With the end of 2018 upon us, it’s an opportune time to reflect on the year. As usual, domain names have had an interesting year, and NamePros has covered some of the most popular news items and features from the past twelve months.
In this handy recap, we relive the best moments of the year from the NamePros Blog including two seven-figure sales, a number of interviews and some feature articles that you may have missed.
Inside Interview: Why Buying Pillows.com Was Worth Every Penny
Our first interview of the year was with Craig Clark, an entrepreneur that created a pillow and bedding brand on PacificPillows.com. In 2010, he acquired Pillows.com and Pillow.com for an undisclosed fee.
Here, Craig talks to us about buying these two premium .COM domains for a six-figure fee, as well as his activities as a domain investor, picking up premium names such as Sheet.com.
Yes.com Sells for a Seven-Figure Fee
In March, investor and broker James Booth (@BoothDomains) shared a tip with us that the domain Yes.com had sold for a seven-figure fee. Confirmed in emails with someone familiar with the transaction, we reported the sales price of 4.5 million Euros.
Currently, Yes.com is displaying the homepage of Yes, an ecosystem for digital identity.
Expert Exchange: The Domain Broker Series
From March to October, we published our latest series of “Expert Exchange”, in which we get a panel of domain experts to answer questions about the industry. This series looked at a number of issues surrounding domain sales, with questions answered by some of the best domain name brokers in the industry.
Every Expert Exchange article is available for you to read via the Expert Exchange tag.
5 Ways to Track Down Domain Owners After GDPR
In May, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was introduced by the European Union, affecting the exportation of personal data both inside and outside the EU region. This regulation affected the visibility of much of the WHOIS database, making domain tracking much more difficult in many cases.
We outlined five useful tips to help you continue to track down domain name owners for either outbound sales or for potential acquisitions.
Did This Newspaper Sell Ledger.com?
Domain acquisitions by new and existing companies have been plentiful in 2018. At the beginning of the year, we covered blockchain company Swarm’s acquisition of Swarm.com, and in June, we discovered the sale of Ledger.com by Massachusetts newspaper The Patriot Ledger.
The name was confirmed to have been acquired by French crypto wallet manufacturer Ledger. The sales price has not been revealed.
7 Top Domains Owned by Michael Cyger
This year, we’ve published several articles in our ongoing series, looking at the best domains from both investor and company portfolios. One of the most popular articles from this year was a look at seven top domains from the portfolio of @Michael Cyger.
Michael is perhaps best known for creating the @DomainSherpa brand in 2012, running the show until he sold the site to @MediaOptions in 2017.
Crypto.com Sells!
In 1993, Matt Blaze, a Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, registered the domain name Crypto.com. With the growing popularisation of crypto currency, Matt naturally received many unsolicited offers for the name. He wents as far as to publicly state that the name wasn’t for sale.
That is until July 2018 when the domain name was sold to Monaco, who swiftly rebranded to Crypto.com. Reports later surfaced that the sales price was $12 million, although this hasn’t been publicly confirmed.
Inside Interview: Why Adam Perzow Spent 7 Figures on Coins.com
Speaking of cryptocurrency, another big sale happened this year, with entrepreneur Adam Perzow acquiring Coins.com for a seven-figure fee.
In an in-depth interview, Adam tells us why he bought the Coins.com domain name and what he plans to do with it.
Ice.com Sells for $3.5 Million
In the year’s biggest publicly-disclosed sale, NamePros’ own Director of Sales and owner of GritBrokerage, @Brian Harbin, brokered the sale of Ice.com for $3.5 million. With help from David Clements (@davidclements) of Brannan’s, the pair secured a deal for the domain less than forty-eight hours after Brian signed an exclusive agreement to broker the name.
It was later revealed that the domain was acquired by Intercontinental Exchange, with the name currently redirecting to TheIce.com.
Braden Pollock Sells Q.org for $500,000
Early in 2018, we detected that Q.org moved out of domain investor Braden Pollock’s possession and into privacy protection. Fast forward to October of this year and Braden was able to disclose some details of this transaction to us.
Braden, founder of LegalBrandMarketing, disclosed the fact that a $500,000 figure was agreed upon after just four emails. This sale ranks as the second largest publicly-disclosed .ORG sale ever!
Confirmed: Duck.com Transfers to DuckDuckGo
Since 2010, Google has owned the Duck.com domain name, a name it acquired after buying On2, a video codec company formally known as The Duck Corporation. Rival search engine DuckDuckGo has continuously coveted the domain, with CEO Gabriel Weinberg asking Google to sell him the domain on more than one occasion.
Early in December, Jamie Zoch (@Yofie) noticed that the Duck.com domain had moved away from Google’s registrar account and into a privacy-protected NameCheap account. Days later, Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to us that Google had transferred the name to DuckDuckGo with no mention of transaction-specific details.
