Artificial Intelligence, AI, continues to be the dominant topic in the business world, and in domain name circles. When I wrote about GPT and Similar Artificial Intelligence Technologies, I ended with speculation on how AI might transform domain name investing. In this article, I survey some of the AI-powered tools that are currently...

Welcome to a fresh round of Top Topics here at NamePros! Free "for sale" landers at NamePros launched on April 1st; Are minisites dead? Afternic shared useless sales graph on 2022 domain sales; Dan canceled sale after buyer took the BIN option; Should you create your own landers or Afternic DNS for sales? Free for-sale landers by NamePros...

Diverse opinions have been expressed, on NamePros and elsewhere, on whether the domain aftermarket has recently dropped. Certainly there are reasons for a possible decline. [*]There is considerable business uncertainty. [*]With inflation rising, the cost for a business or individual to finance premium domains is higher. [*]Governments are...

Happy April with a fresh round of Top Topics here at NamePros! You're not a real domain investor without a few thousand domain names; Which service will become the next Dan.com? OpenAI filed a UDRP against the domain ChatGPT.com; Lessons learned about liquidating domain names; The domain Chat.com was acquired for an insane amount by the...

The most important point in last week's NamePros Blog article Six Years of Domain Name Mistakes was to acquire names that will have multiple potential users who are in a position to pay a solid retail price. Each domain name is unique, and it is not possible to give a definite number of likely end users for any name. That said, there are...

Welcome to a fresh round of Top Topics here at NamePros! A domain investor hasn't scored domain sales for what appears to be a long time; WHOIS privacy did not stop spammers from pitching services; Dan & Afternic integration has a few flaws, according to a domainer; HugeDomains as a pricing reference for your own domain names; Namecheap is...

NamePros is full of tales of mistakes made and mistakes to avoid. Personally, I have made my share of mistakes. This post is about the mistakes I made during the last six years. While I won't cite specific cases, the article is also informed by mistakes that I have read on NamePros. More Than The Perfect Domain For Someone My early months...

Welcome to the latest edition of Top Topics here at NamePros! Reza Sardeha rolls out Anyone.com as a real estate market disruptor; Domainer receives an offer for their oldest domain name; Becoming a domain registrar is inherently expensive; Afternic launches "lead center" as a beta; Epik launched club for domain investors. Dan.com Founder...

When seeking names on the buyer requests section at NamePros, or filtering a list of expiring names for consideration, domain investors often use filters to make the size of the list manageable. For example, they may seek only names with a certain minimum age, maximum length, or minimum GoDaddy appraisal value. In the NamePros Blog analysis...

Welcome to the latest edition of Top Topics here at NamePros! Did MedicalRecordsReview.com really sell for almost $70k or payment failed? Domaining newbies: The train has left the station; Markets will crash up to 50% according to Drew Rosener; Where to get a loan by mortgaging your domains? Uni Market will be shutting down in April...

Recently InternetX and Sedo released the 2023 Global Domain Report. The report provides a wealth of information of interest to domain investors. It includes a detailed analysis of Sedo sales and search data, and premium domain name sales overall. In addition, it looks at registration and hosting data from around the world. The report also...

Welcome to a fresh, weekly edition of Top Topics here at NamePros! A domain investor with domains at One.com is having serious management issues; Will domain names become obsolete in the future? Domainer's own landing pages make him proud; Should you accept an offer from a company's CEO? Domainer GPT - the next frontier in tech? Please help...

Sten Lilliestrom challenged some common assumptions about domain names and brands in the first part of the interview. This week, I ask him questions around the theme of how to create an effective and distinctive brand name. Creating A Great Name Let's focus on how to create a great brand name. Late last year, you wrote "Business naming in...

Welcome to a fresh, weekly edition of Top Topics here at NamePros! The owner of the domain MarketingAgency.com sought feedback about its value; Using SSL for domain parking is a necessity; What are the main issues that domain investors face? Using A records on Dan landerspros and cons; Domains that resold for multiples of their sale on...

I am delighted for the opportunity to interview Sten Lilliestrom, a creative domain name investor interested in the brandable side of domain name investing. Sten, handle @trelgor, has been a NamePros member for more than a decade, and has achieved Top Member status. During 2022 Sten had 173 domain name sales. His lifetime total is now well...

Welcome to a brand new edition of Top Topics here at NamePros. This week: A concerning email from Namecheap points to third party's service infiltration; Dropping competition appears to have increased a lot since the pandemic; Comparing Dan.com and Wix.com as a domain selling platform; A domain investor pours out his heart; The US Government...

