Talk:Domain name speculation/Archives/2013

April 2007
I've rewritten the entry on domain name speculation and added a few facts and statistics. The domain trading aspect is the next to be dealt with and perhaps Sedo/Pool/Snapnames/Afternic etc should be covered as domain trading sites.

Do not remove the link to the .mobi registry generic words and phrases listing. It is central to the whole concept of domain name speculation and is a good example of the domain names targeted by domain name speculators in the Sunrise and Landrush phases.--Jmccormac 14:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You don't WP:OWN this article, so you can't just tell people not to remove a link that two separate people now have removed. In fact, at two to one you're outnumbered. A page on the Sunrise period of some god-awful wannabe TLD is not at all "central to the whole concept of name speculation". Links should go to sites that explain the process of speculation, not ones that are out to try to sell some johnny come lately domain names that are completely pointless. DreamGuy 15:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I am quite aware of that. But the individual who removed it initially saw the logic of why it was included and even added the TM aspect later. The main targets of domain name speculation are those generic words and phrases in all TLDs. The list is important in that it shows the domains that are at the core of domain name speculation. That list, as an example, explains more about domain name speculation short of posting it on the article itself. It enables people to understand what are the most speculated generic domains and phrases. What the .mobi registry did was quite unique in that it held this list of most speculated domains back from the Sunrise period in an attempt to provide a more level playing field after seeing the fiasco of .eu ccTLD. I've directly linked to the PDF of the list.--Jmccormac 15:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Domaining Is Much More Comprehensive Than "Speculation"
Now this page? Domain name "speculation" is one of many monetization techniques under the much larger unbrella of domaining. People "speculate" on real estate, stock, art, thoroughbred horses. They also invest. They also develop. They also partner. They devise business plans & take on angel investors. They hire employees to launch internet companies built around their domain investments. They go in any number of varied directions as they explore their many revenue generating alternatives. That is what domainers do on a daily basis. It is a mature, diverse business which has continually expanded year after year. It's a fact. It cannot be contested.

This page is an attempt to discredit domaining as "cybersquatting" or to trivialize it as only pure "speculation". The person who launched this page is ignorant of many facts and is using Wikipedia to launch and relaunch personal opinion. There is no rationale discussion here on which to proceed. Domaining must exist as an independent Wikipedia page for obvious reasons. Dissent is only helpful or prescriptive when a compelling and sincere argument can be articulated. And there has been nothing of substance written whatsoever to validate the hostile claims of dissenters here who are against domaining.

The Domaining page will evolve with the continued expansion & success of the domain name industry. Many components and elements can be added to the page as the industry continues maturing into new areas and attracting many thousands of enthusiasts. This is something which Wikipedia users will enjoy and find educational. The world of domaining is extremely well-developed as evidenced by the presence of very well established online companies dedicated specifically to the business of domaining. A mere redirection to domain name "speculation" is the equivalent of forwarding the broad category of "law" to a page on "divorce law". It presumes that "divorce law" somehow represents everything there is to know about all law.