The confirmation story from NamePros was used as a source in publications such as TechCrunch, The Verge and Gizmodo.
In this handy recap, we relive the best moments of the year from the NamePros Blog including two seven-figure sales, a number of interviews and some feature articles that you may have missed.
Inside Interview: Why Buying Pillows.com Was Worth Every Penny
Our first interview of the year was with Craig Clark, an entrepreneur that created a pillow and bedding brand on PacificPillows.com. In 2010, he acquired Pillows.com and Pillow.com for an undisclosed fee.
Here, Craig talks to us about buying these two premium .COM domains for a six-figure fee, as well as his activities as a domain investor, picking up premium names such as Sheet.com.
Yes.com Sells for a Seven-Figure Fee
In March, investor and broker James Booth (@BoothDomains) shared a tip with us that the domain Yes.com had sold for a seven-figure fee. Confirmed in emails with someone familiar with the transaction, we reported the sales price of 4.5 million Euros.
Currently, Yes.com is displaying the homepage of Yes, an ecosystem for digital identity.
Expert Exchange: The Domain Broker Series
From March to October, we published our latest series of “Expert Exchange”, in which we get a panel of domain experts to answer questions about the industry. This series looked at a number of issues surrounding domain sales, with questions answered by some of the best domain name brokers in the industry.
Every Expert Exchange article is available for you to read via the Expert Exchange tag.
5 Ways to Track Down Domain Owners After GDPR
In May, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was introduced by the European Union, affecting the exportation of personal data both inside and outside the EU region. This regulation affected the visibility of much of the WHOIS database, making domain tracking much more difficult in many cases.
We outlined five useful tips to help you continue to track down domain name owners for either outbound sales or for potential acquisitions.
Did This Newspaper Sell Ledger.com?
Domain acquisitions by new and existing companies have been plentiful in 2018. At the beginning of the year, we covered blockchain company Swarm’s acquisition of Swarm.com, and in June, we discovered the sale of Ledger.com by Massachusetts newspaper The Patriot Ledger.
The name was confirmed to have been acquired by French crypto wallet manufacturer Ledger. The sales price has not been revealed.
7 Top Domains Owned by Michael Cyger
This year, we’ve published several articles in our ongoing series, looking at the best domains from both investor and company portfolios. One of the most popular articles from this year was a look at seven top domains from the portfolio of @Michael Cyger.
Michael is perhaps best known for creating the @DomainSherpa brand in 2012, running the show until he sold the site to @MediaOptions in 2017.
Crypto.com Sells!
In 1993, Matt Blaze, a Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, registered the domain name Crypto.com. With the growing popularisation of crypto currency, Matt naturally received many unsolicited offers for the name. He wents as far as to publicly state that the name wasn’t for sale.
That is until July 2018 when the domain name was sold to Monaco, who swiftly rebranded to Crypto.com. Reports later surfaced that the sales price was $12 million, although this hasn’t been publicly confirmed.
Inside Interview: Why Adam Perzow Spent 7 Figures on Coins.com
Speaking of cryptocurrency, another big sale happened this year, with entrepreneur Adam Perzow acquiring Coins.com for a seven-figure fee.
In an in-depth interview, Adam tells us why he bought the Coins.com domain name and what he plans to do with it.
Ice.com Sells for $3.5 Million
In the year’s biggest publicly-disclosed sale, NamePros’ own Director of Sales and owner of GritBrokerage, @Brian Harbin, brokered the sale of Ice.com for $3.5 million. With help from David Clements (@davidclements) of Brannan’s, the pair secured a deal for the domain less than forty-eight hours after Brian signed an exclusive agreement to broker the name.
It was later revealed that the domain was acquired by Intercontinental Exchange, with the name currently redirecting to TheIce.com.
Braden Pollock Sells Q.org for $500,000
Early in 2018, we detected that Q.org moved out of domain investor Braden Pollock’s possession and into privacy protection. Fast forward to October of this year and Braden was able to disclose some details of this transaction to us.
Braden, founder of LegalBrandMarketing, disclosed the fact that a $500,000 figure was agreed upon after just four emails. This sale ranks as the second largest publicly-disclosed .ORG sale ever!
Confirmed: Duck.com Transfers to DuckDuckGo
Since 2010, Google has owned the Duck.com domain name, a name it acquired after buying On2, a video codec company formally known as The Duck Corporation. Rival search engine DuckDuckGo has continuously coveted the domain, with CEO Gabriel Weinberg asking Google to sell him the domain on more than one occasion.
Early in December, Jamie Zoch (@Yofie) noticed that the Duck.com domain had moved away from Google’s registrar account and into a privacy-protected NameCheap account. Days later, Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to us that Google had transferred the name to DuckDuckGo with no mention of transaction-specific details.
The confirmation story from NamePros was used as a source in publications such as TechCrunch, The Verge and Gizmodo.
