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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No Cost For Domains

There's No Cost For Domains, Emails, Hosting or Storage at dotWORLDS

Now you can get brand new domain names, spam-free email addresses, web hosting, website builders, backup storage and more - all in one place and all of it free.

London, UK  -  April 6 - dotWORLDS website www.dotworlds.net has just been upgraded and it's crammed with an even wider range of free products and services. At dotWORLDS, you can get your domain names, email addresses, hosting, website builders, backup and data storage all in one place and all at no cost.

dotWORLDS also provides free URL, IP and DNS forwarding and, if you're thinking of designing your own webspace, just try our free Templates too and you'll be able to build, publish and launch your very own website within minutes.

Plus...Need to send an email in a hurry? Don't waste your time remembering user names and passwords. Try the all new Instant Email. Simply type in what you want and press Send. There's no login, instead it's just One-Click. See it in action at www.dotworlds.net

Plus...New Blog Facilites - Coming soon.

Remember, for free domain names, free email addresses, free website builders, free backup and much, much more - it has to be www.dotworlds.net.


About dotWORLDS.

dotWORLDS Ltd specializes in providing the widest range of fully personalized Internet domain names, email addresses and hosting plans through its global infrastructure.

For further details, please see website www.dotworlds.net.

Press Contact: Press Office
Company Name: dotWORLDS
Phone: +44 (0) 870 749 4178
Website: www.dotworlds.net

Return of OpenSRS Announced: Was It Missing...?

Tucows Announces Return of OpenSRS Where Friendly, Reliable Service Comes First

Unsurpassed support and reseller satisfaction as top priority sets

OpenSRS apart

TORONTO and CHICAGO, HostingCon 2008, July 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Tucows Inc., (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) a leading provider of Internet services to web hosting companies and ISPs worldwide, announced today the return of the OpenSRS name for its wholesale reseller services group. Through its network of web hosting companies and Internet service providers, OpenSRS provides web and email addresses for millions of people worldwide.

In 1999, Tucows became the first domain name wholesaler to be accredited by ICANN and chose the name OpenSRS for its domain name service. Today, OpenSRS remains one of the world's largest wholesale domain registrars, and has expanded its offerings to include hosted email and SSL certificates. Resellers' sustained loyalty to OpenSRS was one reason behind the decision to re-launch the brand, and key to that loyalty is the company's reputation as the most reseller-friendly among Internet services wholesalers.

"At OpenSRS, we really believe in supporting our resellers because they've been incredibly supportive of us. That means not only making it easy to sell, provision and support the highest quality Internet services, but it also means being true to our word," said Ken Schafer, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Tucows. "We've made a commitment to being reseller friendly, so much so that we've included it in our new logo."

Over the past nine years, OpenSRS has grown steadily each year and today boasts over 9,000 active resellers on six continents. Those resellers, in turn, have the potential to reach millions of end users. OpenSRS resellers are fiercely loyal, 78% of the resellers who joined in 1999 are still using OpenSRS to sell services today.

OpenSRS is known for its work on registrant rights within the registrar community as well as making things simple and reliable for its resellers. It also differentiates itself through a deep commitment to its identity as a wholesale business. This runs in sharp contrast to competitors that frequently end up competing with their own resellers for customers.

"We're a true Internet services wholesaler. You won't find our name or logo anywhere on our end-user interfaces and we don't talk to our reseller's customers, ever," said Schafer. "We stand by our promises and commitments and we work to earn our reseller's loyalty."

As part of the re-launch of OpenSRS, the company has established new brand marks and a logo consistent with a 1950s-era service company, aimed at recalling a time when service mattered most. An iconic character has also been created to embody OpenSRS' core values - service, friendliness, willingness to help, community service and reliability.

To celebrate the re-launch of the OpenSRS brand and mark a return to the bygone days of service with a smile, OpenSRS will be serving up treats from an old-fashioned soda fountain and ice cream stand in booth #626 at HostingCon 2008, at Navy Pier in Chicago from today through Wednesday.

About OpenSRS
OpenSRS is a global provider of wholesale Internet services to web hosting companies and ISPs. Wholly owned by Tucows, Inc., OpenSRS provides wholesale services for hosted email, domain name registration, Personal Names, and SSL certificates. For more information, please visit http://opensrs.com.