Thank you. Kingwarren (talk) 23:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Whether the field of domaining expands or not, or has success or not, is really not important to WP. What is important is that it cannot be denied that the practice exists, has been defined, has notability within WP policy, and thus there is merit for an article. A survey of Google search results also suggests notability of the term, and many independent publications take up coverage of the topic. Kbrose (talk) 18:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This page is not an attempt to discredit domaining as "cybersquatting". It is not an attempt to trivialise it Perhaps you mistook this talk page (the talk page for Domain name speculation) as the talk page for Domaining? Jmccormac (talk) 00:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Possibly Kingwarren came here as I just did due to the "mergeto" recently placed on Domaining (but "mergefrom" has not been placed on this article, possibly because of its AFD tag). Kingwarren may want to know that one common procedure is to merge subtopics into an article, then later develop the article to properly reflect the fact that the subtopics have been redirected to the target article. For example, if any independent and reliable sources can be found (Kingwarren: please do not repeat your previous list which will remain available), then Domaining can be described differently from Domain name speculation. The question for discussion is whether the two concepts are sufficiently similar to justify merging into one article, or whether there is sufficient properly sourced material to justify two encyclopedic articles. Note that there is absolutely no way (IMHO) that Domaining will remain written the way it is because it is simply too gushingly promotional. Some middle ground between "domaining is wonderful" and "domaining is evil" will be found. I do not think there is reason to have two articles, and I favor the merge (in fact, it makes sense because the two concepts are similar, so one article should discuss them both and note any distinctions between them). Johnuniq (talk) 05:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This assessment appears highly subjective and the criticism is not reflective of the articles' actual content. Rather than make these general misleading statements, I would suggest to point out the blatant promotions specifically, tag them, or improve the articles with alternate and complementary contributions. Kbrose (talk) 18:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your point of view that the article is "gushingly promotional". In fact the original submission was highly informative & predominantly fact-based with multiple supporting sources, but the reviewing administrator pruned the article down eliminating most of the substantive links and accompanying explanations. Your comments above suggest to me that you are either not really reading the information on the domaining industry in an unbiased manner, or you have your own motivations for refusing to acknowledge the clear distinction existing between "speculation" and the greater category of "Domaining". If someone makes an administrative decision to force a merge between the two (which I am personally against), then Domaining would have to take precedence since it already includes the subcategory, or splinter activity, of "domain name speculation". As I illustrated in my earlier example, one would never adopt a description of "divorce law" as being comprehensively descriptive of "law". One is merely a subset of the other and to exclude the broader, more inclusive category would be absurd.

As a side note, I am not a seasoned Wikipedia veteran. I really have no special investment in somehow misdefining domaining or "promoting" myself or the industry in some false way. This massive undertaking here has been a huge drain on my personal time. Multiple, personal point-of-view postings by dissenters with practically no concept that domaining is a real industry are clearly evident. And instead of simply referencing (actually visiting/reading) the many link sources, they trivialize or all out ignore the evidence provided to them. There is a greater principle at stake which is the irrefutable bias of several here in opposition to the domain name industry. This so-called debate seems to me a manipulation, or working, of Wikipedia rules and processes to win by a war of attrition. I do respect healthy debate and have enough self-honesty and personal objectivity to weigh pros and cons. But this entire discussion, meaning the greater "domaining" debate going on here at Wikipedia, is dishonest. It does not reflect a true intellectual discussion between parties interested in arriving at a just and defensible conclusion. The dissenters are literally denying that 2 + 2 = 4, when a billion dollar industry in operation exists right in front of their faces, and this industry cannot be encapsulated as "cybersquatting" or "speculation". To deny that this industry is legitimate and deserves independent representation with a page can't be argued intelligently or honestly.

I provided 10 or so links on the domaining discussion page to mainstream media articles verifying the growth of the domain name industry. And the immediate response was someone myopically focusing on the way a phrase in the media article was quoted. It's called can't see the forest for the trees. Or in other words, the reader had no real commitment to objective evaluation and was on a mission to ignore wads of evidence right in front of him. That is the pointless battle which has been fought for one full week now. A battle that should have never occured. Kingwarren (talk) 09:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

"Domain" is not a verb, it is a noun. I always hate euphamisms. I can bring up a lot of reliable sources refering to the practice as "domain scalping". Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 06:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

New Sections: Evolution Of Domain Name Speculation; Domain Name Speculation vs Cybersquatting
I will add these two sections over the next day or so. The Evolution section is essential to show how Domain name speculation evolved from what was effectively a landrush to the current situation where there is a clear difference between Domain name speculation and Cybersquatting. The Cybersquatting section is essential to explain the difference as some people really haven't a clue about the functions of trademarks and intellectual property rights and how they affect domain names. Jmccormac (talk) 19:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I am wondering why this article hasn't been merged with the Domain Speculation article. I can't see any difference in between domaining and domain name speculation. The article itself refers to domaining as a "practice of monetizing Internet domain names using a variety of methods and strategies". However this is simply not true. There are only a handful of domainers who actually use different strategies to monetize domains (other than spamming and speculation). 99.9999999% of all domainers just use two techniques namely speculation (waiting for a buyer) and the usage of advertising on basically empty websites (also referred to as website spam). A visit to a listing website like sedo.com should provide sufficient proof to this claim. I feel the first paragraph of the current article is misleading and drawing an overly bright picture of the domaining industry. A wikipedia article should stick to the facts and not become a place for industries to polish up their otherwise bad reputation.


