DomainNameSales.com (Internet Traffic) requires registrant identification because of Google

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Konstantinos Zournas

DomainNameSales.com (Internet Traffic) send an email today to all its users asking them to setup their parking accounts.

In an effort to improve the quality of traffic and deliver better advertising to parked domains, their upstream ad-provder, Google, has begun a domain registrant identification program which requires Domain Name Sales to maintain accurate contact information for every account. Clients that park domains with Internet Traffic must complete this step to continue using this ad feed and the enhancements earmarked for it.

DNS asks users to visit the following link and complete the requested information: http://domainnamesales.com/sales/parking/verification

All contact information will be kept private and is not displayed publicly anywhere on DNS website(s) – they only use it to identify who you are.

During the parking verification users will be asked to confirm that:

I agree that I will not click on the ads on my domains.
I will ensure that there are no incentives for visitors of my domains to click on ads.

Please note that this does not affect your ability to list your domains for sale on DomainNameSales.com and is purely a requirement from Google.

DomainNameSales.com (Internet Traffic) New Escrow.com Intergration

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Konstantinos Zournas

DomainNameSales.com has added a new “Escrow Integration” tab in the “Settings” section at Internet Traffic accounts. This allows DNS to integrate with Escrow.com for quicker, easier closing with your buyers. The New “Escrow Integration” tab lets BIN buyers self-check out prior to interacting with a broker. You can set fees, select who pays fees for BIN names and let buyers initiate transactions including brokers in “accept offer” transactions. This make closings faster for the buyers.You can also choose the inspection period and the “Disclosure Mode”.

Simply enter the email address of your Escrow.com account to allow the system to queue transactions in your Escrow.com account. DNS does not require your Escrow.com password to enable this functionality. Click here to update your escrow integration.

Domain Enterprises.biz lost in UDRP while parked at Internet Traffic

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Konstantinos Zournas

Complainant Enterprise Holdings, Inc. submitted a Complaint to the National Arbitration Forum on December 10, 2012 for the domain name Enterprises.biz.

Enterprise Holdings, Inc. from St. Louis, MO, USA, is the owner of the ENTERPRISE mark which it began using at least as early as 1974 in connection with a vehicle rental business. Enterprise is the largest car rental provider to international travelers visiting North America. Enterprise Holdings official website is Enterprise.com.

Respondent DSTR Acquisition VII, LLC from Washington, USA failed to submit a Response in this proceeding and ultimately lost the domain name because the disputed domain name was used to resolve to a website which provides hyperlinks to car rental services, including Complainant’s websites and Complainant’s competitors. The domain name is parked at Internet Traffic:

The enterprises.biz domain name was registered on March 27, 2002. Complainant waited for more than 10 years to file this complaint but did so when the domain started displaying rental car ads.

The complaint could have easily been
denied if it wasn’t for these ads. That is why I have been asking Internet Traffic to provide a more general parking template. This is one of the reasons I haven’t moved all my domains at Internet Traffic. They don’t offer a truly generic lander. If you choose the General category and the General Sub-category you end up with a lander that is mostly focused on business and financial terms. That is dangerous if there a financial related trademark that is similar to your generic domain name. Even if you check the box “specific keyword” you don’t get a general lander. This unpredictability is what I fear. The people at Internet Traffic are working on creating a category like this but it has been a few months since I asked them.

Panelist Darryl C. Wilson ordered that the enterprises.biz domain name be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant because:

Complainant bases its rights on registrations of the ENTERPRISE mark, which Complainant uses in its business of automotive repairs and short-term rental/leasing of automobiles and trucks. Complainant further contends that Respondent’s <enterprises.biz> domain name is confusingly similar to Respondent’s mark because it fully incorporates and misspells Complainant’s ENTERPRISE mark. The Panel notes that in addition to the term “enterprises” the domain name features the generic top-level domain (“gTLD”) “.biz.”
The Panel finds that this evidence shows that Respondent is not commonly known by <enterprises.biz> domain name pursuant to Policy ¶ 4(c)(ii). Complainant claims that Respondent is using the disputed domain name to resolve to a website which provides hyperlinks to car rental services, including Complainant’s websites and Complainant’s competitors. Complainant claims that when Internet users click any of the links on the resolving website, they are taken to another website which features more descriptive hyperlinks to both Complainant’s and Complainant’s competitors websites. The Panel notes that both content pages of the <enterprises.biz> domain name provided by Complainant illustrate that the domain name is being used to host an array of hyperlinks to related and competing business, including Complainant’s own website. See Complainant’s Exhibit 5. The Panel finds that the Respondent’s use of the domain name to profit through click-through hyperlinks is not a Policy ¶ 4(c)(i) bona fide offering, nor a Policy ¶ 4(c)(iii) legitimate noncommercial or fair use.
Complainant asserts that Respondent is using the disputed domain name to confuse Internet users into believing Complainant is affiliated or a sponsor of the disputed domain name. Complainant claims that Respondent set up the disputed domain name to gain click-through profits whenever confused Internet users used the hyperlinks on the website. Complainant argues that the confusing similarity between the domain name and Complainant’s mark (and Complainant’s registered domain names associated with the mark such) makes it clear that Respondent seeks to profit whenever Internet users mistakenly go to the <enterprises.biz> domain name instead of Complainant’s <enterprise.com> domain name. The Panel again notes that the content of the disputed domain name’s resolving websites is dominated by hyperlinks to websites controlled by both Complainant and Complainant’s competitors. The Panel finds that Respondent has registered and is using the <enterprises.biz> domain name in bad faith pursuant to Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv).

Frank Schilling’s SalleDeBain.com (bathroom) sells for 60,000 USD at Sedo

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Konstantinos Zournas

Frank Schilling’s company Name Admin Inc. (DomainNameSales.com) just sold the domain name SalleDeBain.com for 60,000 USD at Sedo. Salle De Bain is French for bathroom.

The domain was registered in 2001 and whois does not yet show who the buyer is. But the domain name was transferred to a French registrar so the buyer is probably French.

The interesting part is that while the domain was parked at Internet Traffic and was for sale at DomainNameSales.com the domain sold at Sedo. This is probably because the buyer wanted to stay anonymous during the negotiations. This way Sedo made a $9,000 USD commission.

Internet Traffic can’t do Paypal Masspay – Parking earnings take a 5% dive

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Konstantinos Zournas

After receiving my first payment from Internet Traffic and looking at my Paypal account, I was surprised to see that a Paypal fee had been deducted from the received payment.This is because the parking earnings payment was not send using Paypal Masspay. Paypal Masspay charges a flat fee of $1 to the sender and no fee to the receiver of the payment.

All the parking companies I have used in the past were and are using Paypal Masspay to make parking revenue payments: DomainSponsor, DomainApps (former parked.com), Sedo etc. Sedo also uses Masspay to send payments from domain name sales.

The fee deducted from my earnings was almost 5% that is almost a day and a half of my monthly earnings:

Amount received:		$252.91 USD
Fee amount:		-$12.69 USD
Net amount:		$240.22 USD

I contacted Internet Traffic and asked them why they don’t use Paypal Masspay as all parking companies are using it. I also said that this reduces parking earnings significantly and this is not mentioned in their website.

They replied to me and told me that unfortunately due to their location (they are located in the Cayman Islands) and their Paypal account they are not able to Masspay through Paypal. They said that they would most definitely make their payments this way if they were able to. This is something that they are investigating, but at this time they are not able to Masspay through Paypal.

They suggested that I considered switching to receiving my payments by wire as the bank does not charge for incoming wires. I am certainly considering this but Paypal is very convenient for receiving payments.

I am sure that Frank Schilling will be able to Masspay enabled in his Paypal account. I have seen many people outside US/Europe do this.

Internet Traffic/DomainNameSales January Update

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Konstantinos Zournas

Frank Schilling send the January update for Internet Traffic/DomainNameSales yesterday.

