The Domains
thedomains.com · Group blog · on HN since 2010
Domain name industry news site covering registrars like GoDaddy and Verisign, big domain sales, and registry policy.
What HN saysHN commenters cite it as a leading source of domain market news, and link it for reports on corporate domain purchases like Salesforce's Site.com.
47HN people shared it
16linked it in comments
42stories submitted
966story points
3 years agolast shared
2010people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign3 people · 201 points · first shared 2014 · 70 comments on HN
- 22 Days Loss From Transfers Out Of Godaddy.com: 37,0002 people · 76 points · first shared 2011 · 29 comments on HN
- 3SalesForce Acquires Another Great Domain and Launches Site.com2 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 4Here is Godaddy’s statement in support of SOPA1 people · 364 points · first shared 2011 · 89 comments on HN
- 5German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website1 people · 91 points · first shared 2014 · 53 comments on HN
- 6AR15.com Booted from GoDaddy1 people · 82 points · first shared 2021 · 60 comments on HN
- 7Name.com Tells Customers To Change Password Due To Breach1 people · 72 points · first shared 2013 · 49 comments on HN
- 8Did Google Just Buy Chrome.com?1 people · 13 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 9Gab.com Lands at Uniregistry1 people · 12 points · first shared 2018 · 2 comments on HN
- 10Why Google Wants to Give You 101 Alternatives to .Com1 people · 4 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 11Court Awards Trademark Holder Damages Against Advertiser On Google Keywords1 people · 4 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 12Domain Theft Hits Startup & Forces Them Into a Name Change1 people · 4 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Elon Musk talks about the 10 years and $10M to get Tesla.com1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 14The Internet of Things to Become the Biggest Trend Yet1 people · 3 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 15The Brext Oxley domain lockdown turning into PR nightmare for GoDaddy1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
srom · 2013-08-05
Salesforce did.
http://www.thedomains.com/2012/03/15/salesforce-acquires-another-great…
tucson · 2011-11-09
Mostly agree with your input.
Though "Absolutely no domainer takes estibot seriously" is a bit of an exaggeration, I think.
Estibot is regularly mentioned on TheDomains.com (widely seen as the authority on domain name market news).
Mentioned here for example: http://www.thedomains.com/2008/05/11/using-estibotcom-what-are-the-bes…
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/11/03/ira-com-sells-for-seven-figures/
Of course it's an automated tool and is not perfect. But it can be used as a reference point.
fbnt · 2011-06-20
So yep, I'm not too concerned about this. ICANN aren't a great organisation, and they seem to mainly bring out new TLDs to get more money.
ICANN is a non-profit whom CEO gets ~1M/year. Executives earn a bonus of more than 50% of their base salaries if specific goals are reached, such as adding a new gTLD.
Source: http://www.thedomains.com/2010/02/11/nonprofit-icann-releases-salaries…
I really hope this top-level domain thing isn't going anywhere.
b00m · 2012-08-11
The policy used to arbitrate domain name disputes (UDRP or Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) dictates that building a company on a site like bufferapp.com doesn't give that company the right to the corresponding .com. (buffer.com) Attempting to sue to get the name is called "reverse domain name hijacking" and the arbitration committee is very very skeptical of those types of request.
Case in point: http://www.thedomains.com/2012/06/16/rick-schwartz-wins-the-udrp-on-sa…
That being said, the price of the .com will track the perceived value of your company. It would be an awful waste to have to use a significant percentage of some round of funding to buy a domain name. Also, it seems like a significant percentage of your type-in traffic would be lost to the buffer.com. Even 10% of your type in traffic is probably worth the $xx,xxx you will pay for a decent .com name.
The arguments against paying for a decent .com seem weak.
madars · 2023-07-24
One can only speculate as there are only two other single-letter .com's (q.com and z.com) and there won't be others [1] . Wiki article says "GMO Internet, Inc. purchased Z.com for nearly $6.8 million from Nissan, who previously used it for the Nissan Z series cars." [2] For comparison, asking price for b.org or r.org are $500k but .org's typically command less than .com's.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain
[2] https://www.thedomains.com/2014/11/21/z-com-sold-for-6-8-million-dolla…
Dracophoenix · 2022-03-04
I became skeptical of NameSilo when I read about this: https://www.thedomains.com/2020/06/03/namesilo-has-taken-control-of-br…
briandh · 2016-06-09
Cruz and other Republicans have been raising concerns over this matter for over two years now [1]. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Sanders.
