Category: Domain Industry Disappointments

For decades, the WHOIS system stood as one of the most recognizable, if imperfect, pillars of the domain name ecosystem. Created in the early days of the internet, it offered a simple way to look up information about domain names, including registrant details, registrar information, and technical contacts. But its simplicity became both its strength…

When ICANN’s new gTLD program introduced hundreds of new domain extensions beginning in 2013, one of the most striking changes from the legacy system was the widespread adoption of “registry premiums.” Unlike the familiar model of .com, .net, or .org, where almost any available domain name could be registered at roughly the same standard price,…

In the earlier days of the domain name industry, few activities generated as much excitement, speculation, and competition as dropcatching. The concept was simple yet electrifying: when a domain name expired and was deleted from the registry, it would become available for registration again. But instead of a leisurely opportunity to type the name into…

Few stories in the history of the domain name industry have left as deep and lasting a scar as the collapse of RegisterFly in 2007. At its peak, RegisterFly was an accredited ICANN registrar serving hundreds of thousands of customers and managing roughly two million domain names. It had grown quickly during the early 2000s,…

From the earliest days of domain investing, one of the most persistent frustrations for portfolio holders has been the lack of effective bulk management tools. As the domain industry matured and investors began holding hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of names, the need for streamlined systems to handle renewals, pricing, transfers, DNS configuration,…

In the 2000s, domain parking was one of the most reliable and lucrative models for monetizing undeveloped digital real estate. For many investors, it was not simply a side benefit but the primary justification for holding large portfolios. The formula seemed straightforward: register or acquire domains with type-in traffic, point them to a parking service…

For years, exact-match domains, or EMDs, were the crown jewels of search engine optimization. The idea was simple and powerful: if you owned a domain that exactly matched a high-value keyword or phrase, Google and other search engines would reward you with top rankings for that term. A domain like bestmortgagerates.com or cheapflights.net could dominate…

When hundreds of new gTLDs launched in the mid-2010s, the prevailing wisdom was that success would come not only from the inherent appeal of the strings themselves but also from aggressive, creative marketing that could educate consumers and generate demand. Registries, flush with investor money and ambitious projections, knew they couldn’t do it alone. They…

When ICANN opened the application window for the first round of new generic top-level domains in January 2012, it marked one of the most ambitious expansions in the history of the internet. For years, the domain name system had been dominated by a limited set of legacy extensions such as .com, .org, and .net, supplemented…

In the golden era of domain parking, when type-in traffic was still a powerful force and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising networks were flush with cash, an entire ecosystem emerged around arbitrage. The idea was deceptively simple: buy traffic at a low cost, funnel it through monetized landing pages filled with ads, and earn more per click…