Wednesday, December 30, 2009

More .ca sales to report in last week

DomainReport.ca - Thanks to Ron Jackson at DNJournal.com, there are some .ca sales to report from the last week.

The top .ca sale was:

Interaction.ca - $30,000 Cdn

This domain now points to www.interaction.qc.ca, so this may have been a case where one owner had the .ca, and the other had the .qc.ca of the same name (and wanted the .ca). I'd like to hear the story behind that sale.

Other .ca sales that showed up in the report were:

SGS.ca - $7,140

Doyle.ca - $4,608

Halle.ca - $3,360

TRC.ca - $2,880

4story.ca - $1,430

metin2.ca - $1,430

greets.ca - $1,000


These are definitely some decent sales, though it's a little surprising to see two domains with numbers in them sell how they did.

And further to my earlier post today, Sibername was able to pick up the lone name I put in for in today's TBR - WhistlerRealty.ca. Thank you Sibername!


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Today's .CA TBR domain name drop

DomainReport.ca - I haven't done this in a while, but since there's a little more free time during the holidays, I was able to take a good look at today's .ca TBR domain drop and come up with a list of (what I think) are the better domains.

Ok, let's cut to the chase, here is the list I came up with in no particular order:

absent.ca
acaifruit.ca
anymore.ca
memorable.ca
beloved.ca

repairing.ca (applicable to home renos?)
wft.ca
hfd.ca
qpx.ca
jeuxinternet.ca (internet games in french)
jeuxdepoker.ca (poker games in french)

lignedecredit.ca (credit line in french)
marge.ca (first name)
birthdaygames.ca (decent keyword search)
camsite.ca
cuire.ca (to cook in french)

polymer.ca (lots of applications to plastic and clay)
vacationfun.ca
vanille.ca (vanilla in french)
divegear.ca
sexforum.ca

fantome.ca (ghost in french)
skiworld.ca
smartgear.ca
t-d.ca
thermalpower.ca

u-k.ca
heritagebuilding.ca
horsetail.ca (type of plant)
imagic.ca

The ones in bold I was able to get about 2 hours after the drop. If names don't get picked up in the drop, they eventually just become available to register.

Some of the names in the above list are still available, but maybe not for long.

I only put in one name this week to a drop catcher, and don't know if I got it yet. Sibername has been great at catching domains for me this past year.

If anyone saw any good names I missed, feel free to comment. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and having a chance to wind down a little before it's back to work in the New Year!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

.CA domainer in Godaddy News

DomainReport.ca - If you get Godaddy's Aftermarket email newsletter, you would have noticed Canadian domainer Adam Dicker in the December edition. I couldn't find a link to the newsletter itself, but here is a summary below.

For those who missed it or don't get the newsletter, Adam (who is also the vice president of the Domain Aftermarket at Godaddy, and owner of DNForum.com) was the lead story with his photo and a quote "I'm not a couch potato - I'm Domaining".

Adam goes on to talk about how he came to register a .ca domain recently, and the story also provides some good advice on how to get ideas for domains to register:

"I'm not advocating that you spend more time in front of the television, but if you maintain a Domainer's perspective while watching, it's another opportunity to turn a profit. Every piece of media you see has the potential to generate new domain ideas.

I was watching TV and a commercial came on for a skin tag remover by Dr. Scholl's. I had never heard of a skin tag, but went to the Web and found 49.7 million pages indexed in Google for the phrase "skin tags." That convinced me that skin tags had some value, so I registered "skintags .ca."


He then goes on to provide some information on trademark checks:

"Of course, it's always best practice to avoid trademarks or risky names. Use a service like www.uspto.gov to check the terms before you purchase, and be sure you're not going to enter into a trademark infringement situation. If all is clear, safely register any or all extensions available to you."

As for judging the profitability of a domain and what to look for, Adam ends with this:

"Remember: A domain only needs to make 2 cents a day to be profitable. Don't let days where you only see a 5 or 10 cent return get you down, it's still making a profit at rates you won't ever see from a bank."

I recently saw that skin tag commercial on tv myself, and have to admit it did cross my mind to look up the term. However I must have been busy, and also remember thinking that skin tags must be a small market because I'd never heard of it before, and was it really worth checking into.

For fun, here are some stats on "skin tags":

Google search returns (no quotes): 51,100,000 (lots of relevant ads in sidebar)

Google search returns (with quotes): 284,000

Google Keyword Tool searches (November): 135,000 to 165,000 (with lots of 'long tail' results)

So I think this is obviously a better market than I originally thought. I have to remind myself from time to time that there is a whole world out there, and even if there's a subject you never heard of, or aren't interested in, it could still be a good market.

This domain could quickly be developped into an information site about skin tags, it would rank well for Canadian searches (at least, and possibly US searches too), and it would pull in a variety of relevant ads. I haven't even checked CJ or other places to see if there are related affiliate programs. I would even bet this domain has a 'heart beat' like Frank Schilling likes to say, meaning it has at least some low level of traffic per month to build on.


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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Three Five Figure .ca Sales - Dry Spell Over

DomainReport.ca - As I've been posting lately, there hasn't been much public action in .ca sales in recent months. Hardly any .ca domains have shown up in the DN Journal weekly sales reports.

But the dry spell is now over!

Yesterday there were two .ca sales that ranked #14 and #15 out of all domain sales reported in the last week. For country codes only, they ranked #2 and #3.

The domains were:

Boots.ca - $19,950 US

Suits.ca - $18,900 US


Ron Jackson of DN Journal noted that these two private sales were actually completed a few months ago but the seller finally made the prices public for the first time this week.

There were also two other .ca sales in the report:

PropertyManagement.ca - $14,200 US and #7 on country code list

The domain above was sold by Pro Forma, a domain name sales company that Canadian Frank Schilling is involved in. I don't think I have seen them sell any .ca domains in the past, so I wonder how many other .ca domains they own?

PinnacleSports.ca - $1,500 US sold at Sedo

With the holidays coming up, overall domain sales may start slowing down. However my prediction is that 2010 will be the best year ever for the .ca extension. Let's hope I'm right!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Waala.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - It has taken a long while, but finally a .ca domain has shown up on the DNJournal weekly sales report. And it is a bit of a surprising sale.

Waala.ca - €3,750 = $5,513 US

I did a search for 'waala' on Google and nothing really sticks out as to why this word might have value. There were 526,000 results. There are a few businesses with waala in the name, and it's also a family last name. The site Waala.com is an art site in beta.

The domain is still parked on a Sedo page, so no help there.

Waala.ca was the 16th highest country code sale last week in a chart dominated by European cctlds like .de, .co.uk and .fr.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Interview with Rick Silver of n49 Interactive

DomainReport.ca - There is a good interview posted on Elliot Silver's domain blog with Rick Silver of n49 Interactive.

Rick Silver owns a good portfolio of .ca domains that includes names like dining.ca, maids.ca, and resorts.ca. Rick is the President of the Domain Owners Association of Canada, and he was also named as the new panel moderator for upcoming TRAFFIC domain shows.

I looked at some of the sites mentioned in the interview, and it looks like they are business directories and also allow people to post reviews of related businesses. If it catches on, it looks like a good way to provide useful, unique content and attract surfers looking for information on services and products.

The interview is located here:

http://www.elliotsblog.com/5-with-rick-silver-n49-interactive-45729/comment-page-1#comment-16387

Thanks to the DomainAssets.ca newsletter for the heads up on this interview.


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Monday, November 30, 2009

New .CA domain Registrar launched

DomainReport.ca - A new .ca domain registrar has just launched called CanSpace Solutions (www.canspace.ca).

This new registrar plans to make their mark in the .ca space by offering the lowest registration prices. They also intend to offer excellent support and build a strong reputation.

From Canspace:
"Our live support is online about 20 hours a day, and all of our support staff is very knowledgeable about CIRA and the back-end processes. The domain control-panel is very straightforward and easy to use, and we do offer bulk registration and transfer tools."

The Canspace yearly dot-ca registration/transfer price is $9.75 per year. As far as I know this is one of the lowest, if not the lowest, price in Canada.

Canspace told me their goal is to always have the lowest price for .ca registration.

Canspace has also provided a promotional code I can pass along which will make domain name registrations and transfers $9.49 per year. The code is XMAS09-CA119 and runs until December 25th.

A bit about the company and person behind it...

Canspace was started and is owned by Sunil Singh. Sunil is a programmer by nature and education, and has a B.Sc in Computer Science from McMaster University. He has been in the web hosting & domain business for about 13 years now. Sunil started CanSpace because he felt there is still room to compete in the dot-ca registration market, and as the dot-com and dot-net TLDs continue to become overly saturated, he feels dot-ca domains will become even more popular. Sunil is a proud Canadian, born in Ottawa and fluent in both English and French.

I have to say I agree with Sunil's outlook on the .ca space!

I haven't yet registered a domain with Canspace, but I did want to report the news of their opening. There is always room for another registrar that offers low prices and good service. I also think they chose a good domain for their company.


