Thoughts on NameBright?

[agentscarn]

Saw a nice post on DNW about namebright and now the bright orange banners here on namepros. Does anyone have any firsthand experience with them?

 

[Rebies]

stub: Paypal will be ready early next week. We got enough comments about it we have prioritized Paypal payments. If all goes well, next week week will have the ability to pre-fund accounts using Paypal. About a week after that you should be ableto checkout with Paypal directly...

Andrew

---------- Post added at 06:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:13 AM ----------

STUB" call me on Monday. I'm curious to have a conversation about what you want. PM Sent.

 

[Name Trader]

Another couple of good suggestions which no other registrar has

1. Look up to see if the domain is banned by Google
2. Look up to see if the domain is trademarked in both US or Europe

 

[hippoking]

Rebies, I really NameBright's software, much powerful!

Would you plan to lease namebright's registrar software in the future? ( I will get accredited within several months)

 

[Name Trader]

Even more, if we buy a domain you had with us after you let it expire, as long as we still own the domain, we will get it back to you up to 365 days after it expired. For the $8.03 renewal price. This is our commitment to our customers.

.

This is a little unclear. Do you give the domain back when we ask for it and pay the $8.03, or do you make us wait until it expires after 1 year?

 

[ecuadorbusiness]

I just registered 2 domains with namebright and I have to say that I am highly impressed. Perhaps this is only my impression but I have proved several other registrars, I have accounts with 5 other different ones. But namebright has a so intuitive UI and a so easy to navigate site. If they keep the low prices perhaps I could stay with them for good.

 

[Rebies]

hippoking - if you have an accredited registrar I believe we should be able to hook it up so that you can use our software. It would have to be hosted on our end and you would manage your domains at NameBright. You are the first person to ask about using NameBright's software with your own accredited registrars, but I don't think it would be very hard for us to setup.

stub - if you have a domain with NameBright, you let it expire, our company takes over management, and at any point in that year you decide you want the domain back, you pay $8.03 and take it over until the domain expires again. There are a few buts about this... We might not decide to buy / take over ownership of the domain. So if that happens, nothing we can do. Also, we might buy the domain and later drop it or sell it. If that happens, there is nothing we can do. And it all has to do with our expiration process, if another company takes over the domain there is nothing we can do about it. But hopefully this gives domain owners an extra level of confidence if they don't want to make the investment now, but in a year wish they did not drop the domain.

Stub - the two are good ideas. I will put them onto the features list. Not going to be very soon before we get to it. Both seem very hard and tricky at first glance.

 

[alien51]

stub - if you have a domain with NameBright, you let it expire, our company takes over management, and at any point in that year you decide you want the domain back, you pay $8.03 and take it over until the domain expires again. There are a few buts about this... We might not decide to buy / take over ownership of the domain. So if that happens, nothing we can do. Also, we might buy the domain and later drop it or sell it. If that happens, there is nothing we can do. And it all has to do with our expiration process, if another company takes over the domain there is nothing we can do about it. But hopefully this gives domain owners an extra level of confidence if they don't want to make the investment now, but in a year wish they did not drop the domain.

So what that basically means, is that WE who are waiting for those EXPIRED domains to drop, will NEVER get it (as in ZERO chance). You practically have 1 YEAR as a form of Domain Tasting, to check out whether the expired domain you took control has traffic, or has demand (via inquiry).

Imagine if 90% of all domainers are in Namebright, you would catch ALL of their drops before anyone else, and you have the ability to TASTE the domain for 1 FULL YEAR.

There would be TOTAL GLUT in the drop pool competition. Everything that will be spit out from that fine mesh AFTER 1 YEAR would appear to be domains totally devoid of any measurable value.

That would be like fishing the ocean using a net that has holes only 3 millimeters wide catching everything while scrapping the ocean floor. You then have 1 year to see which fish has demand, before you throw them back into the sea after you have proven to yourself that there's no demand for that fish.

 

[Joseph Green]

I think everyone is so curious how NameBright is going to profit from this venture that we are eager to latch on to new information and attempt to extrapolate from it.

Let's note that having a domain registrar does not necessarily mean that you are able to "taste" the domains that are registered with it. In fact, the registrar would have no knowledge of the domain's inquiries or traffic except during the periods of which that domain name is using the registrar's DNS services. DNS services are something all major registrars provide as a courtesy upon registering a domain and upon expiry of a domain, typically to inform their customers of the status of the domain (newly registered or expired). The registrar would have no traffic insights regarding the domains on their platform once the domain owners set their name servers to, say, a parking company.

alien51 brought up a great point about the expired domains on NameBright having zero chance of being picked up by others, but I think Rebies mentioned that there may be an announcement about that soon. So maybe NameBright will provide an aftermarket of some sort like Go Daddy does in which case we'd all have an equal opportunity to bid on the domains.

