Sunday Thoughts, Updates & Tips

Someone asked me about my favorite domain name  that I own. That would be pretty easy: Embrace.com. I don’t know why it is my favorite, but it is. Even though the domain name is developed, I receive offers  quite a bit. I think my top 3 favorite names right now (aside from the value) is: Embrace.com, Travels.com, and Exclaim.com.

Some tips, thoughts, and updates are shared below. I welcome your comments and updates as well.

  • What is the favorite domain name you own?
  • With Sedo’s presence at SXSW, it might be a good idea to  keep your eye on the marketplace during the next few weeks. I would imagine the company will see an increase in listings and sales, and maybe someone will list something good. I found Exclaim.com on Sedo a few months ago and bought it immediately.
  • I read reports about the DN.com escrow service temporarily going  dark. I have never used the company’s services before, but I hope it is a temporary issue. I echo what others have said and think that any business that needs to shut its website down should have some sort of “maintenance” message to allay user concerns.
  • It’s always important to keep your guard up when you receive emails that seem to be from your registrar. There are quite a few registrar phishing emails that are sent to registrants who use different registrars. Some look pretty legit and even use domain names that look similar to the registrar’s website. This is one big way domain names are stolen.
  • Alan Dunn wrote an article on TechCrunch about brands using new gTLD domain names with a focus on url shorteners. I wonder how much DI.xyz or DI.co would cost for a url shortener 🙂
  • I am not a regular bidder on DropCatch.com, but I have added it to my daily list of websites I visit. There is occasionally  something that I like in auction, and the platform is easy to use. Even though I don’t bid much, I feel like it’s worthwhile to continue visiting in case I see something I like at a good price.
Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Everybody loves “BullS” domain name and website!!

    DN is down because the Chinese Communist Party took it down!!
    to prevent the money from flowing out.

    • Yes, you are right again Mr.BS, I don’t think DN.com will be up anytime soon, they have a major shit storm of gov regulation to deal with right now, I hope anyone does not have any money tied up there.

  2. Travels.com is probably your most valuable and I was surprised when I saw you had it not long ago. Travel.com by itself would be worth 8 figures, and Travels.com is way up there in similar quality.

    Embrace.com is also great and I commented about how valuable that would be somewhere else not long, in reference to a recent sale of a similar domain.

    .US is still being kept hidden under a rock, and I strongly suspect that is by design and by desire of others outside the company giving marching orders to the few highest top dogs at Neustar. Notwithstanding lip service and occasional token gestures to the contrary. If Go Daddy had gotten it when there was talk of that, I suspect things would be different.

    .Gold is still another sleeping giant with limitless versatility for both figurative and literal use, but its high pricing is a total turn off to adoption unfortunately, unlike its peers with six and seven figure registration numbers already.

    The status quo of virtual obscurity and as a consequence virtual apathy among the US public for .US, clearly being maintained by design, is truly sad. However, lately there has been one very notable exception that partially upsets that apple cart. That is the remarkable good work being done under the http://www.Represent.us domain name. People are generally so clueless about domain names, however, that it probably doesn’t even sink in the a “.US” is being used there, and the significance of it, just as the existence of the previously well known Del.icio.us did nothing to cause that to sink in either by itself.

  3. On another note…

    In a sad loss of freemium play on the Web:

    DomainTools was allowing you to have a small sampling of free info at http://research.domaintools.com/research/domain-search/ up until around yesterday, but today that is no longer the case, and their site is requiring sign up at either $99/mo or $995/yr for that. They had also been allowing the bulk check for free. It was interesting how it was working, however, as the regular search http://research.domaintools.com/research/domain-search/ would fairly often not even show you the actual keyword you searched, even though it was registered. That was always very odd, but did not happen all the time.

    • You want to be a domainer, pay for your tools, just like any other industry.

      They are a for profit business, they are not in business to develop free tools for you to use.

    • Well you are the tough guy, aren’t you?

      That pricing level is ridiculous, no thanks.

