and over 1,000,000 domains under management. That makes us big - one of the top 15 registrars. So losing a little money to gain customers is just a marketing expense for us. We have carefully planned that out and know what we are doing on that end...

---------- Post added at 12:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 AM ----------

Alien51 – It sounds like your concerns are if you do availability checks and whois checks and our company sees those?

My answer: not my company – not in a million years. That is shady and it is something we have zero interest in doing. As a registrar I want to work 100% for the customer.

You also pointed out sour sales deals… We have tools that will keep you happy and safe. “Linked Accounts” Simply find a buyer, sign a contract with that buyer and that contract says he will pay you in 6 months. You then give him linked account access to one domain (the domain you are selling) and give him all permissions except to unlock, transfer out, delete or push the domain. So the domain remains "secure". During this contract you have 100% full control over the domain, but the buyer does not have "full" control". If the sale does not complete, you remove his linked account access and the domain is yours again. If pending the legal contract goes full through - you can now transfer the domain to him. Best part is you don't have to deal with credit cards and 60 to 90 day chargebacks!

These are just some NameBright can be better for domainers. And a lot more features coming that we could not fit into the initial launch.
 
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You also pointed out sour sales deals… We have tools that will keep you happy and safe. “Linked Accounts” Simply find a buyer, sign a contract with that buyer and that contract says he will pay you in 6 months. You then give him linked account access to one domain (the domain you are selling) and give him all permissions except to unlock, transfer out, delete or push the domain. So the domain remains "secure". During this contract you have 100% full control over the domain, but the buyer does not have "full" control". If the sale does not complete, you remove his linked account access and the domain is yours again. If pending the legal contract goes full through - you can now transfer the domain to him. Best part is you don't have to deal with credit cards and 60 to 90 day chargebacks!
Nice touch.

Will you have the same protection for buyers? Against shady domainers who may abuse this feature, get the money but cut the linked account? Is there a way for you to verify that monies have indeed changed hands?

I also buy domains a lot, because i'm in the end-user business as well.
 
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Jasonn - expiring domain names is not the intention in building NameBright. We built a great piece of software that I am EXTREMELY proud of. This has been a very large project over the last few years and I want to share the tools we have access to ourselves with domainers, to help them be more successful. I believe that bringing domainers in eventually brings in more end users. Domainers sell domains, push them to the buyers and that becomes a driving force for our registrar and creates growth.
I'm sure you can understand that when people hear your name, they think expired domains since those who work the drops see your name every day. I must say I am quite impressed and envious of what you have achieved and how far you've come since i first noticed you getting a number of names in 2009 however in the process you've made it next to impossible for the average domainer to get a half decent expired domain without going though snapnames, namejet ect. and even then you beat them out sometimes. Like equity said, its all business and of course you can't be faulted for being successful. I think you can understand why people might think namebright could be used as another avenue for expired domains though since you are the king of the drops these days.
 
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