Shout Out

On this page I highlight some domain community members and organizations that I feel deserve your attention. Over the months I hope to highlight businesses, organizations, writers, and domainers. I particularly want to recognize those who went out of their way to help others, who have produced tools that are valuable to domain analysis, have done important research, have done outstanding communication, or who simply are trying something new or innovative. I don’t plan to make this a place to mention high value sales, as those are already recognized within our industry at places like DNJournal. While this is a personal selection, I always am open to suggestions – you can see how to contact me here.

NamePros

I think a lot of us take NamePros for granted. We shouldn’t! What a vibrant, helpful, knowledgeable community it is! Shout out to the staff and moderators who help keep NamePros the place that it is. If you have any interest in domain names you should be a member. I doubt that my interest in domains would have persisted without NamePros.

Dofo

Dofo is relatively new but has quickly become a key resource for me. In one place you can do sophisticated searches around domains for sale across multiple marketplaces. Key people in Dofo are active on NamePros and I am regularly finding new things it can do from their posts. If you are not already using it, do check it out!

NameBio

You can tell from my writing that I am a big fan of NameBio. A freely available database with more than 1.5 million domain name sales (about 1.7 billion dollars) all available with a fantastically powerful and intuitive user interface. If you are new here is an introduction to getting started with NameBio. Hats off to Michael and others who keep NameBio the amazing resource that it is.

NPs Members BrandCougar and Want2Learn

The past three months have seen amazing .com hand registration contests at NamePros. The idea was started by NP member Want2Learn and then the last two months the contest was directed by NPs member BrandCougar. While many great things happen at NamePros I don’t think I have witnessed anything handled better than the contests. BrandCougar put so much effort into maintaining enthusiasm for the contests, and attention to detail to make it run well. He is absorbed with other things so won’t be running the next contest, but I wanted to recognize the incredible work that he put into this. Here is the link to the April contest.

TLD-List

I love to save dollars, and one place that it is important to do that is with the cost of registrations and renewals and transfers. My go to tool for this is TLD-list. I particularly like that it shows me historical rates to help me evaluate how good current specials are. Dom-Comp is a similar site that is also very good.

NPs Members Maxtra and MapleDots and GoDaddy’s Joe Styler

A long term NPs member (Dustie) found one night that her name that was also her domain name sold via quick transfer at a price she did not intend. It still is not entirely clear how this happened, but to lose a name she held for 21 years was traumatic. She could easily have lost the name forever. However as it turns out the buyer was NP member Maxtra. Within a few hours of this coming to the attention of the community another NPs member, MapleDots made a $5000 offer to buy the domain from Maxtra and hold it until the situation was sorted out, and to return it free to Dustie if an investigation showed it had been transferred wrongly. He did this without knowing the people, just to make sure the domain did not sell to someone and Dustie could never get it back. In the end Maxtra sold it back to Dustie at exactly the price of the unintended transaction and MapleDots was not out money. However, his gesture touched many at NPs, including me, as did Maxtra being willing to give up a valuable domain name that he had proerly purchased for much less than it was worth. Also GoDaddy’s Joe Styler is a hero here, both for immediately getting involved in doing a high level investigation, and in facilitating the transfer back, GoDaddy absorbed the commission fees, and compensated Maxtra and recognized MapleDots as well. You can read the details in this long thread. All around this was a feel good story of people doing generous things.

David at WebTrading

It can be a solitary business being a domainer, so each month’s shout out I wanted to mention at least one domainer and give a bit of attention to their portfolio. David (NameMarket NPs username) is a long term member of our community (he joined NPs back in 2003) with a proven record of success (he is a TOP member of NPs). While he has mainly dealt in legacy extensions, and done a variety of other financial and web development things, of late he has, in addition, accumulated a very nice .best TLD portfolio. You can view his entire .best portfolio at this site. He has many great words and phrases from AutoLoan.best to Campgrounds.best, and Cloud.best to MedicalSchools.best. I got to know David through NPs, although we have never met in person. I like the way that a long term legacy investor decided to diversify and try a new type of domain name. We all know this comes with risk, particularly so in an extension like this with a very thin trading record. I was impressed with his open attitude and the portfolio he acquired.

I plan to feature some new people and organizations every month or so here. There were so many I could have included, as this industry is full of good people doing innovative, interesting and generous things.

Note that mention here does not imply endorsement or association by them of this site. Nor did I seek or obtain their permissions to be listed (if any object just let me know, please, and I will take mention out).