Watch out for Go Daddy's "Software Administrative Fee"

You might think registering your domain with Go Daddy is a good way to save money. I did when I registered a .de domain with the company for around $16 USD. But as I learned today, the registrar makes up for its low domain prices with ridiculous hidden charges.

The particular fee Go Daddy charged me with is called the “Software Administrative Fee.” Go Daddy charges this $9.95 fee whenever someone sends an inquiry about your domain. In my particular instance, the required German administrative contact Go Daddy assigned to my .de domain was contacting me about a possible intellectual rights issue. All Go Daddy did was forward the email to me– for $9.95.

My advice to anyone looking for a cheap registrar is to avoid Go Daddy like the plague. The information about this charge is hidden in the company’s vague and lengthy customer terms. No reputable company would charge $9.95 for forwarding an official inquiry– that’s what the registration fee is for. Save your money and use a domain provider that treats its customers like real people.

Photo | Flickr

Germany's .de close to 14 million mark, still small compared to .com

Germany’s .de domain, the largest ccTLD in use, is very close to hitting 14 million registrations. This comes at the same time as news that the Netherlands .nl extension is close to 4 million registrations.

Of course, these numbers are a drop in the bucket compared to the 88.4 million active .com domains. There were 45,477 new .com registrations in the last 24 hours alone.

Britain’s .uk domain currently has 8.6 million registrations. The vast majority of these are .co.uk names. Of the 157,463 new .co.uk registrations in June, 147,455 were on the .co.uk subdomain! Internetblog’s extension, .org.uk, only had 8,297 registrations.

Photo | attilio_82

Germany's .de experiences major outage

The majority of the Internet’s 13.6 million .de domains were unavailable from between 1:30pm and 2:50pm German time yesterday. DENIC, the .de operator, reports that the names went “kaputt” after empty zone files were accidentally uploaded to the DNS root system.

Information on the number of names affected varies. According to one source, every .de name starting with the letters “a” through “0″ saw downtime. DENIC is still investigating the outage.

Source | The Register

Software.de sells for €235025

Surpassing all other sales so far this week is software.de, which sold at auction for €235,025 (312,278 USD). Software is the same word in both English and German, so I think this domain has a lot of multinational potential. More than half of Europeans speak either German or English.

Other sales of note include gr8.com (“great.com”) for $16,000 USD, iwant2.com for £15,000, and kleding.com (“clothing” in Dutch) for €14,362.

A number of premium .tv domains also went to auction this week. Some of the bigger sales include learn.tv for $41,000, christmas.tv for $32,000, home.tv for$ 31,000, and guide.tv for $29,500.

Source | Domain News

66.de sells for $12,780

The .de extension is doing very well this week. Two-character domain 66.de sold at auction recently for $12,780. While this sale isn’t big compared to yesterday’s, it’s still a good chunk of change.

Other notable sales include ad4sure.com for $2,350, giftideas.org for $2,500, and taxes.co.uk for $5,000. In my view, taxes.co.uk is the best deal out of the three. A huge market exists worldwide for tax services, after all. As for ad4sure.com, what makes it so different from any other domain? I don’t think it is worth anything at all.

Source | Domain News

Gartenmöbel.de sells for $214,500

A few weeks ago, Büromöbel.de (German for “office furniture”) sold for €69,000 ($100,581 USD). In a completely different yet similar sale, Gartenmöbel.de (“garden furntiture”) has sold at auction for nearly twice as much at €150,000 ($214,500). What can I say, Germans must really like furniture.

Other sales include Conclude.com for $22,000 USD, BestPennyStocks.com for $20,000, and ARR.com for $12,750. It’s important to note that because of the holidays, a number of domain sales have gone unreported.

Source | DN Journal
Photo | charliecho

Aethiopien.de sells for €17,850

In keeping with the recent strong performance of the .de ccTLD, Aethiopien.de sold at auction for €17,850. The name is a Latin-character version of Äthiopien, the German name for Ethiopia. It would be interesting to see how much the IDN variant of the name might sell for at auction compared to this domain.

Other recent sales include:

u.to- $13,000 USD
superrealtors.com- $5,250 USD
lmj.com- €3,103
auto-shop.com- $2,888 USD
dominationphonesex.com- $1,100 USD

As far as the domain business is concerned, the holiday season is pretty slow. Six and seven-figure domains tend to be very expensive gifts.

Photo | Flickr

Barns.com sells for $175,000

American businessman Jeremiah Johnson already owned woodbarns.com. But that wasn’t enough for him. To expand his already booming business, the man recently bought the domain barns.com for £106,890 ($175,000 USD).

Barns.com sells a variety of sheds and other small storage buildings. No doubt Johnson will have to sell quite a few to make up the cost of his new domain!

In addition, IDN Büromöbel.de (German for “office furniture”) turned heads when it sold for €69,000 ($100,581 USD). As of this writing, the name is the highest-selling IDN to date. It probably won’t take long for the record to be broken, however.

18.de sells for €16,500

In keeping with .de’s heavy growth, 18.de recently sold for €16,500 in an online auction. This is a great domain for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, 18 is the age of adulthood in many countries. It is the minimum age for such things as drinking, driving, voting, and smoking in many places.

Not only that, but “18.de” is a short and very memorable name. It is perfect for radio and word of mouth advertising.

Other recent sales:

cu.de- €5,200
tjj.com- $4,999
editions.in- $2,500
fantab.com- $2,000
ringworm.net- £1,100

Source | Domain News
Photo | Flickr

Domain registrations grow amid recession

Despite the recession, domain names continue to grow. Though the number of TLD registrations last quarter was only 1% more than the quarter before, compared to last year, new registrations have gone up by 9%. This growth easily outpaces most industries.

ccTLDs also saw similar growth, increasing by 1% this quarter and 14% since this time year year. The most popular domain by far is still .com, however. Next in line is China’s .cn extension followed by Germany’s .de.

It will be interesting to see how the new gTLDs affect the growth of current TLDs and ccTLDs. It could lead to a decrease if the system catches on, but my guess is this won’t happen. It will probably have little if any impact on current extensions, for now, at least.

Photo | vilen001