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Saturday, November 21, 2009

Penticton Domainer Launches Shopping Websites

DomainReport.ca - Thanks to Elliot Silver at elliotsblog.com for posting this news, I thought I would also add my thoughts to the story since it has a Canadian connection.

Garry Chernoff of NetIncome Ventures has moved dozens of domains to shopping websites, and plans to do the same with many more. The domains lend themselves to ecommerce very well, since they are product names like BabyMonitors.com, LaserLevels.com and CarMats.com.

After looking at a few sites, it looks like they are very basic - they have some google adsense on the sides, and photos and descriptions of related products pulled from other brand name online stores. If you click on an item, it sends you to the partner website to buy it. But, you can compare items by price or category, and there is room to expand these basic sites, say by adding their own product lines, adding a forum, related news stories, etc. I also notice each site has a newsletter and is collecting emails, which will create a database of people interested in certain products that you can mail out to from time to time. This is very smart, because you might not get the sale from their first visit, but you might from the newsletter later on. Though the sites are basic, if you are searching for the product they're selling, you will think you've come to the right place when you land on them.

Will these sites perform better than ppc? They are targeted names and probably will convert well. PPC gets you a guaranteed payment with a click (which have been decreasing), going this new route you have to make a sale to earn commission. If you can get a lot of conversions, you can beat ppc, and that is likely one of the main points of this development. What was once a ppc click that paid you 17 cents could now be someone placing an order for 10 Hawaiian shirts, earning you $$ in commissions. How many ppc clicks would you need to make up one commission? For example, one dating affiliate program I use pays $55 for a paid sign up; I'd have to get up to 500 clicks on a ppc page to equal that!

If you've read the Domain Game book, you'll probably remember Garry Chernoff as one of the featured domainers. He started off in the 90's picking up web addresses that he thought would be valuable, and quit his day job when he found a $5000 domain payment cheque he'd forgotton about.

A few interesting things I also noticed is that the website for NetIncome Ventures is basically still a parking page (NetIncome.com), and one of his best domains, Jet.com, is still undevelopped.

The domains in the press release are all .com domains, I don't know if any of the new sites have .ca domains, or even if Garry Chernoff owns any .ca's. But since he is Canadian I wanted to highlight this story in my blog.

------------

Here is the full press release:

Canadian based NetIncome Ventures, an established domain investment and web development company founded and headed by serial entrepreneur Garry Chernoff has publicly launched dozens of shopping websites earlier this week just in time for the holiday shopping season. The e-commerce websites include HockeyJerseys.com, BabyMonitors.com, CarMats.com, FaxMachines.com, LaserLevels.com, CrossTrainers.com, HawaiianShirts.com and dozens more of niche specific e-commerce shops featuring hundreds of thousands of products.

Penticton, B.C., Canada (PRWEB) November 19, 2009 -- Canadian based NetIncome Ventures, an established domain investment and web development company founded and headed by serial entrepreneur Garry Chernoff has publicly launched dozens of shopping websites earlier this week just in time for the holiday shopping season. The e-commerce websites include HockeyJerseys.com, BabyMonitors.com, FaxMachines.com and dozens more of niche specific e-commerce shops featuring hundreds of thousands of products.

Garry's vision for the websites into 2010 and beyond is to become leaders in their respective niches by featuring a complete product catalog where each and every visitor can research and purchase exactly what they are looking for in one place and for the most affordable prices around. NetIncome Ventures has already teamed up with leading retailers and includes products from Buy.com, Boscov's, OnlineSports.com, Fans Edge, ShoppersChoice.com, The Shopping Channel, Overstock.com, NBC Universal Store, Autogeek.com and hundreds of other strategic partners and popular internet based discount stores.

NetIncome Ventures Inc currently owns thousands of targeted and category leading keyword domain names such as BridalShop.com, Beads.com, CellShop.com, MensWear.com, Replica.com, Runners.com, SportsGear.com, Veils.com, etc. and plans to develop and launch at least a few hundred more e-commerce shops by March of 2010. Mike Cohen of WannaDevelop.com and NYC based Logiko group have been coordinating all web development and marketing efforts for NetIncome Ventures newly launched shopping e-businesses.

"We have put in a lot of time and effort into these websites the past few month's and with Garry Chernoff's guidance and vision from day one we have been able to accomplish a truly great thing here with this week's launch and mass deployment of dozens of category specific websites on targeted keyword domains that can now serve visitors from across the globe as a one stop shop featuring product catalogs of up-to 100,000 or even more relevant and unique items on each and every website."

NetIncome Ventures Inc Contact:
Garry Chernoff
250-493-3700
biz(at)netincome.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20091119/bs_prweb/prweb3230534_1



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Thursday, November 19, 2009

.CA domain news gets mention in DNJ

DomainReport.ca - It's been a long dry spell of .ca domain names left out of the DN Journal weekly sales reports, however some .ca news was mentioned in the DNJ lowdown section yesterday.

Though reported .ca sales have been few lately, country code domains are still as strong as ever in other extensions, such as .de and .co.uk.

The DNJ lowdown section reported on two items, the start-up of Dropping.ca (new site that will catch TBR .ca domains for you), and the Domain Owners Association of Canada (DOAC), both stories I've already mentioned in this blog.

To read the DN Journal account, go here:

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/20091118.htm

At any rate, it's good to see .ca domains being mentioned in mainstream domaining circles. If you were watching the sales results of recent weeks, you would understand why some might have forgotten that .ca domains even existed!

So why the slump in sales for 2009? Especially after the successful MyID auctions in 2008?

My feeling is that there are a few reasons, some being the economic climate, the restriction on .ca ownership, and the relatively low Canadian population. Countries that are experiencing high cctld sales like Germany and the UK have a much larger population base, and more open registration rules than .ca.

Despite this, I have heard of some .ca domain sales that weren't reported (in the several thousand dollars range). You have to remember that the weekly domain sales report doesn't include all sales, many private transactions are still happening. I believe the future is still good for quality .ca domains, though it would be nice to see more sales happening to reinforce this.

What do you think is the reason for the recent slump in .ca sales?

Has 2009 been a good year for you in domains?



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Friday, November 13, 2009

Promotion for 16,000 domain name sale

DomainReport.ca

10 free domain names were given away today at DNForum.com by member acesfull to help promote a sale of 16,000 .com domains.

The remaining domains on the list are $150 each, or $100 each if you buy 10 or more.

I haven't scanned through the whole list yet, but in my opinion there are domains there of a quality I've seen sell in the $xxx to $xxxx range.

To see the full thread at DNForum, go to:

http://www.dnforum.com/f5/sale-over-16-000-domains

Or, if you would like to get a copy of the list to review, send an email to:

sale (at) gnomailbox.com

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from the DNF thread:

I am selling over 16,000 Domain names, 16,000 dot-coms (only 20 with hyphens) and only 57 with other extensions (not dot-coms).

The domains are being offered for sale, for $150 each. OR - $100 each if you purchase 10 or more at one time. For the $100 price - your purchase must be for at least 10 domains at a single time.

Payment: I'll accept payment via Paypal for purchases up to $1000. Larger orders can be paid for with Moniker Escrow (I'll split the escrow fee with the buyer). For purchases over $1,000 for buyers IN CALIFORNIA ONLY, the purchase is to be made through escrow.com, or bank wire.

Domain Transfer: Transfers will be made ONLY through a Moniker account push. You are required to provide your Moniker Account Number and Current Authorization Code. (If you don't have a Moniker.com account already, you'll have to create one, to receive your domains).

For any unforeseen circumstances, I may add restrictions or other conditions.

Stats will not be provided for any domains. Assume minimal traffic and revenue.

Domains have been registered going back to 2001 or earlier. Expiration dates range from January 2010 to August 2011.


Link to full posting:

http://www.dnforum.com/f5/sale-over-16-000-domains



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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Domainer Dinner to be held in Toronto

DomainReport.ca - The 9th Toronto Domainer Dinner will once again take place at the Rosewater Supper Club on November 25, 2009.

Tickets are $90 + evenbrite fee and include food and two drinks. The amount of seats is limited.

To register for the dinner, click here:

http://domainerdinner9.eventbrite.com/

I wish I could be in Toronto for this, so all you Toronto domainers make sure to take advantage of this event!



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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

MyID announces Marketplace for .CA domains

DomainReport.ca - As I've noted in recent postings, the .ca newsfront has been very slow in recent months. Today there was an interesting TBR drop with at least two great domains, senior.ca and mutualfunds.ca

In addition to this, I received an email from MyID about a new .ca Marketplace they are launching. There are many components to this marketplace with different auctions and sales venues.

They are also looking for 10 beta testers to try out the system, if you're interested contact MyID at support@myid.ca

I've decided to re-post the email here and let everyone read it for themselves.

---------

As you alll know, MyID.ca had its first auction of existing .ca domains in May 2008, almost 18 months ago. We were the pioneers in having the first auction platform dedicated to a cc tld and a motivation to many others that followed suits. In addition, we always stressed security and made it our an integral part of our operation. We actually implemented our authentication process before anyone else and others have since followed suit.