Update: I should point out that the registrar would have access to how many registrar-based WHOIS queries were requested for a particular domain name, so that information is valuable. However, when we're able to buy domains at cost, I think that entitles the registrar to at least something of value from the relationship.
FYI: Go Daddy records the number of WHOIS requests on all domain names registered with them.

 

[Rebies]

Yes, we are working on all parts of the equation, just not ready to launch them. This includes solutions for expiring domains. The topic keeps coming back to us owning domains. But it is not that. This is about our companies growth. Going up a level. Becoming a service provider. The profits are in hosting. (something we don't have built in yet.) Companies in that space have it great these days. Design services, datacenter stuff. That is where we want to eventually be, and offering a registrar is a part of the long term plan for our company.

 

[JJSavard]

from my perspective ...

So what that basically means, is that WE who are waiting for those EXPIRED domains to drop, will NEVER get it (as in ZERO chance). You practically have 1 YEAR as a form of Domain Tasting, to check out whether the expired domain you took control has traffic, or has demand (via inquiry).

Imagine if 90% of all domainers are in Namebright, you would catch ALL of their drops before anyone else, and you have the ability to TASTE the domain for 1 FULL YEAR.

There would be TOTAL GLUT in the drop pool competition. Everything that will be spit out from that fine mesh AFTER 1 YEAR would appear to be domains totally devoid of any measurable value.

That would be like fishing the ocean using a net that has holes only 3 millimeters wide catching everything while scrapping the ocean floor. You then have 1 year to see which fish has demand, before you throw them back into the sea after you have proven to yourself that there's no demand for that fish.

Applying a bit of perspective:

Notwithstanding the still-to-be-announced 'opening up' of Andrew's drop-catch service, it's been argued that regardless of where domains are registered, his drop-catching system already is able to catch the majority (70%?, 80%?, 90%?) of domains targeted. So, while it's true they would catch 100% of domains that delete from their NameBright registrar (as any registrar can do), they would have caught most of them anyways (70%-90%), even if they were registered elsewhere.


As to access to expired domains ...

Being a registrar, NameBright will have 1st-dibs on any domains registered with them that expire & delete. And, for domainers who actively pursue the daily drops, it is true they "will NEVER get [these domains] (as in ZERO chance)". But, how does this differ from any of the top registrars who ALL conduct similar practices - selecting the best of their domain deletions for their own use.


As to the "tasting" claims...

Domain Tasting is the practice of registering domain names, assessing revenue generation potential and, if they create an insufficient return, deleting the domain names before the registry requests payment. (source: Nominet.org.uk)

In 2008, ICANN severely limited the domain tasting practice; capping the number of domains a registrar can return for a 'full' refund each month at 10% of their net new monthly registrations. NameBright must respect this limit; and so would NOT "practically have 1 YEAR as a form of Domain Tasting", nor the "ability to TASTE the domain for 1 FULL YEAR" as is claimed.


Finally, as to the "domain return" promise itself (from the pov of the customer) ...

As I understand it, NameBright (as with all registrars) may grab (for their own portfolio) domains that "the customer" has allowed to expire and delete. However, anytime during the next 365 days, for the cost of a 1-year renewal, the customer may request the domain be returned to his/her account (so long as the domain is still under the control of NameBright).

Seems a very customer-friendly promise! Definitely a big step to allay fears that NameBright wants domainers to transfer-in their portfolios for the purpose of grabbing any domain expiry deletions!

Steve

 

[Rebies]

JJSavard - that is exactly why we have enacted this promise. To show customers that we care about your domain assets. We are here to help. I want to see more domainers succeed. To do that we need better tools for customers and cheaper prices. Most other registrars will hold onto your domain and pretend they don't even own it....

 

[Rebies]

New update that a lot of people here have asked about.. You can now pay via Paypal.com. We are still working on integrating it directly into the shopping cart. But if you want to pre-fund your account you can do that from:

My Account > My Settings > Billing > Add Funds

We hope to have Paypal worked into the checkout process in the next week or so. There are a few slightly tricky things we are working through on that end.

 

[ecuadorbusiness]

All sales on Namebright.com are final, they will not give any refund, I am not saying it is good or bad, it is just a comment. For my part I am stepping aside from them. You never know when you could need a refund. I wish them good luck in their business.

 

[Rebies]

ecuadorbusiness - if you were just testing the system, we can offer a refund in this one-off case. But we don't plan to get into the business of people tasting domains (as you did park your domains after purchasing them) and then allowing you to request refunds on domain names.