About Tucows

Tucows provides Internet services for web hosting companies and ISPs.Through our global network of over 9,000 service providers our OpenSRS group provides millions of email boxes and manages over eight million domains. Tucows is an accredited registrar with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). We hold a domain name portfolio of approximately 150,000 domain names that are available for sale, monetized through advertising and support our wholesale Personal Names Service. Our Retail division sells Tucows services to consumers and small business owners through Domain Direct, IYD (It's Your Domain) and NetIdentity. Tucows.com remains one of the most popular software download sites on the Internet. For more information please visit: http://tucowsinc.com.

---

If you are interested in becoming a domain reseller, check out OpenSRS, but start with their OpenSRS reseller pricing. It may save you from spending more time learning about their program only to realize you can get better pricing elsewhere. At first I thought maybe their non-refundable fee of $95 might not be to bad for a really nice domain reseller program, but when I saw that they add a "$3.00 OpenSRS Management fee" to most of the domains, I soon realized that their program was not for me...!

Make sure ResellerClub.com is on you list of places to check for reseller programs. Yes, you may not find them as easy as other programs, but the cost is lower.

Parked Domain Traffic Value

Exploring The Value Of Parked Domain Traffic

by Janel Landis , Friday, July 25, 2008

I have been reading about the lawsuit recently filed against Google that alleges traffic received from parked domain sites was low quality.  What is most interesting about this topic are the sharply conflicting viewpoints online marketers have concerning the value of traffic from these sites. 

The first perspective is that of savvy search marketers, who have analyzed referring URL traffic and know that the majority of traffic from these sites is unqualified.  What they have found is that the only instances of qualified traffic from parked domain sites occurs on domains that are typos of their own domain, their brand terms. 

Have you ever accidentally typed your search query into the domain address bar instead of the search box?  I am pretty sure everyone has done this before and often, simply out of habit, even followed the misplaced word with a ".com".  In a presentation I gave at a conference a few months ago, I used the examples www.homesecurity.com and www.bookkeepping.com as visuals of sites that contain no original content, just ads.  These are the types of sites that deliver the majority of parked domain traffic.  How often are people actually making this mistake?  According to Google's keyword tool, the keyword home security drove approximately 1 million searches on Google and its search network in June 2008. 

Let's move on to the much smaller segment of parked domain sites that actually will drive qualified traffic: the domain typos.  Unfortunately, many companies have not protected themselves by registering common misspellings of their domain -- so when returning customers mistype the URL in the address bar, they are delivered to parked domain sites.  An example of this is www.lininsandthings.com: Notice that linen is misspelled in the URL. In this instance, the searcher was already going to Linens-N-Things, and in this way they would be a highly qualified click.  However, Linens-N-Things would now have to pay for a click to get their customer, rather than connecting to them directly.

The second perspective is that of the domainers themselves.  They claim that address-bar-driven traffic is highly qualified; however, the click revenue generated from these types of sites is the sole source of revenue available from them.  Again, they contain no original content, no products and no value.  The backbone of their argument lies in statistics that show direct navigation traffic is the most qualified traffic to a site; however, what they fail to interpret is that this statistic does not pertain to an indirect or unintentional visit. 

As the industry has matured, the engines have provided marketers with better tools to exclude distribution of ads on these types of sites.  Google allows advertisers to block parked domain sites altogether from their campaigns, and Yahoo allows advertisere to exclude sites individually.  The most perplexing part of the recent lawsuit filing is that it only challenges Google, yet Yahoo's search network distribution is much more riddled with these types of sites than Google's.  The www.homesecurity.com and www.bookkeepping.com examples I used above both serve Yahoo ads.  If this is truly going to be a class action suit and it gains any traction, I anticipate it just may involve both companies.

Post your response to the public Search Insider blog.

See what others are saying on the Search Insider blog.

Janel Landis is senior director of search development and strategy at SendTec, Inc., a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based multichannel, integrated marketing firm specializing in search engine marketing, direct response television and lead generation.
 
Search Insider for Friday, July 25, 2008:
http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/?p=839

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Property.com Unable to Resist Foreclosure

Property.com SOLD to Foreclosure.com

FORECLOSURE.COM OWNER TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY.COM

Brad Geisen continues to build online real estate empire to expand opportunities for future homebuyers and investors nationwide
Boca Raton, Fla. - July 22, 2008 Foreclosure.com Founder, President and CEO, Brad Geisen, announced today that he has reached an agreement with "Domain King" Rick Schwartz to acquire the domain name "Property.com," paving the way for his entry into a new market.