Since then, hundreds have been authenticated through our system and we currently enjoy 100% success rate without a single instance of any domain investor parting with their domain and not getting paid and not a single buyer parting with their funds and not getting their domain. We were adamant in our authentication process and weeded out those that we felt should not be part of our secure system and its community of users.

Throughout these last 18 months, we got to know all those that used our platform. We streamlined our operations and managed tens of thousands of domain submissions without a single incident or technical issue. We ran numerous types of auctions, some public, others private, some with a variable range of reserves and others with fixed ones. We experimented with auctions of different themes, durations, and ending time and even had once an auction that ended at 9 pm.

And we always, always reached out to our users and asked for feedback and their input as to how we can improve and serve their needs better. And we always listened. As a matter of fact, most of the variety in the auctions we ran, including the 9pm end time was influenced to a variable degree by the feedback from our users.

Fast forward to November 2009.

We are proud to announce the pending release of a comprehensive marketplace dedicated to dot ca domains. This is a very involved system that will allow dot ca owners to effectively market their domains and significantly improve the likelihood of end users finding the dot ca domains they want.

This system which we have been working on for many many months now will bring tremendous features while staying true to our dedication to a secure and fraud-free place.

There will be four main components in this new system:

A) Domains for Sale:

This will host tens of thousands of dot ca domains that are available for sale. Each would have a fixed price, BIN, or a 'Make offer'. All domains listed would be by authenticated sellers and all offers made would be by authenticated buyers. We expect to retain our record of legitimate transactions where each offer made is irreversible and irrevocable and placed by a serious buyer that intends to follow through.

B) Do Not Release:

This would allow domain owners to list their soon to be released domains for sale and gauge whether any would be sold before TBR date. Domain inventory would be updated each day at the same time to allow users a fair chance of getting the domains they may be interested in. This should give domain investors one final chance to monetize the domains they are planning to not renew.

C) MyID Bulk:

This is a registrar dedicated to domain investors with features that would undoubtedly significantly reduce the registration and renewal cost and domain management time. Features we have planned will take the domain investor registrar experience to a whole new level including a great interface, comprehensive bulk management features, detailed security, and excellent support.

D) MyID Auctions:

These will take place regularly but there will be a significant change in what domains get listed. In contradiction to the earlier auctions, only domains that have received offers through the domain marketplace will be included. This should translate to a much higher rate of sales and better use of everyone's time resources.

E) Rent an Auction:

We will allow individual domain owners to rent our platform and have dedicated auctions for their domains only.

F) TBR with steroids:

An upcoming TBR service that raises the bar for all engaged in TBR registrations. Trust us when we say that this will be like nothing you have seen so far from any current TBR service.

All the above will share the following:

1) Authentication will be required but the process is now simpler while still secure.

a) Getting authenticated to one service will translate to being authenticated to all. So all those that are already authenticated for our auctions, are already authenticated for the rest.

b) The authentication process used to be simple but is now much much simpler. There is no more need to fax or scan any credit cards. Details will be released soon.

B) No more need to return any seller or buyer agreements: The seller and buyer agreements are now streamlined and can be completed online without the need to fax or scan anything. This should tremendously decrease the handling time previously required of frequent users.

C) A comprehensive frequent seller program:

The more you sell domains on MyID Auctions, Do Not Release, and dot ca marketplace, the lower your commission will be. The way we look at it is there was a significant cost incurred in creating this marketplace and recurrent expense to manage it. This naturally will be covered by our proceeds from the sales occurring on these platforms. So the more income we make from a particular user, the more that user has helped us recoup our investment and thus the more discounts and special treatment this user deserves. And we do it all in a public and very transparent fashion so that one can always tell what it would take to get to a lower commission level. And once a seller reaches a lower commission level, they can never go back to a higher rate. So the frequent seller benefits are cumulative and even a 4% commission is within reach.

D) An elaborate affiliate program with significant rewards to those that refer new users to us.

In preparation for our imminent release, we are seeking beta testers to test drive our system and uncover any bugs prior to releasing it publically. Should you be interested, please contact us at support@myid.ca ASAP and let us know that you would like to be a beta tester.

There are only 10 spots available and they will likely fill up soon so act fast.

Here's to more ways for you to market and sell your domains


MyID.ca Dot Ca Marketplace Team



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Monday, November 9, 2009

Google to Acquire AdMob

DomainReport.ca - It's a sign of the mobile times we're in.

I received an email from admob today telling me that they have been acquired by Google. I think this shows how important mobile advertising is to Google, and therefore how important the mobile platform will be in the future. Google paid $750 million to buy this company that helps to monetize mobile websites.

Up until now the mobile sites I've built have been very simple, but I'm feeling I should concentrate more of my efforts on mobile now because more and more internet surfing is being done on mobile devices and smartphones. And I think it will only increase in the coming years.

Below is the email sent to me from admob, as I use their service on some of my mobile sites:

Today we announced that AdMob has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google for $750 million. We are extremely excited about this new partnership and what it means for our publishers.

AdMob’s people, products and tools will continue to work to effectively monetize your mobile traffic – no interruptions. Our product and engineering teams will keep building great products for our customers. Our sales team will keep working with our thousands of advertisers to deliver successful campaigns.

After our deal closes, AdMob will work with Google to accelerate the pace of innovation in mobile and do an even better job for you. We believe this deal will benefit our developer and publisher partners by:

*Building even more powerful technology and tools to monetize mobile traffic.

*Increasing the effectiveness of display advertising on mobile devices by leveraging Google sales team, infrastructure and relationships.

*Improving the already high level of service and support we deliver to our publishers.

You can read more about this deal at www.admob.com/google.

Omar

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Blogue.ca now listed on Sedo

DomainReport.ca - I had an email about a month ago from the owner of blogue.ca saying they were interested in selling this domain. It is the French Quebec spelling for 'blog'. The owner had a site for the domain and was hosting many people's blogs through subdomains, but was having trouble with fake signs up and hacking.

Now the domain is parked and listed on Sedo, and already has 1,461 visitors. I don't think the domain has been there for a full month yet.

There are two good features about this domain:

1) It is a nice french generic word, and blogs will probably be around with us for a while

2) The fact it was an existing site with many members means that the domain currently gets traffic from all the backlinks. It could now be used to offer another blog service, or web-related services.

Additional info found on Sedo:

Domain Popularity
PageRank: 4/10
Alexa Rank: 0

Link Popularity
Incoming Google Links: 102
Incoming Yahoo! Links: 23,846
DMOZ Listed: No

If you are interested in the domain, just visit www.blogue.ca and you will land on the Sedo page.

Good luck to the seller!

New .ca TBR site launched - Dropping.ca

DomainReport.ca - The .ca market continues to be fairly quiet through the fall. There is the odd sale you hear about in the forums, and the weekly TBR still has lots of activity, but there haven't been any public sales in a while (at least that I've seen).

There is, however, a new site called Dropping.ca that will help you catch the .ca domains that drop every week in the TBR.

Some of the information I was able to find on their site includes:

Dropping.ca is an Ottawa based dropcatching service for dropping .ca domains. Our goal is to help you participate in the dynamic and growing .ca domain market, by acquiring the TBR domains that you want.

Dropping.ca is brought to you by Behrendt Corporation and Hubbard Media; a partnership bringing together over 21 years of combined domaining experience.

Hubbard Media owns and operates dropsystem.co.uk, the UK's premier public dropcatching service.


The minimum cost is CAD $60 (plus GST). The more that you are willing to pay for a dropping domain, the higher the priority that we will give your domain, and the higher the chances we will be able to acquire it.

If two or more people backorder the same domain that we catch, the domain will go to a brief auction.


I usually scan the results list of each week's TBR, and I know I have often seen domains caught by the Behrendt name in the past.

There are many drop catching services out there for .ca domains, and it definitely doesn't hurt to have one more to increase your chances of getting that name you want!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

My latest domain name appraisal scam email

DomainReport.ca - Over the long weekend I got a domain name appraisal scam email, the first I've received in a long time.

Though I've gotten these before, this one didn't immediately stick out to me at first. Only when I read the part "If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list" did I start to suspect it was a scam. Why? Because usually if you're contacted about a domain, they are interested in one name and don't want you to send a whole list.

I did a Google search on the contact email and name, and I found other blog posts about this scam using similar contact info.

I have to admit, I did fall for one of these appraisal scams back in 2000 or 2001. They sent me a list of companies that could do the appraisals, and I chose GreatDomains.com because I had an account there, even though it was more expensive than the other option they gave me. So I guess it didn't really work for them, because I didn't use their appraiser. On the bright side, Great Domains gave a free t-shirt with their logo if you did an appraisal through them, so at least I got that. And ofcourse, I never did hear back from the 'interested' party.

As a rule, NEVER pay for a domain name appraisal for a domain you are selling. If the buyer is legitimate and really interested, have them get the appraisal themselves. If a domain name is good enough to warrant an appraisal, the cost of the appraisal is minor. Plus, you could also offer to deduct the cost of the appraisal from the price if they go ahead and do it.