[1] http://www.thedomains.com/2014/04/02/35-senators-demand-answers-on-nti…
baddox · 2015-04-01
In case you're wondering, yes, there are custom TLDs now. They're called gTLDs.
http://www.thedomains.com/2012/06/13/google-applies-for-101-new-gtlds-…
anigbrowl · 2014-10-04
Better to submit the original article, per HN guidelines. There's a lot of useful info in the comments: http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-taken-away-by-…
makecheck · 2011-12-24
Go straight to the source[1], this post has made several convenient omissions.
According to The Domains, yes GoDaddy lost about 21,000 domains but they also gained roughly the same number of domains from other registrars on that day (and that trend held for other days this week where they "lost"). In other words, they don't have any significantly fewer customers today than they did a few days ago.
[1] http://www.thedomains.com/2011/12/24/2-days-loss-from-transfers-out-of…
terrellm · 2011-08-29
This domain sounded familiar and I see where it recently sold for $115,000 to an "non-profit startup".
The seller shared his story in the comments at http://www.thedomains.com/2011/06/30/domain-investor-brian-wick-sells-… (scroll down to July 25). It's interesting to see that while the buyers claimed to be a "math educational non-profit startup", the seller was skeptical of the story.
jcc80 · 2011-08-06
Is this a first year philosophy class? Reminds me of kids in law school. Ad hom this, straw man that...pointless discussion. We can all go look up the definitions if we want & decide for ourselves. Let it go & discussion the actual issue.
Fact is having a second means to communicate (a .me or whatever address) doesn't mean speech isn't an issue here.
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/08/05/federal-court-rules-domain-seizur…
dangrossman · 2011-07-25
Yes you are. A court in Italy found several Google executives, that had never stepped foot in the country, personally criminally liable for a Google Video video that violated Italian law. Those execs wouldn't want to travel to Italy while that ruling stood, if it doesn't still. http://www.thedomains.com/2010/02/24/italy-finds-3-google-execs-guilty…
cletus · 2010-10-20
Amateurish? No. The current fad? Sure.
What should be of far more concern is the risk that startups are taking with these TLDs. Example:
http://www.thedomains.com/2010/10/08/days-after-vb-ly-was-seized-by-th…
.com domains are more expensive but are far less risky.
PhantomGremlin · 2015-12-18
Someone is in VRSN pocket
This has been under-discussed in this thread. But looking to "government" (nee ICANN, nee Dept of Commerce) for help is not the answer, rather it's more the problem.
A while ago we had this headline about a no-bid contract awarded to Verisign. I don't know about recent developments, but a while ago this was an ongoing thing.[1]
Appeals Court Reverses & Allows Suit
Against Verisign To Go To Trial:
This Is A BIG Deal
You can bet there are people getting rich off of this. E.g.:[2]
Under the current contract, which expires Friday,
VeriSign was guaranteed four price increases
of up to 7 percent each on domain name registrations
There's chutzpah for you. Verisign was demanding more price increases to run infrastructure that has historically had crazy price deflation associated with it.
[1] http://www.thedomains.com/2009/06/05/appeals-court-reverses-allows-sui…
[2] http://www.nwherald.com/mobile/article.xml/articles/2012/11/30/r_kfsc3…
Isofarro · 2014-07-12
Which it acquired itself in February 2014: http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/genius-and-loop…
Interesting timing. I would not be surprised if the May launch of genius.com was just something hacked together over a weekend and launched just to push the domain price up.
There isn't much talk about genius.com around the May launch (apart from a bit of press-release marketing). And the focus in acquisition in February leads with LeadRocket, tacking on the brand Genius as an afterthought.
The domain details of genius.com was only switched to CallidusCloud's details in June: http://www.thedomains.com/2014/07/11/rapgenius-com-upgrades-rebrand-to… -- 4 months after acquiring the domain.
Interesting set of coincidences. I wonder when Callidus software knew of RapGenius' interest in the genius.com domain. And their original intentions for it when they acquired it in February.