      Furthermore, they were perfectly happy to grandfather in some people at a much cheaper rate, but when it came time for them to make the first big move to paid-only they didn’t even give a chance to do the same. Not even people who already had an account with them. No email, no notice, nothing. That doesn’t sit well with me. If they want to offer the same rate that Elliot pays for his membership I would consider, otherwise I’ll look elsewhere. They had already cut off a lot of what had been free before, and now they just want to tighten the noose completely. If they’re that hard up for money maybe they should rethink the way they do business, just like some of the sticker shock TLDs. Or maybe they’re not hard up for money and just being greedy?

    • P.S. Tony, it’s a surprise in one sense, but also not a surprise in another sense. They all know each other for the most part, and they wouldn’t want to be doing something that draws any negative attention to one of their industry friends.

    • And meanwhile, while a lot of these friends are quite rich, they no doubt get the cheaper rate from before the original big price hike…I know one blogger who indicated that already…

  4. My current favorite is Logodesign.work and it is currently under development. I hope to add more favorites soon with a few .wine’s I want to brand.

  5. I like Embrace.com

    My favorite domain right now is GospelChannel.com. I’m new to domaining so I’m sure I’ll acquire really great ones that I’ll really like in the future, but that’s the one I like for right now. Personally, it hits close to home for me.

    On another note though, I’ve been warned that I should never fall in love (make an emotional connection) with any of my domains. Is that advice worthwhile you think?

    • If you are in it to sell domains, only get involved with top quality. The only domain on your site that is really any good is the one you mentioned here. The others are useless and will leave you high and dry. Also, your site itself – it only resonates with people who know where you are coming from. The rest of the world, however, can’t relate to it, and so “rock of brands” is simply awkward and doesn’t make much sense to them.

      If you are interested in actual use of domains, then do that as well. Or do both. But the worst mistake for selling is to spend any time or money on less than top quality. Preferably .com, but if you can’t even get a top quality new TLD, then don’t go withing a 1000 miles of a mediocre one unless you have an actual use for it.

    • Let me be even more explicit: 99.99% of the people out there are not going to have the slightest clue that “rock of brands” is based on “rock of ages,” Candace. They’re just going to think you made a very awkward and weird choice of a brand name.

    • P.P.S. When in doubt about something about domains, talk to me, Candace. I will tell you if there’s a trap or wrong turn involved. I’m usually checking the biggest three of the blogs and often posting. They are this one, thedomains.com, and dnw.com. There are other good ones, too, but those are the “big three” in my view.

    • I disagree with what you said about the brand name, and I think your advice is a bit harsh.

      I think that a brand name like this is a personal choice, especially when it is created from something meaningful. Perhaps Candace will need to do more work to make people understand what Rock of Brands means, but I think it’s a neat name and has personal meaning to her.

      That said, I don’t believe Candace asked for anyone’s opinion about her company’s brand name.

    • I was seeking to do her a proactive deed of kindness, Elliot, since she stated she is new (and we know how that can be a challenging time of learning for sheep who first wander into the industry), and given the tone and content of her post especially at the end in terms of advice seeking. While it’s true that I did not mince words, I have reason to believe she would ascertain that I know enough about where she is coming from that she would have received it well nonetheless. However, I can understand if it may seem a bit too abrupt and blunt. Perhaps I can modify that. 🙂 I think it’s a neat name, too, but I also realize that it is as extremely obscure as I suggested unless someone is already familiar with its derivation. In closing, I will quote something I know you would tend to be familiar with, which would also convey what my intent is toward Candace and her otherwise nice looking site, in case there is any doubt:

      “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
      But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.” (Proverbs 27:6)

      Which also led me to wonder what the current state of your own famous biblically related domain is now since it’s under privacy and rather well developed. 🙂 You may also want to know that I just tried to visit it in Firefox and was strangely redirected to what looked like a phishing site on the computerprotection11.info domain, after which it does not resolve in FF. Then on Chrome it resolves just fine. And now that I’m just about to click submit it is finally also resolving in FF. I have the url that first appeared in FF in case you want that, however.

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