Here is the full email for your enjoyment:

From: bridgetechnologies@gmx.com
Subject: XXXXXXXXXXXX.com (sent 10/12/09)
Date: Monday, October 12, 2009

Hello,

Our company is interested in your domain name. What is your price?

We have a solid investing budget and our company is very interested in
Internet names and web sites.

If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,

Pedro Vasquez

CIO (Chief Information Officer)

Bridge Technologies LLC
=======================================
NOTICE - This communication may contain confidential and privileged
information that is for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any
viewing, copying or distribution of, or reliance on this message by
unintended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message
and deleting it from your computer.
=======================================


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Sunday, October 4, 2009

SurveyMonkey.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - Yesterday on the Sedo homepage there was a .ca domain listed as sold:

SurveyMonkey.ca - $500

I checked to see if there is a site on the domain yet, and like I thought it points to SurveyMonkey.com.

Survey Monkey is a company that lets anyone create "professional online surveys quickly and easily".

I don't know what the domain was being used for before, but Survey Monkey probably had a pretty good case to own this domain. Strangely, the .net and .org versions of this domain go to parked sites.

Also of interest is the fact that the Survey Monkey company found it necessary to own the .ca version of their .com name. It's a good example of a company wanting to show their Canadian presence by owning the .ca


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Thursday, October 1, 2009

WebMoney.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - The latest domain sales report came out this week from DNJournal.com, and the only .ca sale reported was:

WebMoney.ca - $1,752

I checked to see if there is a site on the domain yet, but it is still parked at Sedo.

Also, there was no TBR yesterday (weekly domain drop of expired .ca domains). I assume the domains that were to be dropped yesterday will be moved to next week, October 7.

God.ca is still listed on ebay, the asking price is now $19,999 US.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Welcome to the Web Nelson Daily News!

DomainReport.ca - My local newspaper for a small town of 10,000 has finally started a website. I remember checking the domain on their emails that were posted in the paper about a year ago to see where it resolved, and it didn't. This week they launched the site and I think it looks pretty good for a start.

They ofcourse will keep the newspaper going, and will have some additional stories online, and some of the stories in print will not be online. They allow comments to articles if you register. They are using Google Adsense, and inviting local businesses to advertise. They are adding extra photos to the site and allow you to purchase them. The site looks nice to me and is easy to navigate.

I think it makes smart business sense for them to have a site, I just wonder why it took them so long? The domain name is pretty good too!

To check it out, visit:

http://www.NelsonDailyNews.com


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Twitter vs Facebook & cheap Magazines

DomainReport.ca - We all know that Twitter has been in the news for much of 2009, but people still debate whether having a Twitter account is useful. Some people sign up, use it for a while, then do nothing for months. After time, many go back to Twitter and find it helps them with their business.

I saw a good article today that compares Twitter and Facebook, and how more business people are finding advantages with Twitter. It also seems that Twitter has Facebook a little worried, and Facebook is trying to implement some Twitter-like features. If you are interested in the Twitter debate, the article is linked below.

http://thestar.com/business/article/701347

Another subject that has caught my attention in the last two years or so is how cheap magazine subscriptions have become. For example, Macleans, a popular Canadian magazine, recently offered me 20 issues for $14.95. That's about the cost of 3 issues on the news stand.

But Sports Illustrated tops them all. Just yesterday in the mail, I was offered a 56 issue subscription for $30 Canadian, PLUS I get a free NFL team performer jacket of any NFL team I choose! To me, it looks like a great offer and I wonder how they can afford to do something like that? The cover value of the 56 magazines would normally be $256.

The only way I can rationalize this is that magazines are losing subscribers, likely because people are getting more of their news online. But magazines need eyeballs to show potential advertisers that they have a large number of subscribers. If they lose the subscribers, they can't charge as much for advertising. So they are willing to make and ship the magazine for a loss from the subscriber angle, in order to maybe make a profit with their ad sales. Another benefit is they might want more subscribers in order to drive them to their website.

This is the same thing that happened to Business 2.0 magazine, which was my favorite. One minute I got a year's subscription for $10, and a few months later the magazine folded, and my subscription was moved to Fortune magazine (which isn't too bad either). I would have paid a lot more for a Business 2.0 subscription because I enjoyed it so much.

How long will today's magazines last if they have to keep giving it away?

Friday, September 25, 2009

Is Canada missing the Web's Potential?

DomainReport.ca - Thanks to member burgerman at DNforum.com for pointing out this story on the CBC. The title of the article is "Google exec says Canada missing web's potential".

In the article, an executive from Google talks about how Canadian businesses aren't advertising online as much as other countries with similar tech knowledge.

"businesses in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, where between 15 to 20 per cent of all advertising is done online, have taken to the web much faster than their Canadian counterparts and are therefore gaining an edge in international competitiveness

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada, online advertising revenue has more than quadrupled over the past five years to $1.6 billion in 2008 or 11 per cent of all spending. I am surprised by this statistic from the article and thought online advertising would have a higher % of all spending by now. If it grows to the level of other countries and above, it shows there is still a lot of potential to develop websites and take advantage of businesses looking to advertise online. For example, you could build a website about your local area offering original content on attractions and events, and get advertising from hotels, motels, resorts, restaurants, accountants, lawyers, etc.

Here is a link to the full article:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/09/23/google-search-advertising-canada.html?ref=rss


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Thursday, September 24, 2009

God.ca domain name listed on Ebay

DomainReport.ca - I received an email this morning from Josh at JDP Network informing me that God.ca is now for sale on Ebay. The buy it now price is $49,000 US, or you can make a best offer.

The seller is listed as honeybeau07 with 100% positive feedback and a rating of 264.

The listing reads:

For sale, one of the most powerful, impacting and targeted domain names ever to be offered and for the first time!

The domain name God.ca, the name itself invokes many emotions, crosses cultural divides and touches the world in it's entirety. With over a third of the world believing in a God and billions more waiting to be reached the uses are endless. This name would be perfect for a church or those groups seeking to reach the world via the internet by providing their information to north america. The gospel and teaching on God has become very mainstream, do not miss this chance to be a leader by branding a powerful domain. I am open to serious offers, the owner must have a Canadian "presence" and one can be easily arranged.


Whether it sells or not, I'm sure it will garner a lot of attention as a strong, three letter word with importance to many religions in Canada and abroad.

If you want to see the listing, you can click here.



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Monday, September 21, 2009

New Domain Law blog by Zak Muscovitch

DomainReport.ca - I came across news of a new domain law blog today by Zak Muscovitch of Toronto, Canada.

Zak has been a domain lawyer for 10 years, and has also handled .ca cases from what I've heard.

His new blog can be reached at:

http://dnattorney.com/blog.shtml

Bio and contact info from his site:

Zak Muscovitch is a domain name lawyer. He has been practising domain name law for ten years. Go to http://www.DNattorney.com and http://www.muscovitch.com for more information or email Zak Muscovitch at zak@muscovitch.com

Welcome to the blogosphere Zak, domain law is an important topic and I'm sure many domainers will appreciate your take on this subject.


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Friday, September 18, 2009

Recent .ca domain name sales

DomainReport.ca - There are only two recent .ca sales to report that I know of, one reported at dnjournal.com, the other showed up on Sedo today.

SaveMore.ca - $3,300 US

electricite.ca - $4,500 US (electricity in french)

The first domain is a brandable type name that I could see being used effectively in advertising, perhaps by a grocery or department store.

The second domain is a nice french one-word generic, now owned by Corporation Service Company of Nova Scotia.

So far both of these domains don't resolve to a webpage.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Negative comments on Kevin Ham talk in Vancouver

DomainReport.ca - The techvibes.com blog has a post on Kevin Ham's speech in Vancouver this week at the Vancouver Enterprise Forum.

The post talks about how Ham discussed getting into domain names, and his life and business lessons learned so far. Ham also presented a video on his company's plans for Vancouver.com, and told the crowd they were open to partnerships and ideas for the site. The video is posted on the blog.

The interesting thing was the comments made on this blog post, some from people who attended the event. Though most found his speech inspiring, they were less impressed by the domain investing angle.

Some of the comments:

Give the domain to the city of Vancouver and let people take a vote on what they want it to be.

I'm ashamed that this city's tech entrepreneur community idolizes domain squatters.

So, buying a domain name and making a business out of that should be worshiped? Weird.

I don't idolize him or domain squatting.

The City of Vancouver should just undergo a simple Domain Name Dispute Resolution process to win the Vancouver.com domain - it would be awarded back to the city with zero difficulty, IMO.


To me, these comments show that domainers are still lumped in by many people as cyber squatters. I thought the impression of domain investors was getting better, but apparently not.

You can read the post on tech vibes here:

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/reinvents-kevin-ham-wants-your-ideas-for-vancouver.com

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Frank Schilling interview and latest headlines

DomainReport.ca - Though there isn't much in the way of news in .ca domains lately, there has been a lot happening in the overall domaining world.

