Domains: October 2007 Archives

Some domain registrars only USP (unique selling point) is price.

I've mentioned the issues with DirectI's pricing structures in the past. With the price increase this week I was more or less expecting there to be some kind of backlash, but I wasn't expecting this:

All the Pending gTLD Transfer Orders (i.e. orders that haven't yet been executed) throughout your Reseller Chain will be canceled by the system on 12th October, 2007. These orders can be placed again by you / your Customers from 13th October onwards.
Also, the Transfer Orders that are currently in status 'Awaiting Admin Contact approval' will also be canceled by the system. These again, can be placed by you / your Customers from 13th October onwards.

Domain transfers can be painful enough in the best of circumstances (clients providing incorrect EPP keys, ignoring emails etc., etc.) but this is a bad joke!
DirectI's pricing strategy was going to cause issues, but this might be the beginning of the end for some of their resellers.
This kind of mess will cost a lot of people money and business.

Don't forget that the cost of many gTLDs (com/net/org/info/biz) will be increasing this weekend, so if you want to renew your domains now is the time to do it!

Over the past few months I've been keeping a close eye on both dropping domains and secondary markets.

Dropcatching is quite popular in .com and even in .co.uk, but it's not something that has been really exploited in .ie space, possibly due to the way that domain suspensions and deletions are handled.

While it is easy enough to predict when a domain's status might change, it's quite awkward to work out what the status change actually means in relation to the dates published in whois.

However, the IE registry does publish a list of deleted domains which makes for fascinating reading.

Of course a lot of the domains listed aren't going to be of any interest to most people, but the number of generic domains that are available for registration is always astounding!

NB: If you are thinking of grabbing a bunch of IE domains to sell on - don't! The registry rules forbid the resale of IE domains thus removing any real secondary market.