Frank Schilling comments on Uniregistry, New gTLDs and the affiliate program

Frank Schilling made a couple of comments in the past couple of weeks that I think are worth reading if you missed them.

The first one was on my post “How To Use: Uniregistry Affiliate Plus Program and DomainNameSales.com Integration“:

I appreciate you and everyone getting familiar with our program. Affiliate Plus really gets more interesting and should begin to drive better conversions as more viable extensions at lower prices come out. For example next week Uniregistry launches .LINK .. This will be a $9.88 retail string with a recurring 35% commission for affiliates. .CLUB will be on offer two weeks after that, and still later, as other better extensions come out, the opportunity to earn recurring revenues will reveal itself.

In answer to the first comment, we are honestly not seeing any cannibalization “yet” on new TLDs vs existing SLD sales, in fact this should be our best March and April ever over at DNS. These have been very strong months (strangely so)

Also bear in mind that most Good names in new extensions will still be unavailable due to registry withholding, ICANN Alternative Path to Delegation (APD) lists and domain investor mining. Bringing more diamonds out of the ground does not make the price of diamonds go down.

The best use of Affiliate Plus in these early days is as a strong discounting mechanism on your own investments and if you are an affiliate marketer you will find dozens of ways to use the program to your advantage.

One thing is certain. This is truly a golden age of naming. In 10 years you will remember these times, when everything was available. There has never been a time that I can recall where so much innovation in naming happened so quickly. It’s exciting.

Remember to buy names at registration price (avoid higher priced premiums with premium renewals), buy your names at a good registrar like Uniregistry.com and don’t buy 100 names in 1 day unless they’re great. Good name portfolios get built over time.

Good luck everyone.

 

The questions I have about this are a lot. Is it 35% of $9.88 for .link or 35% of the profit? I guess it’s be 35% on .club…

Do we get all commissions when someone creates an account following our link? Or just the purchases he/she makes that single time? Frank we need a lot more details on the Uniregistry affiliate program.

I too agree that there will no be any cannibalization from new gTLDs to existing SLD sales. When you have a buyer that thinks he/she can buy health.com for $15 then you know what to do.

And this is some good advice: “Remember to buy names at registration price (avoid higher priced premiums with premium renewals), buy your names at a good registrar like Uniregistry.com and don’t buy 100 names in 1 day unless they’re great. Good name portfolios get built over time.”

I try to cherry pick new gTLDs and I know that Mike, Mark and Theo do the same. If you can’t find a good name just walk away. A new New gTLD is coming tomorrow.

The second comment was done at domaininvesting.com where Frank describes a few of the current and future features of the Uniregistry registrar:

One point you left off Elliot is solvency.. What happens when your existing registrar starts to loose registrations and then in the moment where they no longer become viable they start to act in ways against your best interest? Several years ago an Asian registrar got sued for cybersquatting and then as they started to fall apart they took many of their customers generic names calling them their own!

Against this backdrop I would be remiss if I didn’t offer Uniregistry.com as your consolidation registrar. Uniregistrar is a wholly owned subsidiary of Uniregistry and has exclusive license to the Uniregistry brand. The parent registry is backstopped by the ICANN ebero process.

Uniregistry is built to last and has features now that other registrars don’t .. We have a transfer resolution center which is a tool to facilitate easy transfer of your names and tell you what went wrong with any name in the job. We only charge you for names that transfer in.

Once onboard, you’ll have access to a suite of tools to facilitate the bulk management of names including deletions for unwanted names, push transfers between accounts and integration with the DomainNameSales.com marketplace to increase the number of sales transactions you are doing (and for more money). You’ll have access to DNS’s patented iPhone app which acts as a front end CRM to allow you to facilitate sales between buyer-seller-and broker.

There are additional features launching in the coming weeks to help you manage intellectual property, communications from lawyers, just a host of features to help small and large account holders.

Remember – we all started with one name, even me. I built Uniregistry to scale from that first name. In 20 years people will not know who started Uniregistry, but they will know this registrar.

We look forward to serving you. : )

On the other hand Frank avoided making any comments as to what is his affiliation to the company that now owns all the Uniregistry premium new gTLD domain names that are parked at the DomainNameSales.com. I think that is because every registry is only allowed to own 100 domains for its own use and the rest are not supposed to be resolving. By setting up this North Sound Names company, Frank found a loophole so that the domains are resolving, and easier to sell, by only paying the small ICANN fee for each of the domains. Many, including myself, asked for a comment on this but didn’t get a reply.

Sold.Domains

About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

3 comments

  1. The loudest words are the ones unspoken and the last paragraph says it all.

  2. I think the solvency issue and loophole issues are two of the biggest factors in regards to gtld’s. The registries can increase prices by whatever percent they want, there should have been lingo in contracts as to no more than 3% per year. So if the registries are in trouble as the mentioned asian registry above, what is to stop them from jacking up prices, and forcing people to drop names, and taking them back?

    ICANN has taken on more than they can effectively patrol in regards to GTLD’s, as long as the money keeps rolling in, it seems they are willing to turn the cheek. As prior history shows they really don’t get involved until the money stop flowing into them.

    We are seeing gtld’s slowing down in the marketplace now, I can’t see end users coming on board without more confidence from the parties backing them in regards to there Terms Of Service.

    It is important to know who is backing the registry, and what their track record is, and what jurisdiction they are in.

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