The biggest news I've seen lately is that Paul Sloan, a writer who has written extensively on the domain and internet markets, has a new website, www.PlayingTheAngles.com .

One of the first articles he posted was an interview with Frank Schilling. I enjoyed Frank's blog at SevenMile.com while it lasted, and hadn't heard much about what he's been doing lately, other than reports of experimenting with his landing pages. The interview gives some current views that Frank has about the domain market and is a great read. You can find the interview here:

http://www.playingtheangles.com/interviews/frank-schilling/


Here are some other headlines on domains in the past while that are worth reporting:

- WoodPellets.com sells for $115,000 US at Sedo.com

- Call.com sells for $1,100,000 US

- Christian.com sells for $600,000 US

- Release of .CM domains generate over $2,000,000 in auctions

- ProteinBars.com sells at Namejet auction for $56,900

- The decline in PPC revenues is again a hot topic among domainers

- Sedo reports more than $15 million in domain sales in second quarter '09

- Casino.mobi sells for $135,000 US through Moniker.com

- Shopping.de sells for $2,850,000 US

- Sedo plans to auction off one and two character .biz domains

- Rick Schwartz released some of his domain sales in recent weeks, which included PunchBowl.com (six figures + considerations) and ChinaTours.com ($200,000).

Looking at those headlines you wouldn't know the world is in an economic downturn.

There is a lot of interesting news on domains published daily, and you can find it all aggregated at Domaining.com. Some of my favorite reads lately have been:

DnJournal.com

ElliotsBlog.com

DotWeekly.com

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Interview with founder of Emall.ca

DomainReport.ca - If you haven't read this already, here is a great interview with the founder of a company that has one of the best .ca portfolios in Canada.

His name is Peter Maxymych, and the interview was conducted by Jeff Behrendt at DomainBits.com.

It's always helpful to read the ideas and thoughts of people operating at a high level of domaining. Some of the domains owned by emall.ca include Loans.ca, Perfume.ca, Assurance.ca, and Noel.ca.

Some of the areas covered in the interview include:

- How Peter got into domaining

- Why he chose .ca domains

- The $2.5 million deal with Yellow Pages

- Peter's favorite .ca domains

- How many domains does emall.ca own?

- Peter's thoughts on the future of .ca domains


Link to the interview:

http://www.domainbits.com/peter-maxymych-emall-ca


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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Two recent .CA sales

DomainReport.ca - It's still been fairly quiet out there in the .ca market, however with summer coming to an end we may see a pick up in activity once more people get back to work.

The .ca TBR has been as active as ever each week, but I have seen only two .ca sales reported outside TBR recently. These are:

accountingweb.ca - $1100

zoomzoom.ca - $1400


I used to read Frank Schilling's blog, sevenmile.com religiously, and always remember a post he made about good brandable domains. One type of domain he liked was the 'keyword web' type domain, such as PhotoWeb.com or TorontoWeb.ca. Seeing the sale of accountingweb.ca reminded me of that post. Myself, I own a few .ca's of this type, I especially like 'cityname web' domains. Another word that looks good in place of 'web' is 'plus'. I am also starting to see more .ca domains in use with the 'My' prefix, such as mypuppy.ca and mykitten.ca

Friday, August 14, 2009

Godaddy Introduces Twitter Integration

DomainReport.ca - I am sure most of you with Godaddy accounts have noticed the Twitter link when you log in to your domain management. There is a link that encourages you to join Twitter and get your domain name as a Twitter username. What I wonder is, what is in this for Godaddy? What kind of deal have Twitter and Godaddy reached?

Perhaps it's no big deal, but if I were Twitter management I'd love to have my link shown in every account at the largest registrar in the world. This must be getting them a lot of new users and exposure.

On another note, getting a Twitter username for each of your domains would be overkill if you own hundreds or thousands of domains. But if you owned, say, 10 city name domains with websites, you might want a Twitter account for each of them to tweet about the city news and help drive traffic to your site.

From Godaddy's latest newsletter:

There's an easy, new way to see if your domain is available as a Twitter user name. Now, when you log into the Go Daddy domain manager, you'll see a Twitter icon next to each of your domains – simply click it to check if that domain is available as a user name on Twitter. It's a fast, easy way to join the hottest trend on the Web.


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Monday, August 10, 2009

.Tel camp to be held in Toronto Aug 15

DomainReport.ca - The Domain Convergence conference is taking place at Toronto’s Radisson Admiral Harbourfront Hotel on August 13-14, just a few short days from now.

After this, on August 15, TelCamp Toronto 1, Canada’s first TelCamp (and the world’s second) will be held.

The TelCamp takes place at 9:00am on August 15 in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum (main entrance). Admission is free and everyone is welcome. All you have to bring is your enthusiasm, new ideas, questions, concerns and success stories to this informal, relatively unstructured gathering. Sessions will give you the opportunity to learn about .Tel, how to populate and manage your .tel domain, how to extend the capabilities of .tel, trademark issues and more.

You’ll also have a chance to rub shoulders with Freaky Steve (Telsters.com) and Mark Kolb (Promoting.tel), two of the most prominent early applications developers to emerge from the pioneering ranks of .Tel investors. Both Mark and Steve have been featured at Telnic.org in the .Tel of the Week and .Tel Stories sections, respectively. Novices and seasoned .Tel owners will benefit from their knowledge and skills.

The official site is located at TelCamp.tel. Everyone wishing to attend is invited to register, add agenda topics and suggestions.

For more information, contact Scott Smith at ScottSmith.tel

Thursday, August 6, 2009

YourMoney.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - There was one .ca domain sale reported in this week's DNJournal sales report, and it was:

YourMoney.ca - $8,000 US

This domain sold at Sedo, and it reminds me of a slogan used by a certain orange-themed bank in Canada. Right now the domain is still parked at Sedo, so we will have to wait to see who bought it.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Sibername Re-Auctions TBR .ca domains

DomainReport.ca - Sibername has a list of TBR domains it caught for clients that were never paid for over the past months. Today I received an email that they will be re-auctioning these domains. The auction closes on July 30, at 14:00. (EST)

Some of the domains on their list include:

1. heliski.ca
2. fhm.pe.ca
3. drv.ca
4. dyp.ca
5. qmc.ca
6. adapt.qc.ca
7. yho.ca
8. moneybrokers.ca
9. dragonsys.ca
10. mobiletones.ca
11. gazel.ca
12. datatrust.ca
13. geoconsulting.ca
14. groundwork.ca
15. northlandmedia.ca


The link to the auction is here:

http://sibername.com/tbr/premium.php


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Microsoft and Yahoo finally agree on search deal

DomainReport.ca - After years of speculation and failed talks, Microsoft and Yahoo have finally agreed to a search deal, involving Microsoft's new search engine Bing.com

Highlights of the deal:

- It is a 10 year deal

- Microsoft didn't have to pay Yahoo an upfront fee

- For the first 5 years, Yahoo gets 88% of revenues from ads running beside search requests

- Yahoo gets the right to sell ads on some MSN sites

- Yahoo will save money by scaling down it's own search technology

- The deal won't close until early next year, and it will take time to integrate the search partnership. Antitrust regulators will also need time to review this deal.


My guess is Yahoo will be focusing more on news and social media. For example, their MyYahoo page lets you piece together the news you want to see on a daily basis by subject matter - sports, weather, technology, world events, etc. It will take some time and more details of this deal to see if it is a winner for both companies.

Read the full story here:

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090729/ap_on_hi_te/us_microsoft_yahoo


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Monday, July 13, 2009

Domain conference to be held in Canada

DomainReport.ca - Domain Convergence domain name conference to be held in Toronto, Canada, August 13 and 14 at the Radisson Admiral Habourfront Hotel.

Please read the press release below for more info:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 13, 2009
Contact: Frank Michlick, Chairman
Domain Convergence
contact@dnevents.com
http://www.DomainConvergence.com

Registration Now Open for Domain Convergence – Canada’s Only Domain Name Conference

Registration has now opened for Domain Convergence, a two-day domain name conference held in Toronto, Ontario, that teaches domain name owners how to develop and monetize their online portfolios. By registering for the event before July 20th, attendees can save $100! Also, there are still spots open for speakers and sponsors to participate in this exciting event.

Toronto, ON – July 13, 2009 – DNEvents.com has announced that the early-bird registration period has started for Domain Convergence, a two-day domain conference scheduled for August 13 and 14, 2009 at the Radisson Admiral Habourfront Hotel in Toronto, Ontario. By registering before July 20, 2009, conference attendees can save up to $100!

Domain Convergence is the only event in Canada of its kind, giving domainers the opportunity to learn from the best and brightest minds in the industry, build new relationships through networking, and get the tools they need to stay on top of the ever-changing domain landscape.

There will be live training sessions on domain development and monetization as well as a special session about Canadian domains, which will be done in association with the Domain Owners Association of Canada (DOAC). The association will also hold their annual meeting at the event. Furthermore, attendees will be able to participate in an online auction which will accompany the conference.

