Domain Renewal Group = Domain Registry of America

Domain Renewal Group = Domain Registry of America

Anytime you get a letter in the mail about a domain renewal, make sure you understand who it is from and what will happen if you agree to what they offer. You may pay 2-3 times for your domain registration or you could even lose ownership under some conditions. Your current domain registrar probably will NOT be sending you postal mail since they have your email address. Most of these postal letters that come in the mail are more or less SCAMS to get people to agree to what they think is a renewal, but is in fact a high-priced TRANSFER to a company that may not be trustworthy. The fees are ALWAYS higher than the average domain renewal fee of $10 US per year.

We just received a letter from Domain Renewal Group about renewing (and transferring) our domain for $30 a year. $30 is what Register.com and a few other clueless, greedy registrars charge, but there is NO WAY anyone should be paying that much just to renew their domain. I thought the letter looked familiar and sure enough, when I dug deep enough I discovered it's the same Domain Registry of America with a new domain and website, but same old rip-off pricing and marketing materials that are designed to fool those that don't read closely and realize that they are not just renewing their domain at a higher rate, but that they are also agreeing to transfer their domain to Domain Renewal Group where it will stay until they transfer it away at some point.

To their credit, it says on the web site that the fee includes hosting, but any hosting plan where you have to pay extra to get email really sucks, in my opinion. $30 a year for domain renewal and hosting is pretty cheap, but you can get the same deal somewhere else and deal with a 100% honest company.

Anyway, the reason for this post is to warn people away from this scam. These guys have been doing this for years and I'm sure they fool many, many people. I just want to get the word out.

---

Names listed include eNom, Inc., Wild West Domains, Inc., BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES INC. (dba "NameJuice.com"), and Domain Renewal Group

Domain Renewal Group
PO Box 4577
Markham, Ontario, L3R5M7
Canada

Domain Renewal Group
2316 Delaware Avenue, #266
Buffalo, New York
14216-2687
www.domainrenewalgroup.com

Main Phone      (866) 434-0212
Fax             (866) 434-0211
Customer Service        (866) 434-0212
Sales                   sales@droa.com
General Questions       int (1-905-479-2533) support
       
Domain Registry of America
2316 Delaware Avenue, #266
Buffalo, New York
14216-2687

Domain Registry of America
56 Gloucester Road #526
London, England SW74UB

Domain Registry of America
189 Queen Street #209
Melbourne, 3000 Australia

BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES INC. (dba "NameJuice.com")
7100 Warden Ave unit 8
Markham, ON
98007-3827, CA

We Are Selling The Domain Name...

We just got a new variation of the SPAM marketing of domain names. There are a number of people that are either offering to sell a domain they own which is the .com version of one that you own, or they offer to get a domain that is expiring for you for a fee. I don't have a big problem with these kinds of services except for a few things:

1) I don't like SPAM in any shape or form. Often these message are not personalized in any real way and if you have many domains as we do, these jerks will send you tons of messages, often one to each contact email on your domains. For us that means we get 2-3 emails each time.

2) The fees they ask are EXCESSIVE. One guy that I talked to at itime marketing said that many people thank that and are happy to pay their fees. I don't doubt this, but will those people still be happy when they learn that the cost should only be about $10 and if they waited 5-6 days they generally can get the domain and only pay that much?

3) Some of these jokers are lying, which I really dislike. They may say they own the domain, but they are willing to sell it to you, for $300 or whatever. Most people don't know about using WHOIS to check the information about a domain's ownership. If they did, they may find that the domain is not owned by anyone, and all they have to do is register it themselves. Using WHOIS can also avoid any problems when someone is trying to sell a domain that is currently owned by someone else. This is rare except for domain brokers, but it could happen. You can't TRUST anyone on the Internet.

So we just got the following message about one of our domains:
==========================================
We are selling the domain name avandiadiabetes.com.  Since you own the .net, if you would also like the more desirable .com we are making it available.  The cost is $49.95.  That includes a year of registration and transfer of ownership to you.  To purchase or to learn more go to:

http://www.dcinchq.com/index.php?domain=avandiadiabetes.com

If you pass on this opportunity someone else could purchase this domain and it may not be available again.

For questions contact us or go to:

http://www.dcinchq.com/faq.html

All the best,

Warren Davis
Digital Caucus, Inc.
==========================================

This spammer gets points for not charging a huge fee. I think $50 is a reasonable amount to pay for a domain you want, given that the owner has gone to some bother to contact you and rather than putting the domain on the open market where you might never hear about it they are doing you a (possible) service. I consider this to be SPAM for the most part, but it's really kind of borderline. They are not sending this message to millions, but I'll bet they are also sending the email to the owners of the other main domain TLDs, in this case just use with .net and someone else with the .org.