In this situation we have released the domains you were asking about, and issued an account credit in the amount you paid for the domains. Please note going forward, do not count on returns of domains, but we do want to make our customers happy. Returning domains in not something we guarantee nor is it a service we provide as a registrar.

 

[daj]

O-M-G. This would be the best ever, when Godaddy's 1.99 promo codes finally run dry.

Will you have a similar promo for Transfers too? I would farm-out a huge chunk of my stuff to Namebright when that day comes.

I concur. Definitely could use a transfer-in promo code.

 

[Name Trader]

I just used the Pay with PayPal to add funds to my NameBright Account. Minimum Payment was $50 which resulted $48.50 being added to my account. The checkout (for a new .com registration) will show all the higher prices ($8.53/$4.99) when you buy a domain, until the last page, when the charge for a .com will be $4.58. The purchase went smoothly. Now I have a domain I can play around with their Control Panel a bit.

Just to address 1 concern. Andrew told me that they will not compete with our backorders, once the backorder system is in place.

 

[Amir]

Hi,

There are two point here.

1- I don't see Paypal in payment options. Is that limited to certain countries?

2- The "Bulk Search" page goes crazy when you try to add some domain names to your cart and start scrolling.

 

[hippoking]

It's really hard to comment on my experience with namebright.

On one side their UI is clean and high efficient, I like it very much. On the other side, maybe namebright's registration system is new and there're some bugs. If you register some domains like "wwwgoogle.com", system will consider it as "oogle.com", luckily they have fixed this bug. Another bug is their billing system. At least in my account, all the transactions are messed up. System can't calculate the balance and bills correctly and last Friday I funded my account two times, system only confirmed one funding......

Another drawback is support. They don't have a ticket system and all you can do is to email them via online form. Even with email support, response is a little slow.

Though there are some problems， Namebright is still a promising company and has a big potential IMO.

 

[Tribulatio]

Nice interface. I opened an account last month and decided to test them with a few transfers, first from Dynadot, then from NameSilo.

Transfer from Dynadot: it took some two hours to get the FOA. After that, everything went smoothly. But definitely nothing like the very fast transfer process reported by some other users. Well, let's admit it may have been a problem with my email service having been slow.

Now, test with transfer from NameSilo (three domain names): unable to complete the order, at the stage the transfer is supposed to be initiated, I get a message after a few secunds: "an unknown error has occurred", inviting me to try later. Two minutes later, same issue. Five minutes later, same issue. (And yes, I provided the correct auth codes, and my domain was unlocked several minutes before submitting my order to NameBright.)

Thus I cannot say that my first two tests are very convincing. I see the potential, with various features, but Issues I have been encountering now are not common with the other registrars I am using.

Especially for domineers, reliability of a registrar's panel is key.
Still, willing to give some time to NameBright for improvement. I know it is complex to maintain such a service.

---------- Post added at 10:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:37 AM ----------

Update: I have now been able to initiate the transfer… but while the invoice has been sent for three names (all .COM), the FOA has been sent only for two names…

Moreover, unable to access the "Inbound transfers" panel in order to have the FOA sent for the missing domain name: the small wheel in the center of the panel is just turning on and on (no problem for accessing the panel with the list of domains, on the other hand). I have made attempts with several browsers, thus this is obviously a system bug.

A lot of small problems to be polished, obviously.

 

[Tribulatio]

Three hours later: the "Inbound transfers" panel remains out of reach: in that specific section, I do only see the NB logo and the wheel turning around, without ever resolving to "Inbound transfers". Thus it is impossible to see the current status of my transfers, impossible also to relaunch the FOA for the missing name (out of three, not such a long list!).

Well, I cannot say that my first experiences with NameBright are convincing: two transfers from two different registrars, problems (although the same ones) with each transfer.

Unless I get a convincing explanation, I will give up the idea of more transfers, and probably even transfer away the domain names after 60 days: security is good (I enjoy the option of two-step security with SMS, and to see that it works for me too, being a customer in Europe), but what any domainer - big or small -needs first is an efficient, clear, easily working panel for managing domain names, transfers, etc. Otherwise, too much time gets lost.

I have working accounts with nearly ten registrars, had accounts (now inactive) with ten more: I have rarely come across so many small issues for something as simple as the transfer of a handful of domain names.

Still, I am willing to accept an explanation if there is one, and again I understand that a complex domain management is not implemented overnight. On the other hand, I remember opening an account with NameSilo on the very day they were launched, transferring domain names the same day, I have still a few dozens names with them: from the start, never any problem for registration, transfer, or whatever. Thus childhood problems are not necessarily a convincing explanation.