 * This is the talk section for the Domain name speculation article. As for your claim that only a handful of domainers use monetisation strategies, there are millions of domain names with PPC advertising. Sedoparking.com alone has over 2 million domains alone on its nameservers. It also monetises domains on other nameservers by the use of javascript. These are effectively parked domains and are not referred to as website spam. Many domainers use a microsite approach to monetising their domains. That involves building a small (five pages or less) website using a CMS like Wordpress or Joomla and then adding PPC or affiliate advertising. It looks like I'll have to add a section on how domains are monetised to the main article. The interesting thing about domain usage across TLDs is that not all domains are used for websites. Some are used for e-mail or are registered for brand protection purposes. The number of active and unique websites in a TLD varies with between 10 and 20% of websites being actively unique in most TLDs. Utilisation in ccTLDs tends to be somewhat higher than that of .com etc.Jmccormac (talk) 22:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

You are right there are many parked websites that have no meaningfull content but utilize ppc ads or javascript pop-ups or pop-unders. You might refer to those sites as websites that use a legitimate monetisation strategies, however the general public thinks of those sites as a dilution of the internet. I won't deny that such forms of monetization exist. If you think this is meaningful enough to have its own wikipedia article that's fine with me.

Still besides those pages that consist out of nothing but ads the other monetisation strategies you refer to virtually don't exist. How many of the hundreds if not thousands of domains a domainer owns are actually monetised by other means then just simple automated ad insertion/ domain parking? I think you have to agree this only happens on very rare occasions. This is why i still think the first paragraph of the domaining article is very misleading. Besides building up meaningful content on a domain in order to increase the value of the site is referred to as site flipping rather than domain flipping or domaining. So the article is misleading again because the content building does have very little to do with domaining.

What do you think is the difference in between search engine spam and domain parking? I think the main difference is that search engine spam at least has enough content to get indexed in the serps while domain parking provides nothing unique at all. I think instead of just referring to the usage of ppc ads this should be further explained in detail so that the reader doesn't get the wrong impression. The way its written right now the user might think domain parking is something that offers an enhancement to the internet where it really doesn't.

I would also like to ask you how many of the domains you currently have in your portfolio you actively use for email or brand protection purposes? I would be very surprised if the percentage of those would even come close to 1% of your portfolio. You stated that "The number of active and unique websites in a TLD varies with between 10 and 20% of websites being actively unique in most TLDs.". Thats very interessting but you fail to explain that those numbers do not hold true for the portfolios of domainers. Those are general numbers on the usage of TLDs. You can't mix the general use of domains with the practices of domainers. The general public actually actively uses domains by developing them, domainers just sit on domains and put up some ads at best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.200.68.29 (talk) 00:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Those sites consisting of a single page with PPC adverts are parked domains and do have their own page on Wikipedia (Domain parking and Pay per click. The development of minisites is actually something that a lot of domainers have been turning to in recent years after the revenue from PPC advertising from parked pages declined. It seems quite common with .info domains because the registration costs are low. On a large scale, some parking companies have used a similar minisite approach to mass-develop websites but this has had mixed results from what I've read.


 * Search engine spam and parked domains may be related but parked domains do very badly in search engine results because they have a minimal number of inbound links. The highest number of links a parked domain would have is when and if it is reregistered. The numbers and quality of these links decays as the parked domain ages. With Google, it zeros the PR of a reregistered domain apparently and this can lead to very low rankings for a reregistered and parked domain. Search engine spam, in my opinion, is more like interlinked websites that are designed to build the PR of other sites rather than just parked domains. Parked domains are actually easy to deal with from a search engine point of view due to the common elements in the HTML and nameservers.