With so much interest in artificial intelligence of late, it was suggested by a NamePros member that I should take a look at the .ai domain extension. While it is almost certainly true that .com is the dominant extension for large, established artificial intelligence companies, .ai has found traction too, particularly among some AI startups...

Welcome to a fresh edition of Top Topics here at NamePros. This week: Former domain owner insults the seller who made an outbound pitch; GoDaddy to lay off 8% of its global workforce; Google rolls out Bard in response to ChatGPT; Should you attempt to sell a better domain to a company than the one they use currently? Do domains with lots of...

Since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT-3 in late November 2022, it seems everyone is talking about ChatGPT. Earlier in the NamePros Blog, I 'interviewed' ChatGPT on domain topics. I think most will agree that ChatGPT did an impressive job on most answers. Many investors are registering domain names in this sector, and a few have already sold. It...

In order to be a successful domain investor, you need plenty of practice or training. You can choose to invest in domain courses, find a good mentor, or role-play with domain investors or family members. Regardless of the type of business that you are planning to get into, there is no shortcut to success. As a domain investor, there is so...

Time flies by when you're buying and selling domain namesWelcome to a fresh edition of Top Topics here at NamePros. What is the best domain lander that you can use at Sedo? Can you be a successful domainer by only hand-registering domain names? Check out the 100 oldest .com's; Is dotDB shutting down or not? Using Escrow.com to sell domain...

Without reported domain name sales, we would all be operating in a blind fashion. This article covers the arguments for and against reporting domain name sales, as well as how to report domain name sales at the main venues. Why Report Domain Name Sales? Over the years there have been many discussions on the reasons to report sales, or not...

Happy end of January and welcome to another edition of Top Topics here at NamePros. The ultra premium domain TXT.com was sold for $300,000 dollars in a brokered deal; Domainers discuss their personal experience of being scammed by an unscrupulous domain broker; Investors using Epik are seeking a solution that'd save it from bankruptcy...

One measure of domain name sales success is the sell-through rate (STR). For your own portfolio, that is simply the number of domain names that sell in a time period, usually one year, divided by the average number of domain names for sale during that period, and expressed as a percentage. For example, if you have an average of 400 domain...

Welcome to another edition of Top Topics here at NamePros. Here's a selection of active discussions for your reading pleasure: Is it an infringement for an app's developer to name it after a domain name they don't own? Why can short domain names sell for thousands of dollars? When a domain is registered in many TLDs can this be used as a...

The last week has seen heated debate following the announcement by GoDaddy/Dan that commissions would be aligned across the Afternic, Dan, GoDaddy and Afternic platforms, resulting in savings for many, not all, sales at Afternic, but higher commissions at Dan. The main NamePros discussion on the topic, started by @MadAboutDomains, now...

Welcome to another edition of Top Topics here at NamePros. Here's a selection of active discussions for your reading pleasure: Help.com was reported as sold by DNJournal, for a whopping $3 million dollars; More trouble at Epik as investors cannot register domains with existing balances; Dofo.com, a lookup tool, will be going out of service...

The question of whether aged domain names have greater value has been discussed in various NamePros threads over the years. Here are a few of the points expressed: [*]Age by itself does not determine the worth of a domain name. [*]In the past, there were fewer domain names registered, and a better selection of available quality names, so it...

Domain investors, welcome to another great Top Topics session here at NamePros: Whois.com mass-canceled .io domain registrations after its price special backfired; Dan.com, a GoDaddy brand, jacked-up fees to 15% and domain investors aren't happy; A cache of premium stolen domain names was revealed, including W3.com; What exactly are premium...

For each of the last four years, I have looked at NameBio reported domain sales in a number of extensions. The data reflects the situation just after the close of the year. While some sales for the year get reported late, by using a consistent procedure from year to year, the trends should not be significantly biased. This report is based on...

Happy New Year, domain investors! Welcome to the first Top Topics session in 2023 here at NamePros: Can you relist domains at GoDaddy immediately after the auction ends? Predictions among domainers for the brand new year; Investors are seeking tech trends and buying the related keywords; What are the legal rights of domain buyers...

The more accurately we can predict the future, the better position we are in as domain investors. With that in mind, I sought views on: How Do You Think 2023 Will Be In Domain Investing? That discussion thread included a poll on overall optimism or pessimism about domain name investment in 2023. In addition, it sought responses (up to 3...

Merry Christmas! Get ready for this week's Top Topics column here at NamePros: MotherDuck.com, a domain sold by Mike Mann, raised $47.5 million dollars as a start-up; Should you keep investing in crypto domains in 2023? What's the value of domains that dropped several times but have search volume? After half a year as a domain investor this...

