It’s a real problem, and it has been growing over time – the sale of unsafe or illegal drugs online by rogue online pharmacies. Consumers are searching for ways to buy drugs online every day. Unregulated online pharmacies are selling fake and potentially dangerous drugs to people who don’t know any better…and the crazy thing is, 44% of the domain names registered for these rogue pharmacies are at Bahamian registrar Internet.bs. According to a recent article in The Register:

“Internet.bs was found by a LegitScript investigation to be the registrar of choice for 44 per cent of “rogue” pharmacies listed by the NABP.

Following an undercover operation, LegitScript alleged that it was able to register and use domain names such as cure-your-cancer.co.uk and legitimate-uk-pharmacy.co.uk even after informing Internet.bs executives explicitly that it planned to sell counterfeit drugs.” (The Register)

Of course there are two sides to any story and Internet.bs has claimed that they are not breaking any laws, which might be true, but does that still make it right? I guess at the end of the day businesses need to make money, I personally would not feel good about making money off of something that could actually hurt other people, no matter how legal it is. In response to the investigation, Internet.bs CEO Marco Rinaudo,

“Internet.bs Corp is always making it clear that the domain name has to comply with applicable laws. The fact that a Canadian pharmacy domain is not subject to FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] regulations is a clear example.” (The Register)

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has announced that they will be filing for .Pharmacy as a major move towards cleaning up this space. They are going after rogue pharmacies and the registrars and hosting companies who let them run their businesses.

The .Pharmacy TLD would only be available for registration by fully-licensed, legitimate pharmacies and ongoing compliance would be a requirement. Consumers could then instantly know which brands to trust when buying drugs online.

This is where a new gTLD really makes sense to me. Remember, we’re talking about people buying medications online, getting the wrong medication or the wrong dose could be a matter of life and death. Adding regulatory procedures to the TLD application process is one of the best ways to help consumers feel comfortable doing business with a brand. Heck, if I knew that anything ending in .Pharmacy was definitely a real licensed Pharmacy, I’d trust that more than a .COM.

Of course I’m not saying that new gTLDs will hurt .COM, I think they will buoy .COM prices and the industry as a whole. What I am saying is that I think this is a great example of something very good coming-out of a new gTLD. With so many new gTLDs coming-out many will fail to capture an audience, .Pharmacy is one that I think may have a bright future, but only time will tell.

Okay, that’s enough from me now, what do you think? Comment and let your voice be heard!

(Photo Credit)

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about new TLDs and found the writer to be missing the mark a bit. The article was talking about whether new TLDs would be good for small businesses and the writer gave his pitch in favor of more choices. However, in doing this he made an example that makes me wonder if he lives in a world where .COM was the only TLD created? Here’s what he says,

“Let’s start with choice. Right now, there are more than 100 million “.com” domain names. That means it’s likely that the ideal name for a small business is already taken. I know my name, www.kevinwilson.com, is already taken by a real-estate agent in Denver. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but he’s not me.

As things stand, I have to come up with a “.com” name that’s confusing for me and my customers, something like kwilson1437.com. With a new TLD, I can choose a name ideal for me and my customers without having to force something available to work—for instance, www.kevinwilson.cfo.” (Wall Street Journal)

What I find strange about this example is the fact that anyone would choose some random .COM with numbers in it just because their exact-match name is taken. Most small businesses don’t just add a bunch of numbers to their name and slap a .COM on the end, they go for a .NET, a .ORG, a .CO, a .ME, or any of the other great TLDs out there.

Why would Kevin Wilson not go after his full name but just in another TLD? Is he living in a world where there really are no other TLDs than .COM so the only option is to pick a name like kwilson1437.com? Why not KevinWilson.net, or KevinWilson.co? Those are both incredibly easy to remember!

The article goes on to say,

“Critics argue that all the new possibilities will cause confusion. What’s wrong with confusion? Having to choose one toothpaste is less confusing, but is it better?”

What does he mean having to choose one toothpaste is less confusing? There are sooooo many different TLDs out there. It’s not like consumers can only pick .COM and now they’ll have more options. Consumers can already choose from a huge number of TLDs, there are probably ten time more TLDs than there are toothpaste companies…so in fact there are even more choices. Using the example of only picking one toothpaste really doesn’t make any sense…unless we were living in a world where there was only .COM.