 * Most of my domains (>85%) would be brand protection across com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/ie/co.uk/eu or in two or more of these TLDs and it is rather expensive. The 10-20% figure is derived from TLD surveys I did in 2007 and 2008 on .eu, .ie, .co.uk,, .mobi and some gTLD sample domains. I posted some of those preliminary figures for .eu on the Talk:.eu page. With more analysis, the number of parked/PPC domains increased as the Javascript detection routines were refined. The surveys also analysed IP and DNS usage to isolate clusters of parked/PPC websites and other things like linkfarms and duplicate content networks. In some TLDs, most domains are never used and drop without ever being used. Domainers often have a greater motivation to develop websites. A recent trend is that the hosters now automatically park any unused domain on their own parking pages. This, moreso than domainers parking websites with PPC, has been one of the main reasons for the growth in the numbers of parked domains.


 * The monetisation strategies need to be explained in greater detail to differentiate them from hosters parking unused domain names. Jmccormac (talk) 08:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Domainers are able to craft businesses around their domain portfolio holdings, and one of the most encouraging prospects is the ever-growing availablility of options for building out domains on a mass scale. Industry tradeshows cover these emerging trends such as Domain Roundtable (http://www.domainroundtable.com/speakers/index), TRAFFIC (http://targetedtraffic.com/wall-of-the-speakers.php), and Domain Convergence (http://domainconvergence.com/agenda). So, blanket misrepresentations like "... domainers just sit on domains and put up some ads at best" are false. They merely illustrate the strange & indefensible bias that exist here in regard to domaining and domain name investors. Kingwarren (talk) 11:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * To Unsigned (above), who wrote: "... domainers just sit on domains and put up some ads at best". Again, another poster offering inaccurate information to support an uninformed personal opinion. Domainers utilize a variety of business models available to them. Development is promoted & popular. Current domaining companies that offer domain name development are Rick Latona's AEIOU.com, Minisites.com, and DomainMassDevelopment.com. Many of the traditional parking companies (Parked.com for example) offer content development features to enhance the "ad" oriented sites criticized by the unsigned poster. Many leading domainers are headlong into full-scale website development. A sampling include David & Michael Castello (PalmSprings.com, Nashville.com, DayCare.com), Skip Hoagland (Atlanta.com, Portland.com, MyrtleBeach.com), Elliot Silver (Burbank.com, Lowell.com, TropicalBirds.com), Dan Pulcrano & Boulevards New Media (Houston.com, Seattle.com, LosAngeles.com), Sahar Sarid (Bido.com, FuneralHomes.com), InternetRealEstate.com (Software.com, Chocolate.com, Phone.com).

Guys look at the numbers! I agree there are some people who do web development but those make up a tiny percentage of the so called domaining industry. Just take a look at the listings on sites like sedo.com. How big do you think is the percentage of meaningfull websites that have been develop on their? Maybe its better to count instead of thinking because i am getting the impression that you simply close your eyes from the realities your fellow domainers are putting out there. "... domainers just sit on domains and put up some ads at best" is indead a valid description of the domaining industry. If you dont agree instead of showing a few examples where domainers actually did something usefull, you should come up with overall numbers that represent your industry more correctly.

Another point to consider: Affiliate Marketing is not domaining! Content development is not domaining! Site Flipping is not domaining!...this can be said in regard to all monetization techniques you listed in the original article. You should point out cleary that the main purpose of domaining is to sell a domain with a profit. The monetization tactics you listed are only used to monetize a domain until a buyer has been found. If those techniques themselves are the major purpose of acquiring the domain than this has nothing to do with domaining anymore. In this case its affiliate marketing, content development, site flipping..etc. but not domaining. I am still of the opinion that the domaing article should be redirected to "Domain Name Specutlation" because we are talking about the exact same thing here. If you like to add some techniques that are used to monetize until a buyer has been found go ahead and do so, but its still domain speculation and nothing else.

