Justin’s Blog

Oversee.net’s SnapNames.com - Dying on the vine

Jan. 30, 2008 - Within hours after the successful completion of the Extended auctions performed by SnapNames.com at Oversee.net’s DomainFest Global auction, word was sent down from Oversee.net to start letting SnapNames employees go. Inside sources at Oversee.net said that after successfully auctioning over $3 million in domain names, Oversee.net’s Human Resources staff called several employees of SnapNames into conference rooms where they were told to quietly pack up their desks and leave the premises. Nearly 20% of the SnapNames staff quietly packed up and walked away both puzzled and jobless.

A little about SnapNames.com

SnapNames.com was founded in Portland Oregon in 2000, quickly became the largest available source of expired and deleting domain names. What they did is secured agreements with large domain Registrars that gave them exclusive access to deleting domain names. SnapNames would then auction of these deleting domains for $60 to several hundred thousand dollars.

What basically happens here is you put a $60 bid on a domain name and if you are the only interested party, the domain will be yours after the auction. However, if there are other interested parties, the domain name could be bid up and sold at nearly any price. Strategic agreements with key domain Registrars allowed the domain name not to be deleted and thus automatically placed in a SnapNames auction to be sold to the highest bidder.

In June of 2007, one of the largest domain monetization companies, in the business, Oversee.net (DomainSponsor.com), purchased SnapNames.com for an estimated 26 million. Little did they know, that SnapNames was about to lose their contract with Network Solutions to NameJet.com, which “appears as to be a joint venture between eNom and Network Solutions“, but owned by Network Solutions.

So what’s going to happen with SnapNames?

At this stage, it’s too early to know. We have heard however that Moniker, (Also recently purchased by Oversee.net) will be handling the next DomainFest auction and the future of SnapNames.

In the domain expiring business, whoever has the relationship with Network Solutions, rules the roost and SnapNames lost that agreement shortly after the Oversee.net buy-out. From the outside looking in, 2008 looks like the end of SnapNames and beginning of Network Solution’s NameJet.com.

View DomainFest Auction Results

Posted in Domain Names | 1 Comment »

IPower.com - IPOWER Domain Service Review - Not so Good!

So you know, I build websites and along with that service, assist my customers with managing their domain names. I end up dealing with a lot of different registrars and web hosting as well as web developers and I’m here to tell ya, what a mess ICANN has allowed the industry has become.

Before I get into much more, I have currently been on hold and in live chat for over an hour and been oh hold for exactly 58 minutes with iPower.com. I have a client who had originally purchase his domain and hosting at IPOWER.com or iPower web. This is a company that resells domains to it’s customers from Tucows, commonly known as OpenSRS. My client wants the domain name transferred into his DomainPar.com account so we can set up hosting there as well.

Generally, the process should be very simple. Here’s the order in which this would take place in a perfect world:

Typical Domain Transfer Procedure:

1. Login to your current registrar
2. Go into the domain control panel and unlock the domain name
3. Retrieve the EPP Code, also known as the domain transfer authorization Code.
4. Login to your new registrar and request a transfer by entering both the domain name and the Authorization or EPP code and proceed through the process of requesting a transfer.
5. The Administration contact email on the domain name would be contacted by the receiving Registrar usually with a link to approve the requesting transfer.
6. Transfer is approved and unless denied by the losing registrar or locked, the domain name transfers in 5 days and then you are notified of the incoming transfer via email.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, not at IPOWER Web and many other registrars out there. First, I was able to login to my client’s iPower web account but then couldn’t proceed with step two because their interface or API doesn’t provide a link to unlock your domain name. So I did a search they tell you everything about locking a domain name but nothing on how to unlock your domain name. Their site sends you to all kinds articles with links and information on how to transfer into IPOWER.com but nothing on how to unlock your domain and get the auth code to transfer away. This is not only costly but time consuming.

So, I proceed to contact support. Still logged in so it must go into some sort of support ticket system. I took some time and requested that they unlock the domain name and send the auth code to the administrative contact on the domain name… Pushed Send… the next page says this:

I’m sorry, but there has been a problem submitting your inquiry to IPOWER Support.