I think this just goes to show how little the mainstream media (or average consumer) understands domain names. I understand both sides of this issue, those in favor of, and those against, the new TLDs. No problems there, but this argument just doesn’t make sense. Saying new gTLDs are good because before businesses could only choose .COM and now they can choose from more than one TLD just isn’t true.

Sorry WSJ, I’m a big fan, have been reading for years…but this just didn’t make sense to me. Consumers have the choice between a huge selection of TLDs, small businesses can brand with .com, .net, .org, .co, .me, .us, .tv, .eu, .asia, .biz, and the list goes on. There are tons of choices, new TLDs just means adding even more choices. The question the article should be answer is not whether it makes sense to go from one option to multiple, but whether it makes sense to go from hundreds of options to thousands.

Yesterday Escrow.com and DomainTools announced a new partnership that dramatically improves the domain escrow process. Using the DomainTools API, Escrow.com now has full access to WHOIS information making it possibly to verify a transfer faster than ever before.

So that’s the story, why should this matter to you, or why does it matter to me?

I use Escrow.com for any of my sales over $1,000. It is absolutely the most secure way to buy and sell domain names and in the case of end-user sales it adds a nice sense of safety to the buyer. Now that Escrow.com has access to the DomainTools data they can completely automate the verification process making it lightning fast.

Fast is good. If you are selling a domain, don’t you want your money as quickly as possible? Also, as the Buyer, don’t you want your money to be safe and secure until you have taken possession of the domain? It’s a win for both sides of the equation and both companies here.

This impacts you as a Domainer because it means you can now have quicker, even more secure transactions. I am also always a fan of taking something that is done manually, and automating it. Manual means that human error can be a factor, automated means that it is done perfectly, ever single time. No offense to humans of course, I’m an engineer though so I learned a while ago that computers always win!

Congratulations to both Escrow.com and DomainTools – this really is a win-win-win, Domainers win, end-users win, and these two companies win! Please feel free to comment with any questions or comments you have about the partnership or the domain escrow process!

Appraiso has now been out for a little over a week and are adding two more servers this week so things are scaling, and quickly! We had over three hundred people register and try Appraiso themselves last week and got to see the system in action with users all over the world appraising websites.

One of the most common questions we are getting from users is, “Does Appraiso work with Parked Domains?”

The answer is, yes! Appraiso can tell if there is a website on the domain name and adjusts its appraisal based on this information. We have tuned the algorithm for both websites and parked domains so you can absolutely use this to evaluated both developed and undeveloped domains.

We had ten new users sign-up yesterday and with an exciting announcement right around the corner we are just pinching ourselves now, wow! It’s also a good feeling to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, build a company with Daina. We were just talking about it last night, it’s awesome to both be so passionate about something that we can share together.

While we both know this is only the beginning of the adventure, we’re ready and exciting to be doing it together. Tonight we’re having a UI/UX design session and consulting with some pro UI/UX people that are going to help make Appraiso v2 look incredible. That’s right, it never ends, we have five versions to roll-out this year, get ready for even more Appraiso!

Following trends is something that many Domainers do, and while in many cases you can end-up buying a bunch of junk, just like mining for gold, sometimes you get lucky. Trend Domaining isn’t a major part of my personal strategies but I have had my share of trend Domain flips enough to know that there is opportunity if you get a trend early.

Back in 2008 I was able to do very well with the huge amount of traffic around the government Stimulus Check. In Q4 of last year I sold NearfieldCommunications.org, a domain I had hand-registered and a trend I still think is hot. My point is, don’t base your whole business on trend domains, but there’s nothing wrong with investing in them…if you can get the right name.

Of course with every keyword there are a zillion terrible domain combinations that can be made. If you’re going after a trend you really have to be in early enough to get one of the good domains within the space. If you find yourself buying more than ten domains you’re probably already going too far.