Jmccormac: 85% of the domains you hold are for brand protection? I have to admit that this is the most ridiculous claim i have ever heard. I suppose this is your website: premiumdomains.biz ? And you are telling me 80% of the domains on there are held for brand protection? I strongly urge you to look up the word “brand” here on Wikipedia. You are not the owner of thousands of brands just because you are squatting domain names that might be used by somebody who does indeed want to create a brand with that name some day(most of the domain names you refer to are not even brandable). Some your domains fall into a new category of cyber squatting techniques. Squatting on trademarks to be in bad faith. Meaning you hope that somebody will register a trademark for one of the names you hold soon. Because of the high cost involved in Law cases you hope to be able to convince the new trademark owner to pay you a ransom to make you stop blockading/ squatting the domain. This technique in which brandable possible future trademarks names are squatted on seem to be a new trend in ‘bad faith’ domaining since most good domains (those with non brandable dictionary words in them) in TLDs like .com are already taken.

Another thing i recognized: I randomly opened some of the domains listed on your site. I think about 20 or so. ALL OF THEM ONLY HAD ADVERTISING TRASH ON THEM!!! I guess i have been unlucky and must have missed the overwhelming big number of domains you don't just squat but develop real content on? If even the guy who makes the claim that domaing is more than just squatting can't back up his arguments then i don't see the point in putting those things up on wikipedia. You are really only trying to polish up the bad reputation of your industry!

How about I add a new article about the Public Opinion on Domaining and Domain Squatting ? As this is a controversial topic I think that would be appropriate. The only problem I see is that I would have to add the very same article on two pages – The Domaining page and the Domain Speculation page as those seem to be the exact same thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.200.52.241 (talk) 15:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No. That is not my site. My own site, the main one, deals specifically with hoster statistics and hosting history of every domain in com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia/ie back to 2000. It also has partial coverage of .eu, .co.uk and .de ccTLDs. So I can see the effects of cybersquatting and domain name speculation better than most. I'm not sure about Wikipedia rules of posting the URL.
 * The use of trademarks for cybersquatting is an interesting point. This is how many domain names were cybersquatted in .eu during the Sunrise phase and I will include it in the cybersquatting section.
 * The addition of a Cybersquatting Controversy section is a good idea. I have removed the section from the Cybersquatting section where you mention the whole aspect of future company names. In some respects, this is a good point but most companies trying to build a brand will register a more unique name that can be defended with trademarks and servicemarks. The argument over future company names is like claiming that the owner of a dictionary published years ago is liable for claims of plagiarism by every author who writes any work in the future. The existence and use of a domain name that pre-dates a trademark or new company name is well recognised and there have been cases of Reverse domain hijacking where the owner of the new trademark or company name tries to hijack the existing domain name despite the existing domain name having being in use prior to the registration of the trademark.


 * The nameservers for some of the main parking companies have the following domain name counts as of 01/August/2009
 * dsredirection.com 	1,905,874 BIONIC (Biz/Info/Org/Net/Ie/Com)
 * sedoparking.com 	1,800,986 BIONIC
 * fabulous.com 	830,102 BIONIC
 * parked.com 734,712 BIONIC
 * These figures are for domains hosted on their nameservers. The problem is that the Javascript and IFRAME code allows domains to be kept on other nameservers but serve PPC advertising from the parking companies or Yahoo/Google. This approach is what the ordinary hosters use for parking their domains. Some like Godaddy have their own domain name parking system that parks unused websites. The number of .mobi websites on Godaddy's domaincontrol.com nameservers is 316920 and most of them would end up being parked on Godaddy's own domain parking pages. It is this rise in hosters parking unused domains on their parking pages or using PPC advertising feeds on parked pages that leads to the perception that most domains are parked. Godaddy on its main domaincontrol.com nameservers has a domain footprint of 22,035,276 domains. Some of the large European hosters also use PPC on their unused domains.
 * I've added the section on the controversy over domain name speculation versus cybersquatting and addressed some of the 'future trademark' and 'future company name' issues. It is still a work in progress and the problems of trademark jurisdiction have to be added. I also provided a link to the Verisign Domain Brief report for June 2009 where it gives a breakdown on the domain/website usage for .com and .net TLDs. It groups single page PPC websites, coming soon/holding page websites in the single page sites figure but also shows that 64% of the websites in com/net are multipage sites. Jmccormac (talk) 06:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