Here are seven tools not covered previously in the NamePros Blog, at least not as described in this article. For example, these tools can help you find all combinations of a couple of terms in domain names for sale, or find the domain ages for a list of domains in one pass. Domain research tools have been covered several times in the past on...

Is the World Cup 2022 over yet? Get ready for this week's Top Topics column here at NamePros: A business idea that involved the registration of a domain vaporized after the domain was taken soon after; The domain 3377.com was auctioned off for a whopping $113,000 dollars at GoDaddy; The IRS will receive your earnings numbers directly from...

Powerful centralized social media giants have probably not been good for domain investment. Some businesses have opted for social media presences instead of a domain name and website. Those businesses could lose control of their online presence, and demand for quality domain names has been lowered. Decentralized alternatives to the dominant...

Get ready for this week's Top Topics column here at NamePros: Domain expert and author, James Iles, has been scooped up by GoDaddy as domain investor liaison; Investors discuss registrar alternatives to Epik after recent woes; There are plenty of companies with multi-million dollar funding that use .XYZ domains for their projects; The pros...

Artificial intelligence plays critical roles in many sectors and applications. Up to now, AI has probably been under-utilized in much of the domain name world. Over the past week, many domain investors have delighted in posing questions and requests to the newly-released OpenAI ChatGPT system. You ask a question, or pose a request, and some...

Welcome to December & the 2022 Holidays! It's time for this week's Top Topics column here at NamePros: Super domainer Swetha's sales record came under scrutiny and the "shocking" results are in. Epik and its new CEO are trying to make amends but its Escrow services and Masterbucks token are not operating as expected. Which registrar would...

During recent seasonal promotions several registrars offered .tv domain names at the lowest price in many years, perhaps forever. I suspect I was not alone in picking up some names for a trial investment in the extension. That brings up questions such as: [*]Who are typical buyers of .tv domain names? [*]How much are they willing to pay...

Hopefully you're done shopping for the Holidays! About time for this week's Top Topics column here at NamePros: Black Friday deals involving domain services are still ongoing, so find out where to save money. Do you know the path your domain buyers follow to get in touch for a domain? The World Cup in Qatar is an opportunity to spot domain...

There are various domain name books. Some concentrate on branding and company naming, others on the nuts and bolts of domaining as a career. Some books are mainly hype, unrealistically portraying the selling of domain names. This week, the book Accidental Domain Investor was published by long-time domain investor @Elie Eweka. I purchased...

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving? Time for this week's Top Topics here at NamePros: XMX.com, a former crypto brand, was sold for $252,000 dollars at an expired domains auction at GoDaddy. People received messages the .TV Registry deems their domains invalid; in reality it was a glitch. How do you go about buying web sites; some...

What if your domain names would be seen at many different registrars? In addition, when a name sold through any of those registrars, the entire transfer process was automatic. You just wait to be paid. That is the promise of the so-called fast transfer networks. Traditionally there have been two main networks, Afternic Fast Transfer (FT)...

Happy Saturday folkstime for this week's Top Topics here at NamePros: Do marketplaces bundle payments for concurrent sales? Dan and Sedo are compared. Somehow, a company valued at more than $100 million dollars let one of their domain assets expire. How to create logos and other brand images for your domains. Crunchbase companies still...

This week it was announced that @James Iles, is stepping back from his weekly NamePros Blog article to concentrate on other things, including his own domain name information site at JamesNames.com. James has made a huge contribution to the domain name community through his 847 posts on the NamePros Blog. He has kept us informed of major...

It's time for this week's Top Topics here at NamePros. In summary: A drastic tweak of your domain asking prices might produce more sales. Get details about how Sports.gg sold for $96k. Read about how Sedo & Afternic fare in sales performance. The big question: Should you keep investing in Meta domains? Trying something Drastic! When things...

The most successful domain investors have a system. That system may include many elements, but one of the most important is a method for acquiring quality names that businesses will want. As is said, "you make money on the buy." But there are so many names to search. As I write this, the list of deleted .com names this month is more than 2.4...

In this week's Top Topics, we look at two six-figure domain sales, one of which sold at DropCatch after former owner Accenture let the domain expire. Elsewhere, we ask which companies you trust in the domain industry. Reactive.com Sells for $168,450 at DropCatch This week, one of the larger sales at DropCatch closed in the form of...

The domain name system (DNS) has robustly served the Internet well for more than three decades. That is a testament to the expertise and foresightedness of those who developed the concepts and specifications. Now extensions like .com, .net and .org can be used for any type of site, but initially it was proposed that each would have a...