Domain News
My Thoughts on Vanity TLD’s
Over the past week, the domainer blogosphere has been buzzing about the new vanity TLD’s that are set to show up in the middle of 2009. In case anyone missed it, for roughly $100,000.00, pretty much anyone that qualifies a registry (any company can easily become one) can apply to have their own TLD. These custom TLD’s were quickly coined as vanity TLDs.
I think for most of us, the question is not what this is, but how will this influence not just domainers, but the internet as a whole. Are trademark owners going to need to protect their names by getting their domain for each new TLD that is created? Will domaining cease to exist (at least in its current form)? How will the search engines adapt?
Of course, I don’t have an answer to any of these questions, but I have my theories just like everyone else seems to. In my opinion, dot coms will continue to get a boost in value for anyone trying to establish an online brand. On the other hand, though, this may open up a lot of opportunities for someone looking to build online stores, niche blogs, and other types of sites that simply require a strong keyword domain, not necessarily a dot com domain name.
As far as search engines go, this will also be an interesting thing to monitor. About a year ago, after extensive testing on my part, I noticed that I have a much tougher time getting an info domain to rank than I do an equivalent com/net/org. I truly believe there is a natural penalty on info domains that makes it more difficult to gain Google’s trust, and I would imagine I would get similar results with other search engines. Does this also apply to other TLD’s that are commonly associated with spam? I guess what I’m trying to say, is that search engines will initially let things shake out, but eventually it will deal with the new extensions and I have a feeling they will continue to give a strong favortism towards com/net/org.
What do you think about the vanity TLD’s? How will they influence domainers?
Are .Info the Most Dangerous Domains?
Today while browsing through my feeds I ran across a post over at Yahoo about a report identifying the most dangerous web domains.
Obviously it got my attention right away. After reading it, it looks like McAfee has pegged the most dangerous TLD as the .info domain, with .hk (Hong Kong) and .cn (China) leading the way for the ccTLDs.
Of all “.hk” sites McAfee tested, it flagged 19.2 percent as dangerous or potentially dangerous to visitors; it flagged 11.8 percent of “.cn” sites and 11.7 percent of “.info” sites that way.
A little more than 5 percent of the sites under the “.com” domain — the world’s most popular — were identified as dangerous.
More spammers, malicious code writers and other cybercriminals can establish an online presence when domain name registry businesses cut requirements for registering a site in order to boost their profit and profile. The report doesn’t identify domain name registration companies McAfee believes are responsible for those lapses.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of companies are in the business of registering domain names; some are large and well known, while others are small and less reputable, offering their services on the cheap and with flimsy or no background checks to lure in more customers.
The fact that Internet scam artists gravitate to domain name services with lower fees and fewer requirements isn’t new.
I find this very interesting, but also very unsurprising. My guess would be the low cost involved with registering an info domain is responsible for it being the most used domain for evil purposes. A few weeks ago Google accidentally removed all info domains from their index for about half a day. An accident or a test of some sort? 
Domaining.com To Require Paid Subscription?
So far it looks like very few details have been released, but it looks like before long it will be subscription based. So, how will this affect their readers?
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a big fan of Domaining.com. While they technically aren’t feed scrapers, they don’t do any work. They don’t write content, they don’t do research, they don’t post any original thoughts. They just publish an excerpt of what was already published elsewhere.
As a person that runs a domain blog, I don’t like that it takes away from the need to visit the actual blog. Now they want you to pay them? I think this is a bad move on there part.
Protecting Yourself from Domain Fraud
We’ve all heard the stories about domainers who sell via Paypal, push the domain after receiving payment, then receive a chargeback removing the payment from their account. Despite proof that the transaction went through as agreed, Paypal will not back the seller in these situations because their is no physical merchandise or service involved.
Unfortunately for domainers, this is not your only concern. What about stolen domains? According to Domain Bits, it looks like we’ve found yet another case where I deal was “to good to be true,” and it turns out that was in fact the case. Despite using Escrow.com to complete the transaction, the domains turned out to be stolen and are in the process of being returned to their rightful owner. That is great news for the victim, but terrible news for the person that stands to lose the thousands of dollars spent for the domain names.
The part of Jeff’s post I wanted to mention is at the bottom, where he gives tips to protect yourself from domain fraud:
1. Escrow Isn’t Enough. All escrow does is ensure that the transaction goes through as agreed – the seller gets paid his money and the buyer gets his domain.
2. Research the Domain History. Before purchasing a domain, check the whois history (on DomainTools.com). Be especially suspicious of changes that occurred recently, particularly a change of the administrative email contact. For a larger domain purchase, pick up the telephone and contact the previous owners to verify the pedigree of the domain.
3. Don’t Rush A Transaction. People are likely to notice that their valuable domains are stolen pretty quickly, so a thief want to unload the domain quickly. Be particularly wary of someone who seems to be in a big rush to close a sale.
4. Buy From Reputable Buyers. Research the person you are buying from. Find out more about them, and particularly about any past domain dealings.
5. Too Good to Be True. If the deal is too good to be true, it probably is. When Alexa the Top offered an $XXX,XXX domain for sale at DNF for $X,XXX this raised alarm bells for several members.
6. Keep Your Domains Safe. Make sure your domains are with a registrar that cares about domain security – Moniker and Fabulous are the two that everyone states are good in this regard. Apparently, neither registrar has ever had a domain stolen.
7. Don’t Use Free Email Accounts. Free email accounts should not be used as the contact for your domains. The normal way that a thief gets control of a domain is by getting control of the email account of the administrative contact. Free email accounts are generally easier to hack than ones that you control.
Sadly, even following these steps does not guarantee anything, but it is a great step towards protecting yourself. Great tips Jeff!
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