Please try submitting your request again. If you continue to have trouble with this form, you can always contact us directly by email, chat with a live agent, or call us at 888-511-4678.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Note: If you are experiencing service issues, please check the Support Center for Important System notices.

Is the above supposed to be some sort of dry humor? Now, I’ve currently been on hold for exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes listening to “You may find the information that you need by visiting support section of our website.” Of course still in live chat… oops, just missed them. No worries, their phone must work at some point during my blog writing… It took IPOWER almost an hour and 30 minutes to respond via live chat support:

Albert Lewis: Hi XXXX, I apologize for the wait time. My name is Albert, how are you today?

Albert Lewis: Did you receive my last message?

Albert Lewis: I’m sorry, it appears that we may have been disconnected. I am going to close this chat, please feel free to chat with us again.

So, I’ve emailed support and that failed. Tried to get the information myself on behalf of my client, that failed. Have nearly 2 hours tied up in this one simple domain name already and I cannot contact iPower in any way shape or form.. and have now missed Albert in Live Support. So, let’s go to the Support Section.

Here’s what I found in the Support Section ‘Search’ of IPOWER web:

Items found matching keywords ‘unlock’:

A search for “EPP” gave me this: We’re sorry, no items containing this phrase were found.

Items found matching keywords ‘Authorization Code’:

Now, after an hour and a half I finally had a live person on the phone. The operator, to IPOWER’s credit, was a very nice gentleman named Troy. I explained to him exactly what I was trying to do with my client’s domain name and he was very helpful. Almost instantly, Troy told me that what I had to do was:

How to Transfer you Domain Name from IPower

1. Go to manage.opensrs.net and enter your Domain Name, Username and Password to your iPower web account.
2. Go down to Domain Locking and disable locking
3. Then click on Domain Extras and you will be presented with the EPP or authorization code.

That was exactly it too. So I spent over 2 hours trying to find out how to unlock and transfer a domain name out of iPower web while both on hold and in live chat support, when this is something that they could have just put on their website for their customers. I continued to explain to Troy the difficulty in obtaining this information from the iPower.com website and although he was very helpful and understood my complaint, it still took 2 hours to accomplish this. He was extremely polite and professional and should be given a raise but overall, iPower makes it extremely difficult to get the information you need to transfer your domain to another registrar.

IPOWER makes it difficult to transfer

This is not uncommon with Domain Resellers and often time ICANN Accredited Domain Registrars. Although they are supposed to make this information readily available, very few actually do it because the controlling organization doesn’t enforce or cannot enforce the policies that they write. Below it the toothless ICANN written policy:

Registrars may not employ any mechanism for complying with a Registered Name Holder’s request to obtain the applicable “AuthInfo Code” that is more restrictive than the mechanisms used for changing any aspect of the Registered Name Holder’s contact or name server information. - ICANN.org

Now, while the above may be Policy according to ICANN, this policy is broken by most domain registration companies including GoDaddy. Most of them have mechanisms in place that are meant to confuse or detour the domain registrant from transferring their domain to another registrar and this is the case with Ipower.com.

My Recommendation

Do business with companies you trust that will provide you with the information you need to manage your domain name when you need it without all the hassle. One of my favorite registrars, (due to the ease of domain management) is Fabulous.com. For my customers, I’ve developed an all in one solution called DomainPar.com which isn’t as friendly as Fabulous.com however, I personally take care of much of the set-up of their accounts and hosting and provide a more personalized support level.

Lots of Complaints about IPOWER Web

• America Bad Business List - 3 pages of complaints about Ipower Web.
• Avoid IPower at all costs - Cnet Forums say Stay Away!
• Ipower 191 negative reviews 31 positive - Webhosting Unleashed basically says it all.
• Ipower Bad Hosting - The Geeks say: “They used to be rated very highly, but not anymore”
• Ipower is a Disease - Webmasters don’t like IPOWER and say avoid Ipower at all costs.
• Digital Point says Ipower Sucks too - “About 24 hours after I registered the domain I got my login details. When I tried loggin in this didn’t work. The domain name still shows as not registered when I check it using internic. I sent an email to support and am still waiting for a reply after 4 days.”