On Friday the broker directory on the DomainNameSales.com site was rolled out. The broker directory will let any serious broker, any salesperson, from any platform offer their services and create relationships with clients using the ITC/DNS parking and sales platforms. An accepted broker will have the opportunity to market themselves to users on our platform, while domain portfolio owners can utilize the services of any broker they want, when they want. The DNS platform will allow sellers to split some or all of their sales inquiries from various portfolios to these individual salespeople/brokers that are accepted into the program. In order to continue to provide such cutting edge services, brokers will be required to pay a referral fee to DNS, however the price to ITC/DNS clients still remains the same, zero.

In exchange brokers and salespeople will be able to draw qualified leads from our clients who have opted-in to this service. This platform will allow the most serious and best performing salespeople and sales organizations to be identified and rewarded.

For example Frank says that he presently gets 700 sales inquiries a day… not all of those are completely sincere, but these are real inquiries which need further refining. He says that as a portfolio owner you are better off raising your prices and delegating sales leads to brokers who have some skin in the game. That is the best way I know of to increase your deal flow and volume. He estimates there are 7-10 times the number of sales inquiries as his own, across the rest of the clients using our platform… that’s 4900 – 7000 sales inquiries a day that need to be worked.

Frank also said: “brokers who previously would have liked to act for our clients, but couldn’t, may now identify themselves in our broker directory. Once listed, they can offer their services, memorialize commission structures, and begin working our leads and those of our clients, who choose to engage them. Our clients can continue handling their own sales-leads or they can gross-up asking prices and choose the most effective brokers and salespeople from our Broker Directory to distribute some or all of their sales leads to. Once you find a broker who meets your criteria and who you feel comfortable with, you can create advanced round-robins and lead splitting, to allocate sales inquiries to those who work best for you.”

Finally Frank invited brokers and domainers to join ITC/DNS: “If you are a domainer with clean names or you know of one who could benefit by parking on our platform, this would be a very good time to invite them aboard. If you know of a broker who could benefit by tapping a well of thousands of daily inquiries this would be a good opportunity to invite them to offer their services in our Broker Directory.”

ITC/DNS will be attending Webfest in February.

InternetTraffic.com Review – PPC and domain sales

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Konstantinos Zournas

For the past couple of months I have been testing the domain parking and domain sales platform at InternetTraffic.com. Results are pretty good and the only thing missing is a generic lander. Internet Traffic is accepting sign ups so anyone with a clean portfolio can submit an account request. Internet Traffic and its Domain Name Sales platform (DNS) operate a clean network of generic names for sale and monetization. Ensure that the list you submit is pre-scrubbed of any domains that contain trademarks and any other intellectual property risk.

My PPC test sample is very small (about 60 domains) but results are good so far. Not excellent but promising. Some domains are earning more than what they used to and others need some more optimization.

I am getting some interest on the domains I have parked at InternetTraffic.com (about 10 in a month) but I have yet to receive an offer. I have tried both sending offer requests and quotes but I haven’t gotten an offer so far. My minimum offer price is set at $1000 for all domains so these buyers might get discouraged by that. Anyway, 60 domains is not a proper test sample. I will do more testing as I point more domains at IT.

InternetTraffic.com pays PPC earnings approximately net 30 from the end of a given month. For example, they will pay November earnings at the end of December. The minimum earnings to be paid is currently $100. Payment options include Paypal and Wire Transfer. InternetTraffic.com can not send ACH payments, as they are not located in the United States.

My only complaint so far is that Internet Traffic doesn’t offer a truly generic lander. If you choose the General category and the General Sub-category you end up with a lander that is mostly focused on business and financial terms:

internettraffic.com generic lander

I am looking for a lander that offers a broader range of categories like the ones offered by other parking companies:

Sedo generic lander

parkingcrew.net generic lander

The people at Internet Traffic are working on creating a category like this. My support ticket requesting a more general category will be left open by Internet Traffic support until this category is created. That is some first class support!

I am also waiting for an Android app. Internet Traffic will not create this app until the iPhone app has matured and is widely used. Iphone owners please start using the app!!!

After my post yesterday about how Go Daddy is destroying domain sales with Sedo’s help, a good alternative is needed and Internet Traffic seems like the best bet.