New Section: Domain name speculation and the rise of PPC sites
I've moved the some of the cybersquatting Controversy stuff to the Domain Name Speculation Vs Cybersquatting section and created a new section on how Domain name speculation has, to some extent,contributed to the rise of PPC sites Again it relies on a straightforward numerical comparison of the number of single page websites in 2006 with the number of single page websites in June 2009 in .com and .net TLDs. It is approximately a 7 million website increase. Jmccormac (talk) 15:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is not for soapboxing
Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be places where people can show up and make arguments to support their own views. Sentences like "the error in this logic" and etc. are very clearly nothing more than soapboxing. Stick to just the facts, please. DreamGuy (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The facts about the rise of one page websites are from Verisign. You obliterated that whole section without even realising how central it is the rise of domain name speculation over the last few years. Some of the concepts have to be explained simply. I'll address what you call "soapboxing" later. Please do not delete stuff from this article, especially like that deletion of the PPC section which has been central to a major part of domain name speculation of the last few years. As for Kesmodel's book, it originally had a contract with a mainstream publisher but due to a change in management it had to be self-published. However Kesmodel has covered the domain business for the Wall Street Journal and as such is a reputatable source. The article is still being worked on so please give it a chance to take shape. Jmccormac (talk) 19:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you'll need to write it in an encyclopedic tone and have solid sources and not present it as an argument but just the facts. Perhaps you should work on a sandbox version until it can be ready for prime time, because what you had is unacceptable. As far as Kesmodel goes, if he wrote about domains for the Wall Street Journal, quote the Wall Street Journal articles, but we cannot have some self-published vanity press publication as igf it were a reliable source. DreamGuy (talk) 20:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. I'll drop to the reference to his book. The reference to the landmark case on cybersquatting and its definition should be enough though as it is a double cite and will stand without Kesmodel's book being cited. The rise of PPC is a critical part of domain name speculation as it marked what effectively was the industrialisation of domain name speculation. The cybersquatting arguments are based on what has been asked and claimed in the Talk pages so it was an attempt to explain how cybersquatting and domain name speculation are different. The sources on the rise of single page website including PPC sites are about as solid as they get. Verisign is the registry for .com and .net and the Domain Brief is their periodical. The issues were cited in the references. Jmccormac (talk) 20:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've dropped the reference to Kesmodel's book. I've restored the PPC section. Jmccormac (talk) 21:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok to say that Eurid is inept?
Is it really ok to say "A combination of an inept registry (Eurid)"? Astrolox (talk) 11:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would say "incompetent". Its registry system collapsed within minutes of the start of the Landrush. It did not have a functioning transfer mechanism in place until approximately a month after the start of the Landrush (when transfer activity would be very important as domains due to domains being traded). As for maintaining any form of integrity on entitlement checking (complete US addresses and ZIP codes being used for registrants along with an EU country by ineligible people to register domains), Eurid was incompetent. In true EU fashion, 'inept' is probably a more diplomatic way of saying it.Jmccormac (talk) 12:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Current litigation
On July 22, 2009, Neeley v. NAMEMEDIA INC, et al, (5:09-cv-05151), was begun due to cybersquatting and defamation by continued publication of original pornography by Mr Neeley after the DMCA agent was asked to delete it. Therefore, Mr Neeley requested the FCC begin regulating communications by wire. The Appellant Brief is at the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Interlocutory Appeal of obvious errors. The requested preliminary injunction requires the FCC regulate the Internet exactly like television broadcasts. Mr Neeley will not add this, due obvious NPOV issues. Wikipedia has been cited repeatedly in this Federal Court case and was disparaged by several Defendants. Will not be added due to personal involvement.CurtisNeeley (talk) 15:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The litigation will also end "domaining" and domain name speculation both by requiring ICANN Inc to prohibit disclosure of registration expiration dates to anyone but the registrant by all registrars in any circumstance.