Look before you leap! Do a search on Google before you do business with any company and then see what others are saying before getting into a trap.

Posted in Domain Resellers, Web Hosting | 12 Comments »

Fox Rejects GoDaddy Super Bowl Beaver AD

When I think of GoDaddy I can’t help think of brunettes with big boobs and a pimpish looking Bob Parsons that hosts his own online talk show, similar in format to the Howard Stern show. This is the image that Bob Parsons and GoDaddy have incorporated into their websites and their advertising.

Recently, Fox television rejected two of the latest GoDaddy Ads . In his latest blog post, Bob Parsons writes:

“Last week, FOX network rejected Go Daddy’s Super Bowl ad because an actor referred to a beaver – a replica beaver that was, in fact, being portrayed – as a “beaver.” We were told that under no circumstance could we use that word, and if we didn’t say the word “beaver,” the ad would be approved.

A beaver by any other name.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe here in America it’s ridiculous to have to refer to a beaver (the furry, dam building, rodent-like swimming mammal) by something other than its real name, which happens to be “beaver.” So I refused to bend and refer to the beaver as “whiskers” or “furry friend” or as a “little engineer that specializes in building small dams.” Darn it. There’s simply nothing wrong with calling a beaver, a beaver!” - Bob Parsons

Kudos to Fox for rejecting the ad!

If you have already seen his previous Super Bowl Ads or visited his website, you’ll quickly understand just what kind of ‘beaver’ Bob Parsons is referring to when he puts it in a commercial with his GoDaddy Girls, (Beavers). Sex sells and Bob Parsons has been known to push it to the limit in his advertising efforts. 2008 Playboy Magazine featured the 21 sexiest commercials of all time GoDaddy has made the grade. Here is that uncut commercial:

In his latest online podcast talk show featuring Danica Patrick, he goes on and on about his disappointment with the decision not to allow the word beaver to be mentioned on Super Bowl Sunday. Danica could even see that this commercial was on the racy side of the line and if you’ve never heard Danica speak… Just listen to the conversation between Bob Parsons and Danica Patrick and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

GoDaddy sells quantity, not quality

For those of you who don’t know what GoDaddy is, they are an ICANN Accredited, (Means very little) Domain Name registrar and web hosting company. As a professional in the industry, we don’t use GoDaddy because their services are geared towards quantity, not quality. Aside from that, their website is so cluttered up with junk and suggestive selling of inferior services that it makes it difficult to manage a domain name with them. However, if you like beavers with boobs when purchasing a domain name, then GoDaddy is the place for you.

GoDaddy Sucks Video - Mature Only

While searching for an uploaded version of his podcast I ran into this video. This man in this video obviously doesn’t like GoDaddy and for some very obvious reasons. Although I wouldn’t publish a video like this one myself, I have to believe that many others share his sentiment and frustration. MC Artificial Video - make sure your children are not in the room.

Don’t buy Beaver, Boobs and Ego - Buy Domains

If boobs is what you’re into purchasing, by all means, to each their own. However, when it comes to domain names, it’s serious business and if you do a search on Google, you’ll find that many people have lost their domain names or websites with GoDaddy. GoDaddy seems to be focused too much on selling beavers and sex and not enough on what their customers really want, which is peace of mind when purchasing a domain name. Big numbers are great, and so are big boobs, but in the end, it’s all boils down to the quality of the service provided and giving back to humanity.

As a veteran in the domain name business, I highly recommend putting your domain eggs in a better basket. Below are a couple Domain Registrars that we like and use.

• Name.com - Colorado company focused on providing service, not beavers. We’ve used them for over 4 years and have never had a single issue with them.
• DomainPar.com - My own and personal favorite for registering domain names and a good reseller program.
• Fabulous.com - One of the safest and cleanest domain registrars in the business.

Posted in Domain Registrars | No Comments »