“Domain Convergence is a must-attend event for everyone who is interested in domaining,” explained Frank Michlick, the Chairman at Domain Convergence. “Not only do attendees get the opportunity to learn from world-renowned industry experts, but they also have the chance to network with other domainers and pursue profitable relationships that would otherwise be impossible to develop.”

Registrations are now taking place at the early-bird special of only $649. This price will increase to $749 on July 20, 2009 and on-site registration will be available for $799.

Register today by calling (800) 614-3780 or by going online to www.DomainConvergence.com

Additionally, there are still spots available for speakers and sponsors to join us. For more information and event details, visit www.DomainConvergence.com

About Frank Michlick and DNEvents.com:
DNEvents.com is an event company for the domain name industry. Frank Michlick, the CEO of DNEvents, is an internet specialist with over 13 years of business and technology experience. He is currently an editor with DomainNameNews.com, the chairman of Domain Convergence and the founder of DomainCocoon, a consulting company for registrars and domain management. In addition he’s the founder of the web 2.0 startup SharedReviews.com.

About Domain Convergence:
Domain Convergence was born in 2008 from a DomainerDinner meeting in Toronto, Ontario, where it was agreed that Canada needed its own conference to offer practical advice that will help participants succeed in the domain name industry. After rave reviews in 2008, this year’s event is going to be even better. Visit www.DomainConvergence.com for more information.

Contact:
Frank Michlick, Chairman
Domain Convergence
(800) 614-3780
contact@dnevents.com
http://www.DomainConvergence.com

Boston Herald runs article on Domain Names

DomainReport.ca - The Boston Herald newspaper published an article on domain names which can be read online at:

http://news.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/technology/view/20090713key_web_names_seen_as_free_advertising/srvc=home&position=also

Some highlights of the article are:

- Key web names are seen as 'free' advertising

- Furniture.com gets 65 percent of its traffic from people who type its name into their Web browsers.

- A bankruptcy judge last month approved the $25 million sale of 1-800-Mattress to Sleepy’s last month, and Mattress.com was the main asset

- Even in this economy, there’s a very strong market for unique domains

Friday, July 10, 2009

Get Your Internet Domains Now

DomainReport.ca - There is a new article out at Forbes.com that is an interesting read for domainers, titled "Get Your Internet Domains Now".

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/09/internet-domain-sales-markets-equity-onlineHOLD.html

The article quotes some stats from Sedo and suggests that generic domains can cut a companies marketing expenses, and that good domains can add strength to a brand.

I don't know if the economy is going to recover anytime soon, though it does look better now than a few months ago. Housing sales and starts are up in Vancouver and BC, for instance. When the economy does recover, this time may be looked back upon as a great opportunity to have picked up some good domain names.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Trouver.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - The domain name trouver.ca was reported as sold at Sedo.com for $2,649. The buyer of the domain looks to be Yellow Pages Group, which have it pointed to their french website www.pagesjaunes.ca

It is an appropriate domain for them, because trouver means 'find' or 'to find' in french, so it fits well for a search site. And on the landing page, you have the option to 'trouver des entreprises' (find a business) or 'trouver une personne' (find a person).

Thanks to DNJournal for the report
http://dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

Monday, June 22, 2009

MyID Premium .ca Auction Starts June 24

DomainReport.ca - Premium .ca domain names will be auctioned at MyID.ca starting this Wednesday.

Job.ca is touted as the top domain in the auction, with a reserve of $250k -$300k.

Other domains in the auction include:

Theatre.ca
Takeout.ca
Timeshares.ca
Force.ca
Newspapers.ca
Fees.ca
Mike.ca
Eating.ca
Fines.ca
YS.ca
MZ.ca
Dancer.ca
Her.ca
Luxe.ca
Relationships.ca
Band.ca
Giftshops.ca

and many more.

The full list of domains auctioned can be reviewed here:

http://auction.myid.ca/premium

Auction starts on Wednesday at 1:00 pm and ends on Thursday at 1:00 pm EDT.


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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Peak Domaining Theory? I disagree.

DomainReport.ca - I was reading some recent domain blog posts about the idea of 'peak domaining', the fact that type in's and typing in domain names to navigate will become obsolete.

http://www.greentaxi.com/peak-of-the-domain-market/

http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/2009/06/peak-domaining-doomsday-scenario.html

In fact, reading these posts gives you the idea that domain names are becoming less relevant, and prices have reached a peak.

Thought I respect their opinions, I couldn't disagree more.

I used to wonder if there would ever by a system developed to do away with domain names for navigating on the internet. After coming back to this point many times over I just can't see it happening. It's possible that it could happen, I just don't see any way for it at this time.

Sure, the economy is down now. Online advertising spending went down in the last quarter. But the fact some people are predicting 'peak domaining' makes me think the opposite, that we are in for more growth in domain name values.

Here are some of my points against the idea of peak domaining.

I am seeing domain names in offline advertising now more than ever before, both country code domains and .com .net .org. Meaning, businesses aren't relying on only Twitter and search engines to be found.

There are other ways to navigate the internet for sure - links, portals, icons, favorite lists, search engines - ways that negate having to type in a domain name. But I'm sure most of us still type in at least one domain name every time we're on the net. What about new sites and urls you see on tv or offline - you have to type those in at least one time to see what's there.

New people are coming online all the time (think young kids growing up, or older people finally hitting the web, people in developing countries), and people get interested in new subjects all the time. What do they do? They'll do at least some type-ins to find subjects that interest them - hmmmmm, I wonder what's at wine.com, or travel.co.uk, or hockeycards.com. There are billions of people with billions of interests, and all kinds of subjects can get typed into the browser out of curiousity.

Search engines and portals can't be perfect in returning results. If you are a business owner depending on organic traffic from search results, you better be found on the first page and high up. To supplement this, you could also get a quality domain that people will remember when they see it in the newspaper, or that will get some type in traffic.

Most people aren't internet search/browser/domain experts. Many will type in the domain even if there is a link on the page in their favorites. Why, I don't know.

As for voice recognition, do we really want to surf the web by talking to our computer or phone? To me, it's usually more of a quiet experience, like reading a newspaper. I don't want to talk to my tv, book or dishwasher either.

Recent reports from sites like dnjournal and afternic have noted that small to medium size businesses are increasing or at least maintaining their domain name buying levels during this economic downturn. Many small and medium businesses still don't have a website.

There are lots of examples showing that premium domains can fail as a business. A domain name needs a good business model behind it to succeed, no matter how good the domain. But still this year we saw the sales of domains like Auction.com and Toys.com to companies that were happy to own these premium domains that relate to their markets. Why do they spend millions on these domains if domains are supposedly becoming less relevant, and we are passed 'peak domaining'?

I see that the domain name will always be needed - a person or business that gets a website will have to have a way to tell someone where they are. Just like phone numbers, which have been in use for decades and are still relevant today. But domains also have the quality of real estate, in that if the property is higher quality (better keywords), it will increase your chances of success.

And the domain name that is needed will need to be relevant to the business name, product, or the owner's name. And there is a finite supply of these domains in every industry in a relevant or desirable extension.

The 'peak domaining' theory is based off the 'peak oil' idea, which says that there is a finite amount of easy oil to be drilled, and we may be passed that point. The other side of this idea is that oil will become more expensive to find and drill as the remaining deposits are more remote, which will increase the price of oil as it becomes more scarce. For domains, once the good ones are in use and locked up by individuals and companies, quality domains will be harder to acquire which should in fact push up prices.

So maybe there is a side to 'peak domaining' I can agree with after all.

I'd like to see everyone else's ideas about this theory, whether pro or con, so please comment.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Job.ca to be auctioned at MyID

DomainReport.ca - MyID has just announced today that their June 24 auction will feature the domain Job.ca

June 8, 2009, Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

MyID.ca announces that it will be conducting a .ca domain auction on June 24-25 with an excellent selection of .ca domains, the majority of which having never been made available before.

At the top of this list is the most spectacular dot ca domain to ever be auctioned and that's the highly sought after top tier employment domain, JOB.ca.

Job.ca was registered befored CIRA opened its doors and is one of the earliest .ca domains registered.

This is the first time ever it is placed on the market.

Last year Jobs.ca sold for $600k, Emplois.ca sold for $56k, and CV.ca sold on MyID.ca auction for $54k. Numerous job related domains have been sold on MyID.ca dot ca auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Job.ca reserve will be announced later today when the full June 24 auction list will be released.

Parties interested in bidding must complete the process outlined here:

http://auction.myid.ca

Best of luck to all.

MyID.ca Auction Management Team

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Premium .ca domains in MyID auctions

DomainReport.ca - I received an email this week from MyID with some of the premium .ca domains they will be listing in their June auctions.

This is the first set of premium names they have posted, a second set of names will be released soon. It's hard to choose, but my favourites among these are BU, Luck, New, 69, SM, and Teen.