Okay, now that I’ve said all of that, let me tell you five trends that I think Domainers will be rallying around this year:

• Cloud – this trend is still in and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, nothing replacing the cloud, it’s just getting more well-known!
• Nearfield Communications (NFC) – I picked this trend last year and still think this is a trend that is in its infancy, lots of room for growth here.
• HD Tablets – it seems like HD Tablets are going to be the next new craze layered on top of the existing tablet craze.
• Elections – election domains could get hot and then very cold very quickly, I’d stay away from this trend plus most of the election names, including all of those with “2012″ in them have been gone for quite a while now.
• App – there’s an app for just about everything and that means that Domainers have gone nuts buying names with the word App before or after another word. While apps are a trend you’re really playing the lottery with this one, still that being said, like any trend domain, you could get lucky and find someone who really wants your app name…but something tells me you’ll be trying to unload the whole portfolio a year or two from now.

These are the trends that I think Domainers will rally around, but what the heck do I know? Let me know if you agree that the trends above will be hot in the Domaining community or share your own. As always comment and let your voice be heard!

(Photo Credit)

Last week I wrote about the journey of our startup from an idea to a real live product on the Internet. Last week was absolutely insane, exhilarating, and amazing all at once. With the announcement of Appraiso I also held a give-away open to all of my readers and social media followers.

Well today I’m happy to announce the winners of that contest, Cate from Cate.tv and Big Ticket Names! This weekend we selected all the contestants names at random and we’re happy to tell you that you won! The shirts that are being given-out are a limited edition, we only made 100 and we don’t have many left. We made a decision as a company to never make this exact shirt again so it can really be a limited edition and something special to us and those of you who have supported us here in the very beginning.

You can see Daina and I wearing our Appraiso T-Shirts in Santa Monica the night of our launch. So why are these limited edition? Outside of the fact that we decided not to make this exact shirt again, we are going to make a small change to the logo. This means that there really will be no shirt with this logo on it ever made, ever again. It’s special to us and I am very excited to share some of our very last shirts with Cate and Big Ticket Names!

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If you haven’t tried Appraiso yet, give it a shot, you get one free appraisal per day and plans start at only $10/month. We are already helping people close bigger sales and spot scams on sites like Flippa and eBay!

Well today I’ve finally made the decision to throw in the towel after years with Moniker. Over the weekend I registered a domain at Moniker and when trying to adjust the DNS settings found a major bug in their system. In the end, something that I can do in five seconds on Go Daddy or any other registrar actually just failed on Moniker and created weird duplicate entries.

Normally, when I hit a speed bump I call the company. With Go Daddy I have an account manager but even before that I would always get in touch with someone almost instantly. Same is true for Hostgator. With Moniker I called support this morning, sat on hold for about ten minutes and then was told to leave a message and that someone would get back to me within 24-hours.

This for me is where I have to throw in the towel. Not only is the system buggy and producing errors, but when I try to call to get help with it, I end-up with a voicemail and no clear way of knowing when I’ll hear back. So it is with a bit of sadness that I bid farewell to Moniker, a service that had great potential, but has clearly fallen very short of being something Domainers can comfortably use.

I will be moving all my names from Moniker to Go Daddy which has been my favorite registrar for years. I know some people have some strong negative feelings towards Go Daddy but if you are a VIP with them and have an account manager it’s honestly a great experience.

So farewell Moniker, it’s been a wild ride over the last few years, and I think I held-out longer than most giving the service a fair chance. As a Domainer we often need to fix mission-critical things on the registrar level and if it takes up to 24-hours to fix, that is a very big deal.

As always I’d love to hear from you, good or bad, comment and let your voice be heard!

I could not be more excited to announce a new software company that has been going non-stop for over a year now and finally becomes available to the public today! Over a year ago Daina (my fiancé) and I put our heads-together to find a better solution for evaluating the price of a developed domain.

We had used tons of different tools online but none took-into account the business metrics, past sales values, and market conditions. They all just made some random calculation, usually based on Alexa data. With Flippa doing tens of millions of dollars a year in website sales there was a real market here, but no way for people to accurately assess the value of their sites.

Initially we thought it would take the two of us six-months to build, a few months in we realized this was a much bigger project, in fact this really was a real company and we needed to bring-on a third person. We added one of the most talented developers on the planet who is an expert at dealing with all the complexities of building a platform like ours. He has extensive experience building some of the most robust scalable platforms out there so was a natural fit.