With Property.com Geisen intends to create a one-of-a-kind - and convenient - one-stop online real estate marketplace that is easy-to-use and navigate. The Web site will serve as an easy-accessible national real estate classified that is going to be free to all visitors, providing sellers, buyers and investors with a whole new concept of marketing and finding homes on the Web.

According to Geisen, the acquisition of Property.com will allow him to focus his efforts on a different and potentially much larger segment of the real estate market. In fact, in Geisen's opinion, the niche foreclosure market, which is Foreclosure.com's market, represents just 2 percent of all available real estate inventory.

"I'm going after the 98 percent of the real estate market outside of the foreclosure business." said Geisen. "For the past several years, I've built and run one of, if not 'the,' most successful Internet foreclosure businesses, but the business was always exclusively distressed real estate. I've achieved in Foreclosure.com what I set out to accomplish and I am ready for a new challenge in a different market. I intend to shift my focus on developing my new ideas that will revolutionize how homes should be listed, viewed and purchased. I've developed the critical skills which I intend to apply to this new market," said Geisen.

Property.com will include all listing types, including those indexed the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), creating a database that could surpass more than 15 million homes, but not including distressed properties, which will remain the business of Foreclosure.com. The best part is that it will be totally free to search for potential buyers and visitors, and sellers will be able to upload and edit their own personal listings at no charge. It's a wide-open model that Geisen knows will create an invaluable resource for just about anyone interested in real estate.

"I'm raising the stakes and pushing all my chips to the center of the table," said Geisen. "Foreclosure.com and my related companies have been leaders in their spaces for nearly a decade. I've seen what's been wrong with the way things were done and I've developed the methods to fix them. I have the knowledge and resources to take this to a whole new level . and that's what I plan to do."

Geisen revealed the new Property.com will be unveiled sometime in 2009. The specific terms of the deal to acquire Property.com were not disclosed. However, Geisen indicated that the value of the deal is one of the largest URL purchases to date.
That's a deal that has the seller Rick Schwartz - who is known as the "Domain King" -- smiling from ear-to-ear. He purchased Property.com for $750,000 in 2005 and was recently introduced to Geisen through Kevin Leto of BigTicketDomains.com about a possible re-sale.

"My job is to acquire prime, industry specific domain names with large volumes of natural type in traffic and eventually develop them to their fullest potential by partnering with leading companies in their respective fields which I have been doing for more than a decade," said Schwartz," "Early on I saw the value in Property.com; however, I never had the resources to develop it so it could reach its maximum potential. Brad Geisen has the vision to truly get the most of Property.com for the benefit of so many people in every corner of the United States. I'm thrilled to be a part of this exciting new project with Brad."

Stay tuned for frequent updates and milestones for the new Property.com. Feel free to visit the Web site in its current form. However, as mentioned earlier, the complete re-launch will not be official until sometime in 2009.

About Brad Geisen and Foreclosure.com
Ten years ago, Brad Geisen founded Foreclosure.com and built it over time to a company with more than 1.8 million foreclosure, preforeclosure, bankruptcy, FSBO and tax lien listings in one place, Foreclosure.com delivers America's largest and most accurate searchable database of foreclosed homes and distressed property information to its customers and business partners. Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Brad Geisen and Foreclosure.com work with hundreds of top lending institutions and government agencies to list diverse property types on its Web site, including Real Estate Owned (REO); Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); Fannie Mae; and other government agency and financial institution properties; as well as listings from an extensive network of corporate sellers. On the Web: www.foreclosure.com.

About eRealEsate.com.
Rick Schwartz, aka "Domain King" and "Webfather," is the CEO, President and Cofounder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. found at TargetedTraffic.com-- the premiere domain conference for the domain industry. It is both the oldest and largest and attracts over 500 of the top professionals in the industry in a by invitation only event. As one of the early domain pioneers dating back to 1995, Rick has a knack for predicting big trends and getting it right. He may have been the first to recognize the value of "type in" traffic which is now commonly referred to as "direct navigation" -- the most potent and targeted traffic on the net. Rick has a prime portfolio of one and two word domains, and is considered by many to be among the leading experts on domain names, traffic, Web site flow and valuation. www.eRealestate.com

Media Contact
Thomas Myers
Foreclosure.com
tmyers@foreclosure.com
Tel: (561) 981-5337 ext. 381