Here they are below:

General Auction June 10-11

BU.ca
Diplome.ca
Force.ca
Luck.ca
New.ca
Payment.ca
Pharmacien.ca (Pharmacist in French)

Adult Auction June 17-18

69.ca
Gays.ca
Pose.ca
SexCam.ca
SM.ca
Strippers.ca
Teen.ca

General Auction June 24-25

Layouts.ca
Mask.ca
Moves.ca
Pies.ca
Relationships.ca
Timeshares.ca

Thursday, June 4, 2009

West.bc.ca sells at TBR auction

DomainReport.ca - The domain west.bc.ca has sold at a Sibername TBR auction for over three thousand dollars (Cdn).

West.bc.ca - $3,150

According to Sibername's request from Cira, registration of the top level domain name WEST.CA is currently restricted, but will be available for registration in August, 2009.

Therefore, whoever won this domain will be able to register west.ca in August. Normally they would have been able to do so right away.

West.ca is a great domain to own, short and simple, and could be used to promote Canada's western provinces of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, which have been the areas of much of Canada's economic growth in recent times.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

MyID running four June .ca domain auctions

DomainReport.ca - MyID will continue their string of .ca domain name auctions with four auction events planned in June.

There will be a $250 reserve auction, a general auction, an adult domain auction, and another general auction to close out the month.

The dates are as follows:

June 3-4 -----> $250 reserve auction
June 9-10 -----> General Auction
June 16-17 -----> Adult-only auction
June 23-24 -----> General Auction

MyID is promising to have some high quality domains, especially in the adult and general auctions.

The auction lists are expected to be published by June.


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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

ManitobaJobs.ca sells at MyID .ca auction

DomainReport.ca - The top selling .ca domain in last week's MyID .ca auction was ManitobaJobs.ca for $4,052.

This week's MyID auction starts at 1:00 pm EDT today and ends at 3:00 pm EDT on Thursday.

There are close to 150 domains listed all with a fixed reserve of $100.

To view the MyID auction site please click here.



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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Reaume.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - The DNjournal weekly sales report was released last night, and there was one .ca sale to report.

Reaume.ca $1,000 (sold at Sedo)

In other .ca news, the MyID .ca Geo domain auction ends today at 3pm EST. There are some nice domains in this auction with bids, some of the best in my opinion are:

AlbertaRealEstate.ca
AlbertaSingles.ca
Australian.ca

European.ca
Hungary.ca
QuebecHomes.ca
Tokyo.ca


As usual, the bidding normally heats up in the last hour of the auction, so it will be interesting to see the results.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Commvault.ca sells in DNJ report

DomainReport.ca - There was one .ca domain name reported as sold in the latest dnjournal sales report.

Commvault.ca - 2,500 Eur ($3,325 USD)

That domain was sold at Sedo. There was a long list of country code domain sales reported, most of which were .de, .co.uk, .fr, .es and other European extensions.

Also, the MyID.ca domain auction ends in less than 2 hours. Currently there are 15 domains with bids, the highest of which is 14.ca at $500. I'd expect to see more bids come in as the auction draws to a close.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

MyID .ca domain name auction starts today

DomainReport.ca - The first MyID.ca auction for 2009 starts today at 1:00 pm EDT.

All 135 auctioned domains have a $50 reserve!

These include fabulous names such as:

14.ca

Audited.ca

Dramas.ca

FootballCards.ca

DiplomaOnline.ca


and many many others.

The auction will run from 1:00 pm EDT today till 9:00 pm EDT tomorrow wednesday.

The new end date was made in consultation with the various participants in our auctions. This will hopefully give the chance to more people participating outside the normal business hours.

Monday, April 27, 2009

MyID posts .ca domain auction schedule

DomainReport.ca - MyID has now posted their auction schedule for .ca domain names in May and June (see below).

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MyID.ca will be holding weekly auctions during the months of May and June 2009.

The auctions will take place on Tuesdays, and will start at 1:00 pm Toronto time. Bidding will be open for 2-3 hours depending on number of domains auctioned and the auction anti-sniping extension. The first auction will happen on Tuesday May 5, 2009. The last auction (before summer break)will take place on June 23, 2009. In total 8 auctions will take place in May and June. The auction schedule for the summer will be announced later.

As the bidding period is relatively short (few hours), we will allow proxy bids to be placed by those that won't be able to attend a certain bidding
session. These bids will be hidden and will be placed as proxy bids when bidding starts.

Here is the schedule of the upcoming auctions with relevant info about the auction type and the submission period:

May 5, No Reserve Auction, Submission period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by April 30,

May 12, Geo Domains Auction, Submission Period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by May 5,

May 19, General Auction, Submission Period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by May 5,

May 26, $100 Reserve Auction, Submission Period starts on April 28,Domains will be listed by May 12,

June 2, Adult-Only Auction, Submission period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by May 19,

June 9, General Auction, Submission Period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by May 19,

June 16, $250 reserve Auction, Submission Period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by May 26,

June 23, General Auction, Submission period starts on April 28, Domains will be listed by June 2.

Please note the following:

a) All those wishing to participate are encouraged to complete the authentication process ASAP. This applies to both buyers and sellers.

b) The No-Reserve Auctions and fixed-reserve auctions are not meant for mediocre names. We will not accept any domains of sub par quality.

c) A domain can be submitted once for any of these 8 auctions. Unsold domains can still accept offers through PAO (Post Auction Offers).

d) All our auctions are .ca auctions only.

e) The 'listed by' date above indicates that auction lists may be announced earlier if a sufficient number of domains is received. Accordingly, you are
encouraged to submit your domains early to reserve your spots. You can actually reserve a spot for June 23 auction on April 28.

f) We will advise domain owners when their domain(s) have been accepted. This will give them more time to advertise and market their domains.

g) The submission period on April 28 starts at 2:00 pm Toronto time. Submissions will be accepted for all auctions.

h) There have been some changes in the auction operations. We'll advise of these in an email in the next 24 hours. All authenticated users will receive
that email. In addition, all those that subscribed to our mailing list will be receive that message.

i) We reserve the right to make changes in the schedule and info above. Adequate notice will be sent to advise of the changes.

For any question you may have, please contact us.

Best of luck to all.

MyID.ca Auction Team


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Friday, April 24, 2009

MyID to resume .ca domain name auctions

DomainReport.ca - I just received an email this morning from MyID.ca informing that they will be running more .ca domain name auctions in May and June. There are a few changes to the auctions from last year which are explained in their email below.

I didn't think we'd be seeing any .ca auctions this year due to the economy, but the overall domain market seems to be holding up, with many auctions still running at the major domain conferences. If anything, I get a feeling that the economy is driving more people to get a business online due to lower start up costs and the lull in the job market. If you are out of work, one option is to start your own online business instead of doing nothing. And to get online you need a good domain name to increase your chances of success.

To learn more about MyID and the auctions, please click here to visit their site.

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Greetings from Gus and Danny and all of us here at MyID.ca. We are very excited at what we have planned over the next couple of months.

A) MyID Dot Ca Auctions:

1) MyID.ca will be holding a number of dot ca auctions in May and June. These auctions will include on top of our usual auctions, some specialized ones such as no-reserve auction, geo domains auctions, and an "adult" domains auction.

2) The exact dates of these auctions will be announced in the next 48 hours. At that time, an auction calendar will be posted and all authenticated domain owners will be invited to submit their domains and reserve their spots for the next and subsequent auctions.

3) There will be limited spots in each auction for high value domains ($10k+). These spots will be allocated on a first come first served basis to the premium generics with attractive reserves.

4) Each auction will be followed by a 'Post Auction Offer' period that would allow the unsold domains to receive offers.

5) MyID.ca commission is now a sliding scale that rewards frequent sellers with lower commissions (as low as 5%). In addition, frequent buyers are rewarded with cash back incentives.

6) We will allow credit card payment for some transactions. Some restrictions apply. Our ironclad security will not be negatively impacted.

B) Even more BIG news....

We are putting the final touches on a number of additional projects all targeted to .ca domainers. This will be HUGE!

Details coming up very very soon.

Keep a close eye on your Inbox and for now plan on what you would like included in the next auctions.

Here's to your success

MyID.ca Auction Team



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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Sema.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - The latest weekly sales report is out at DNJournal.com, and there was one .ca domain sale reported in the country codes.

Sema.ca - $5,000

I'm not sure of the meaning of 'sema', it looks to be a common acronym for many uses. We'll have to wait and see what kind of site is put up.

What I found interesting in this weeks domain sales report, and reports of recent weeks, is that the average selling price for country code domains is above that of the .net's, .org's, .info's and other global tlds (not including .com).

There were many .de, .co.uk, .es and .fr sales in the country code section this week. Even though those countries have 2x to 3x the population of Canada, they get many more sales reported than for the .ca extension. It makes me think that the .ca domain market has some catching up to do, which should happen over time. Many of these other country code extensions are also open to anyone, while .ca has some restrictions regarding residence.

Monday, April 20, 2009

The tale of ForSale.ca

DomainReport.ca - The domain blog DomainBits.com reports on a CDRP proceeding (Canadian equivalent of UDRP) for the domain name ForSale.ca

http://www.domainbits.com/reverse-domain-hijacking/

Great read and it looks like the panel made a good decision.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

EEE.ca sells in TBR auction

DomainReport.ca - The domain name eee.ca was auctioned today after being picked up in yesterday's TBR. The winning price for this domain was $2,550 CAD. This is a domain that expired and wasn't renewed by it's previous owner.