We followed the Lean Startup principles and didn’t build anything until we surveyed our customers and understood the market. Focusing on customer development since the beginning has been critical for us. From determining if there is a need for our solution to finding the right pricing models, real people have been giving feedback every step of the way.

So what makes Appraiso special and why did it take over a year to build?

Both Daina and myself studied engineering in University and have extensive experience designing algorithms. In particular, Daina has experience with large data-set analysis and mathematical modeling through your years pursuing research at the University of Toronto, Harvard, MIT and now UCLA. This background makes her an incredible fit for this project. When you’re building an appraisal system you need to have firm data and mathematical models behind what you do.

It took the two of us three months committing twenty hours a week to get the first rev of the algorithm done. I’ll be honest when I say that most of the algorithm is Daina, she is the real brains behind Appraiso, or literally, Appraiso’s brain. We continued to test our algorithm looking at real live sales and tuning it, constantly re-evaluating and perfecting.

By the summer we had finished the appraisal algorithm and were ready to start building the API, which we wanted to have available at the same time as the public release. Companies often wait a year or sometimes 3-4 before releasing an API, we felt that integrating this into other platforms would be incredibly valuable out of the gate. It took more time, added a lot of complexity (building an API isn’t easy), but we felt it was the right thing to do.

In one of our surveys we also saw some interesting data – while website investors definitely wanted an appraisal tool, they were very concerned about scams. What if our tool appraised a website at $5,000 and the data given turned-out to be a scam?

Once again we decided if we were going to build this platform, let’s do it right and take the time. The scam detection system took another six-months to build and perfect, and much like the API, wasn’t necessary for version one, but was something we felt would really appeal to our users, so we built it.

We’ve spent literally thousands of hours, pulling all-nighters, driving back-and-forth to Santa Barbara, and enjoying our favorite Thai Food in the middle of an intense planning session. It’s been an incredible journey and we know that we are still at the very beginning!

What is Appraiso’s connection to Estibot?

I have been using Estibot for years and think it is absolutely the best tool for appraising domain names. When we built Appraiso we knew it was meant just for websites and that is where we put our focus, we also knew there was a great solution for domain evaluation already out there.

So we forged a partnership with Estibot and provide their domain value along with our website value so you can see the aggregate value of your online property. This means you can view the value of your domain, the value of your website, and the combined value all in one place.

When the most trusted name in domain appraisals gets together with the most trusted name in website appraisals it really is a match made in heaven!

So why use Appraiso?

Appraiso is intended for two types of people; people who buy websites (or revenue generating domains), and people who sell websites (or revenue generating domains). I will go through the advantages for each of these customers based on the pain points real buyers and sellers expressed to us:

• Website/Domain Buyers – people who buy websites have nowhere to go to get a real estimate for how much a website is worth. Is a seller pricing their website ridiculously high or is it underpriced and a great deal? On top of that they don’t want to get scammed so would love someone to look over their shoulder and make sure they don’t fall for a potential scam. Appraiso helps this buyer avoid scams while also better understanding how much to pay for a domain or website. They can get some great estimates of future value as well simply by augmenting the revenue, profit, or traffic and seeing how this changes the value of the site.
• Website/Domain Sellers – one of our beta customers closed a large deal using Appraiso, and it was still not publicly available! Appraiso will help domain and website owners that have revenue or traffic generating properties close bigger deals. Whether you have a parked domain making $100/month or a developed site making $1,000/month Appraiso can show potential buyers the real value of your developed property. Not only that, Appraiso can also be used for projections. A seller can demonstrate to the potential buyer the increased value if the buyer was to develop a website with particular traffic and revenue characteristics.

In the past I have focused on multiple projects at once, this year Appraiso is my main focus while my very talented team is running our 220+ web businesses. Between the three of us we’re working around the clock and still pulling all-nighters, complete with Thai Food and some Death Cab For Cutie rocking in the background.

The project known as Xelot has now become the software company known as Appraiso. We are delighted to hear your feedback, good or bad, and look forward to helping investors buy with confidence and close bigger deals!

At the top of the post I mentioned that you would also learn how to nab a cool, limited edition Appraiso T-Shirt. We made a batch of 100 shirts that we will never be making in the same style again. We gave-out a ton of shirts to the awesome members of the Southern California Domainer Group last month, and now we’re ready to give some away to you!