But this spammer is also a liar. When I used DomainTools.com and checked the WHOIS record, I find that the domain is not even registered. It appears that it was last registered to itime marketing, and now they either have a follow-up service or some smart cookie is picking over their leftovers that they could not sell and have dropped and trying to offer them at a lower price.

---

Summary: If you are contacted about a domain your interested in, I recommend you do the following:

1 - Check the WHOIS record and see if it is available. If it is register it instantly.

2 - If it is registered and was registered within the past 5 days, and you can live without it, wait 5-6 days and see if you can then register it. Domaintools.com offers a free Domain Monitor you can use to get emails when the status of the domain changes. I have used this free service to register several domains.

3 - If the domain does not drop after 5 days, you can talk to the seller and see if you can get the price down to a more reasonable level. Adopt the attitude that the domain would be nice to have, but after all you already have an established site on the current domain you own. Hold out and you should get the domain for $20-$100 unless it has wide appeal. These guys only leverage is your interest in the domain, and they only pay less than $10 for them. If you can double their money, that should be incentive for them over not getting anything at all.

If the domain is really valuable the seller will market it elsewhere or put it up at auction, and you may be out of luck unless you are willing to pay what they ask. The bottom line is get some expert advice before you shell out big bucks for a domain unless you know all the facts.

Links related to this post:

A Tale of an Internet Scam Artist

Warren Davis used to scam people, now he is into spamming as well

Warren Davis, banned from dnforum.com

 

Optimize Your Domain Extension For Six Figures

How New TLDs Could Impact Your SEO

by Andrew Hazen , Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced June 26 that it had given preliminary approval to a recommendation to introduce a whole range of new Internet domain names, which would pave the way for a seismic increase in online real estate.

Talk about the Internet being like the Wild, Wild West. Along with the extraordinary expansion of domain name choices and opportunities would come HUGE potential for search engine marketing.

Currently, there is a limited range of 21 top-level domains (TLDs) from which to choose, such as .com, .org, .info and .uk. According to ICANN, this decision will allow applicants for new names to select the most marketable domains, making them perfect for attracting their target customers.

So businesses will now be able to apply for generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere. ICANN even reports that there are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based TLDs like .nyc, .berlin and .paris.

At first glance, this seems to make perfect sense. But my hope is that it doesn't spiral out of control, becoming a field day for cybersquatters that register, traffic in or use domain names in bad faith, intending to profit from the goodwill of someone else's trademark.

That would create a huge nightmare for established brands like Amazon.com, which would need to procure a laundry list of domains -- everything from books.amazon and music.amazon to amazon.books and amazon.music -- to prevent cybersquatters from wrongfully registering and profiting from its name.

It should be noted, however, that ICANN will not be selling the new TLDs for some time. The recommendation must first receive final approval early next year, followed by a limited period in which any established entity can submit an application for evaluation.

Search Engines and the Domainrush If and when it does happen, look for an immediate impact on search engine marketing. Search engines love keyword-enriched domain names, since finding exact keywords in domains proves to be an extremely strong indicator of a Web site's relevance to a search query.

By combining a newly acquired generic domain name with a very good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, a small company could find itself ranking among extremely competitive search terms and among Fortune 1000 companies. Of course, Web sites need quality inbound links to rank high on Google, but a great domain name can go a long way.

Keyword-enriched domain names and URL paths (there is a difference) are usually what it takes to achieve a top-10 organic ranking. Take, for example, AllFreshSeafood.com (ranking No. 4 on Google for "fresh seafood"); BreakingNews.com (No. 6 on Yahoo for latest breaking news") and BagelBoss.com (No. 4 on Google for "bagels"). I'm sure you get the point.

Still, non-keyword-enriched domain names can be optimized by adding keyword-enriched page names. For example, StorageDeluxe.com sits atop Google for "Brooklyn storage" and the URL path is www.storagedeluxe.com/locations_brooklyn.asp; a Google search for "used Acura parts" returns www.uneedapart.com/used-acura-parts.php as No. 1; and a search on Yahoo for "cardio exercises" yields www.lucilleroberts.com/cardio-exercies on the first page of the search results.

Now that we've established that a keyword-enriched domain name can be extraordinarily valuable, just think about owing a domain like .insurance -- you could have auto.insurance, life.insurance, health.insurance, business.insurance, etc. Beyond the obvious and tremendous SEO benefit, imagine what this will do to build brands.

I am curious to see if those who register new generic TLDs will use them to dominate their niche or resell domains. Only time will tell.

ICANN reports that there will be a six-figure charge for registering these new domains. That is chump change for major domains -- and even those that want to be

Post your response to the public Online Publishing Insider blog.

See what others are saying on the Online Publishing Insider blog.
Andrew Hazen is founder and CEO of the search engine optimization firm PRIME Visibility, a rapidly growing SEO, Web 2.0 and social media marketing company.

Online Publishing Insider for Thursday, August 14, 2008:
http://blogs.mediapost.com/online_publishing_insider/?p=166

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