The appeal of this domain is that it is short, and contains all the same letter. "E" is also considered a premium letter. There are only 26 possible combinations like this, and I've never seen any come up for sale in the past.

The final price shows that short domains with special features like this one are highly regarded.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

dot .ca domain sales of past week

DomainReport.ca - The DNJournal.com sales report is out this week, and there are two .ca sales to report. Most of the .ca sales of late have been taking place in forums or in the weekly TBR, but now there are a couple of other sales to report that I haven't seen until today.

LocalWork.ca - $3,500 US at Sedo

SmallBusinessLoan.ca - $1,499

On a site note, property.ca is still listed for sale at dnforum.com, and the high bid is at $74,000 CAD.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Property.ca listed for sale at DNForum

DomainReport.ca - The domain name property.ca has been listed for sale at DNforum.com with an asking price of $111,000.

Offers are also being taken.

The thread for this sale is here:

http://www.dnforum.com/f356/property-ca-thread-359965.html

I don't usually post sales of .ca domain names like this, but this is a highly premium domain and is worth noting that it's being made available. It is one of the best, or the best domain you could use for the Real Estate market in Canada.

If you are interested in this domain please visit the link above and contact the owner directly.

Some of the details from the sales thread:

Let me start by saying I have sold several big 5 figure dot ca domains and never have I owned or sold as powerful a keyword as this, never imagined I ever would. It by far trumps all previous reported sales/names but for 1 or 2 and by all rights should be asking far more when putting them side by side to compare. The dot com is reported to have seen 8 figures, that is $10M+++. The property industry will ALWAYS be with us, the name has it all. Not everyone can afford such a name but those who have or do would ask considerablly more and for much less. The potential here is to see another 6 figures from an end user or reseller.

I will make some things clear.

This is NOT a traffic or revenue sale, do not ask. It does obviously receive both though. This is Keyword all the way!
This is the first time the name has ever been offered you have not seen it elsewhere.
I am taking offers via PM or email ONLY, unless you are posting SOLD@BIN or a nice comment, please do not post.
There is one condition with the sale, that 2 @property.ca emails are forwarded for 5-6 months.

That is all and I MAY update the high offer in time. Presently there are 3 serious five figure offers from members here.

All the best to those who make offers and enjoy going after what is imo the very BEST dot ca ever offered for such a price and very best dot ca offered on dnforum or any forum for that matter.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Kaboose sells to Disney Online and Barclays

DomainReport.ca - Canada based Kaboose Inc., an online media company that owns parenting and family websites in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, announced today that it is selling virtually all it's assets to Barclays and Disney Online.

Barclays Private Equity is purchasing Kaboose's UK based Bounty Group Limited.

Disney Online, a unit of Disney Interactive Media Group, will purchase substantially all of Kaboose's North American assets, including all of its online media properties and related businesses.

Some of Kaboose's websites include:

Kaboose.com

BabyZone.com

Bounty.com

AmazingMoms.com

ParentZone.com

Zeeks.com


Gross proceeds from this sale will be about $120 Million, which will be distributed to shareholders at an expected value of 65 cents per share. In the last year Kaboose shares have traded over $1.50 C, and as low as 23 cents C.

It's an interesting sale in that Kaboose has esentially built up all these website destinations, and is now selling them to huge media companies. It's a trend we've seen before and that I believe will continue.

Kaboose is a company I've looked into for a few years and considered investing in due to their online focus, high traffic sites and good domains. Shares in Kaboose were trading in the 20 and 30 cent range as recently as December and January. Anyone who bought at those levels will probably enjoy cashing out in the 65 cent range from this purchase.

Friday, March 20, 2009

MakeItRight.ca sells at Afternic

DomainReport.ca - The following domain sold in the past week at the Afternic DLS.

makeitright.ca - $2,300 US

At first look, this is a brandable type of domain that can be used as a slogan. I'm not sure what the buyer will use it for, but it looks like a 'call to action' type of phrase. We'll check back with this domain and see how it ends up being used.

Though it's a fairly common phrase, it sold for a lot more than I would have expected. I'm not sure I would have even hand regged this domain. But value can sometimes be a hard thing to judge, and maybe this domain was an exact fit for someone's plans.

What do you think of this sale?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Country Code domain portfolio sells for 3.1M US

DomainReport.ca - Just wanted to add a quick note about a post at DNN.com that reports a country code domain portfolio, made up of 475 .de (German country code) domains, has sold for 3.1 Million US through Sedo.

Some of the domains that sold, with english translation in brackets, are:

wertpapiere.de (securities)

devisen.de (foreign currency)

lohnsteuer.de (income tax)

As I've noted before, .de domains (along with .co.uk) seem to sell the most out of all country code domains in the aftermarket.

Full story here:

http://www.domainnamenews.com/domain-sales/cctld-portfolio-sold-for-31m/4412


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Sunday, March 15, 2009

AIG - This is what's wrong with the Economy

DomainReport.ca - This is what's wrong with the economy, AIG company receives $170 Billion dollars in bailout money from the US government and pays out $165 million in bonuses to executives.

I don't know how American tax payers can stand it.

This is a company that lost 62 Billion dollars in the last quarter of last year. What kind of company pays out $165 Million in bonuses when they lose billions of dollars? A bonus for what?? I don't care if the contracts call for it, the people getting these bonuses should be ashamed and decline them.

The greed in these times is simply astounding.

It shows that even though Wallstreet is going down in flames they are throwing more gasoline on themselves. I say enough is enough. Executives in the finance world have been getting huge bonuses for years, and look at what they have created - a meltdown in the world economy as a result of their shady practices and easy credit.

The expectation of reward and bonus despite poor performance, what other industry rewards pitiful performance with over-the-top payments?

How about adding a condition to the stimulus package - "Bailout money can't be used to pay executive bonuses".

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Full story - AIG to pay $165 Million in bonuses

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_bi_ge/aig_bonuses


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Friday, March 13, 2009

New website for CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority)

DomainReport.ca - CIRA is sporting a new web look these days.

If you go to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority website at Cira.ca, you'll notice a fresh new look. The intro page lets you choose English or French, then you go through to see all the content.

I especially like the Why .CA page at: http://cira.ca/why-ca/

The new site serves as a good introduction to .ca, and has loads of information for anyone looking to register a .ca domain name. I also think the website looks more modern, while being simple and clean with a better layout of information than before.

If you have any interest in the .ca name space I'd strongly suggest checking out the Cira website to learn more about this country code extension.

Here are some of the benefits of using a .ca domain as listed on the site. Interesting how they compare .ca to .com in one of their points.

Identify yourself as Canadian: Dot-ca is Canada's Internet identity, reserved for Canadians, recognized and trusted worldwide.

Get the name you want: You'll have a short dot-ca name that says you're Canadian, not a long dot-com name that says you're one of almost 70 million organizations that most Canadians view as American!

Reach Canadians where they shop: Over 60% of Canadians prefer dot-ca for online shopping—it's under Canadian law, with no customs or exchange rates.

Keep your identity secure: Dot-ca domain names are kept safe and secure in an independent national registry.


I wonder if the group running .us for the USA is watching this, because many American domainers complain that they don't do enough to promote their country extension.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

New Country Code domain forum launches Contest

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Check out today's domain deals at Godaddy!
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DomainReport.ca 

Just recently launched, ccTLDs.com is a domain name forum specifically tailored to country code domains. There are subforums for .ca, .us, .in and all other popular country codes. I joined this week as the 26th member.

The forum was created by Rick Latona, who has taken a recent interest to country code domains and like many others, sees a good investment opportunity in these types of domains.
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Another great domain name forum to check out is DNForum - click here to see it

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Here are the details on the contest that was just announced today:

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We would like to invite you to participate in the 1st ccTLDs.com Contest!

To push an already successful launch further, we are coming out of the gate with a great set of contests for our new community to participate in.

Contest #1 - Most Posts by May 1st

Pretty simple, whoever makes the most posts by May 1st, 2009 will win a free T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs Amsterdam registration (valued at US$1995)

Contest #2 - Most Referrals by May 1st

Time to put your downline to work for you! Have the most referrals by May 1st, 2009 and you will win a free T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs Amsterdam registration (valued at US$1995)

After you join, get your personalized referral link to ensure you get credit:

Click here to join now

Contest #3 - 10,000th Post

We are off to a great start and we feel that 10,000 posts is a great goal to shoot for. If you are the one that makes it, you will win a free T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs Amsterdam registration (valued at US$1995)

The basic board rules apply. If you are caught making useless posts, spamming for referrals, or anything shady - you will be instantly ruled out of the running. This is a great community in the works - let's keep it that way.

We appreciate everyone's support thus far and this is just the first of many ways we will be giving back to the community!

Best of Luck to Everyone!


Check out today's domain deals at Godaddy!
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