We will be giving away two shirts, each of course with free shipping and another little surprise from us that you’ll see when you get it! To win simply retweet this post and then comment below that you’ve retweeted it. We will announce the winners this Friday!

I started this blog in October of 2007 and at the time there were only a handful of bloggers in the space. Then, with the introduction of Domaining.com the space grew considerably since the industry now had a centralized source. Major kudos to Francois for having the vision and passion to put this together and make it the resource that it is today. Before I started blogging I was reading Domaining blogs every day, and night and that hasn’t changed over the last five years!

DNJournal - The Domain Industry News Magazine

Some of the first blogs in the Domaining world were DNW, DNJournal, DNN, DotWeekly along with Ricks Blog, Elliots Blog, Frager Factor and one of my favorites that I really miss – Sahar’s blog, Conceptualist.com. Sahar’s blog was actually the very first Domaining blog I ever read and the other blogs mentioned above I still read daily. It really was the incredible passion and consistency that these bloggers/journalists brought to the table that made this such an exciting space to be in!

Two month after my blog started Michael Berkens started TheDomains which I think it is safe to say has become one of the top Domaining blogs out there. Michael is a great example of why I think we’re so lucky in this industry, he’s a full time Domainer and ex-lawyer who shares it all on his blog, no hidden agenda, just great information and all for free! I still read absolutely everything that Michael posts and can honestly say I’ve received a mini Domaining MBA just from reading his blog!

The Famous Chef Patrick "Nipplegate"

Six months after Michael started his blog Chef Patrick hit the scene and created a real buzz around Domaining blogs as he quickly became a focal point of conversation. He was edgy and wrote interesting and sometimes controversial posts that got people’s attention, and got them talking. Patrick and I became friends pretty quickly and most of what I learned about Social Media,Marketing, and Blogging I learned from Patrick! Dan also started eBusiness Domains back in 2008 which has also been one of my long-standing favorite blogs. I’m not sure the exact date that he started so Dan if you’re reading this, let me know and I’ll update it and I apologize in advance if I got the year wrong!

Then in 2009 Domain Shane hit the blogging scene with a very down-to-earth and personal approach. Reading Shane’s blog was really like having a conversation with him and after getting to know Shane I can tell you he’s one sharp cookie. While Shane comes from the plant world, he really comes from the business world running one of the most successful plant nurseries out there. Domain Shane quickly became one of the top blogs in the space with readers appreciating his writing style, transparency, and willingness to speak his mind. Like Patrick, Shane and I also became friends pretty quickly and we’ve had some great adventures together!

Also joining the scene in 2009 was NameTalent run by one of the nicest people on the planet (seriously) Mike Law. Mike is probably one of the most humble people I’ve met and his blog also took-off very quickly as people identified with him and his writing style. Mike has done a great job of balancing Domaining News, Interviews, and his own views on the industry and even held the first Domain Conference ever in Colorado!

Next in September of 2009 DomainGang was launched by Theo, a Domainer and Developer with some pretty wicked graphic design skills. Theo set-out to make “The Onion” of Domaining and it is very clear that he has succeeded with flying colors. DomainGang became one of the most-read blogs in the space and provided some comic relief to an industry that really needed it, no offense to anyone, it’s just sometimes you do need some comic relief!

In March of 2010 Domain Industry legend Howard Neu launched his blog once again providing some incredible transparency from someone who has been doing this full time, for a long time! Moving forward in 2010 we saw HybridDomainer hit the blogging scene in October. HybridDomainer provides a great perspective on Domaining news and covers a wide range of topics as he himself is a Hybrid Domainer!

In early 2011 a new blog focused on interviews with top Domainers went live – DomainSherpa. Michael Cyger is a very accomplished businessperson and entrepreneur who saw a great opportunity to build a brand in the space, and went for it. In one year he was able to produce some of the best interviews I’ve ever seen period, with some of the top movers and shakers in the domain industry and beyond!

In May of 2011 a fellow Southern Californian, DomainMichael started a blog and has been a consistent contributor to the space discussing a range of topics from Development to Sales. Michael knows his stuff when it comes to creating software and is probably one of the most technically advanced Domainers out there which makes his blog particularly unique and refreshing!

Now let’s fast-forward to 2012 and we have a brand-new entry to the Domaining blog space with Adam Dicker launching DNFBlog an extension of his popular forum DNForum. Adam launched his own Domaining Course last year and now with his new blog this year it is clear that he is putting a lot more focus on the education space which is great to see. As I’ve said a few times earlier, it is this kind of transparency and willingness to share information that makes this space so incredible.

Of course one of the biggest challenges of being a blogger in this space is those people who assume that if you have a blog and lots of sponsors, then you must be making most of your income blogging. I have addressed this issue a number of times but for the sake of complete transparency – I’m putting it all on the table. Other bloggers are welcome to share this information but of course don’t have to, some people are more private than others and we live in a free country so you don’t have to share anything you don’t want to!

So far in 2012 I have made roughly $45,000 (yes, that’s over $20,000/month) and of that total, around $8,000 comes from blog advertising and the rest comes from Domain Monetization and Sales. This means that roughly 18% of my income this year so far is coming from this blog while 82% of my income comes from my Domaining Business itself.

When I started Domaining back in 2007 my goal was to make an extra $1,000 a month, now making over $20,000/month so far in 2012 it’s pretty incredible to look back and see how my business has evolved. I have always been focused on building a business as I have no dreams of being self-employed, I like to think of ideas and then hire people to turn those ideas into a reality. With every idea I have I make sure that I’m not creating another job for myself, but instead a business that can run whether I’m involved or not.

My blog takes around 30-45 minutes a day leaving a good amount of time to work on my business. I do also still have a full-time job which I absolutely love, you can read more about it on my About Page. People have asked how I balance all of this and it all comes back to my desire not to be self-employed, the more I do, the more money I pay for talented people to work on my ideas. So when you see me starting a new project, that means I’ve put the time into developing the business and the business model, but I rarely involve myself in the day-to-day, I’m running a business here!

I am sure that we’ll see even more bloggers enter the space in 2012 as well as other bloggers that chose to leave or tone-down their blog as they shift their focus onto other things. As I’ve said before, I’ll be blogging into my 90′s because I love it and you should never stop doing something that you love! Thanks for reading and thanks to all the other bloggers that take the time to share their experiences and contribute to the space, I am reading and learning every single day, and don’t plan to stop learning until I’m well into my hundreds.

Finally, I would like to end with a huge thanks to Francois for creating Domaining.com and making the Domaining blog space what it is today. I would also like to thank Ron Jackson for creating DNJournal which has been accepted as the de facto news and information source in the Domaining world. We are all incredibly lucky to be in a space with so many people who are willing to share their knowledge and experience for free. I now raise my virtual wine glass and say “Thank You” to all of the other bloggers out there, all of our readers, and to all the great companies that sponsor our blogs and support this incredible information exchange. You won’t find anything like this in other industries and I can’t wait to watch the blogging space continue to grow and develop, one things for sure, it’s going to be a wild ride!

There is a shift going on, you might not see it yet, but it’s happening – a strong interest is coming from investors across Asia and many of the top Domainers out there are cashing-in. If you attended a Domaining Conference last year then you couldn’t have missed this one – industry leaders got up and said, there is a very strong, growing interest in domain names coming from the Asian market, specifically China.

Sites like 4.CN have grown considerably in the past year and catering to investors that buy beyond numeric domains which was the original focus of the site. Short, brandable .COMs are hot and investors around the world are scooping them up, this is causing a shift as some of the best domains make their way to new homes, many of these in China.

Hong Kong has been on the Domaining map for some time now especially with .Asia headquartered in the city. The .Asia organization has done a great job of raising awareness about Domain Names all across Asia, but like many companies choose Hong Kong as their home-base. Popular Domaining company PPX has offices in Hong Kong and there are a number of Domain Investors who call Hong Kong home.

So what’s the big deal here? The big deal, as I see it, is the great opportunity for the Domaining community to grow as a whole. There’s a great community of Domain Investors in Asia and we should all be working together, making deals, and growing the space. As savvy investors you should always be asking yourself where the activity is in the market and how you can network with people investing in the space.

So put Hong Kong on your radar if you haven’t already. It’s a beautiful city and might just be one of the Domaining capitals of the world soon, if it’s not already!