Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet
domain name
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
s as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit.
The main targets of domain name speculation are generic words which can be valuable for
type-in traffic
Type-in traffic is a term describing visitors landing at a web site by entering a keyword or phrase (with no spaces or in place of a space) in the web browser's address bar (and adding .com or any other gTLD or ccTLD extension); rather than follow ...
and for the dominant position they would have in any field due to their descriptive nature. Hence generic words and phrases such as ''poker'', ''insurance'', ''travel'', ''creditcards'', ''loan'' and others are attractive targets of domain speculation in any
top-level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...
, the most popular of which is .COM.
The speculative characteristics of domain names may be linked to news reports or current events. However, the effective period during which such opportunities exist may be limited. Quick turnaround in the resale of domains is often called ''domain
flipping
Flipping is a term used to describe purchasing a revenue-generating asset and quickly reselling (or "flipping") it for profit.
Within the real estate industry, the term is used by investors to describe the process of buying, rehabbing, and sell ...
''. Domain flipping may also involve the process of buying a valuable domain name and building a related website around it, all this with the objective of selling the domain and newly built website to an interested party.
Concept
Sometimes, domain name speculation involves finding domain names early in a market, particularly when a new top-level domain is launched, registering them and waiting until the market grows to sell them. Domains such as voice.com,
sex.com
Sex.com videos is an Internet domain name and web portal currently owned by Clover Holdings LTD. The domain name was the focus of one of the most publicized legal actions about ownership of domain names. Kieren McCarthy, a journalist who followed ...
, and
fund.com have sold for millions of US dollars.
The
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
top-level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...
(or 'TLD') is the focus of most domain speculation activity as it is the largest TLD. Domain speculation occurs in other TLDs as well, such as
NET
Net or net may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence
* Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2
* Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...
and to a lesser extent in
ORG
The Open Rights Group (ORG) is a UK-based organisation that works to preserve digital rights and freedoms by campaigning on digital rights issues and by fostering a community of grassroots activists. It campaigns on numerous issues including ma ...
,
INFO
Info is shorthand for "information". It may also refer to:
Computing
* .info, a generic top-level domain
* info:, a URI scheme for information assets with identifiers in public namespaces
* info (Unix), a command used to view documentation produc ...
, and
BIZ. Of the
Generic top-level domain
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of eve ...
s, INFO is the most popular by registration volume compared to BIZ gTLD due to the low cost of initial registration and the recognizability of INFO as being an abbreviation of ''information''.
Domain name speculation also occurs in
country code top-level domain
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all t ...
s (ccTLDs) such as
.uk
.uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United Kingdom. It was first registered in July 1985, seven months after the original generic top-level domains such as .com and the first country code after .us.
, it is the fift ...
,
.de
.de is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Federal Republic of Germany. DENIC (the Network Information Centre responsible for .de domains) does not require specific second-level domains, and there are no official ccSLDs under .d ...
and
.us
.us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States. It was established in early 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be U.S. citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United ...
.
The German TLD consists of over 12 million domains. The UK's domain has over 7.7 million domains registered according to Nominet's domain registration statistics webpage, mainly in its commercial
sub-domain
In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is a part of another (main) domain. For example, if a domain offered an online store as part of their website example.com, it might use the subdomain shop.example.com .
Ov ...
co.uk. These TLDs are mature markets where good domain names may command high prices. The
EU ccTLD is an example of what happens when speculative activity overtakes "ordinary" domain registrations. A combination of an inept registry (
EURid
EURid vzw (European Registry for Internet Domains) is the nonprofit organisation appointed by the European Commission as the domain name registry that operates the .eu top-level domain and its variants in other scripts – .ею (.eu in Cyrillic) ...
) and excessive speculation by businesses exploiting a poorly structured regulatory framework meant that, according to
EURid
EURid vzw (European Registry for Internet Domains) is the nonprofit organisation appointed by the European Commission as the domain name registry that operates the .eu top-level domain and its variants in other scripts – .ею (.eu in Cyrillic) ...
's own statistics at the end of 2006, over 50% of the registrations could be considered at best speculative and at worst
domain name warehousing.
Specialist and ''repurposed''
ccTLD
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all t ...
s have also seen elements of domain name speculation. One of the best examples is that of the
.tv
The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tuvalu.
Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, any person may register second-level domains under .tv. The domain name is popular, and thus ...
ccTLD which has found the fact that ''TV'' is an abbreviation for the word television to be rather lucrative. The
.mobi
The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective ''mobile''.
The domain was approved by ICANN on 11 July 2005, and is managed by the mTLD global r ...
TLD is a good example of a specialist TLD in that it is specifically targeted at mobile phones and similar mobile technology. The operators of .mobi, mTLD, have reserved some of the premium generic words which will be auctioned off. The intent is to create a more level playing field for those interested in developing websites. The .mobi premium generic words and phrases list is a good example of the domain names that are at the heart of most early-market domain name speculation.
Domain name speculators, sometimes known as domainers or domain investors, also register domain names based on seemingly generic phrases such as ''propertyforsale'' in the hope that these domain names could be sold later to businesses. Some (but not all) domain name investors will try to stay away from domain names containing trademarks as this could be considered
cybersquatting
Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.
The term is derived f ...
.
Some
country code TLDs or
sponsored TLDs will have what is referred to as an eligibility or nexus requirement to limit registration to specific geographical or national regions. However this does not deter domain name speculation as various options such as using a local agent or company to enable people to register domains in such TLDs exist and have been used.
Evolution
Domain name speculation has evolved with the expansion of the domain name system. Domain names were registered primarily for business purposes. In the 1990s, much of the ccTLD landscape had yet to appear, and the growing public awareness of the
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
TLD was gathering momentum owing to the growth of the
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
. This inevitably attracted the attention of those who saw potential value in domain names, and by this time many of the most valuable generic domain names, such as
sex.com
Sex.com videos is an Internet domain name and web portal currently owned by Clover Holdings LTD. The domain name was the focus of one of the most publicized legal actions about ownership of domain names. Kieren McCarthy, a journalist who followed ...
and
business.com
Business.com is a digital media company and B2B web destination which offers various performance marketing advertising, including lead generation products on a pay per lead and pay per click basis, directory listings, and display advertising. ...
, had been registered. No clear legal position existed to distinguish domain name speculation and cybersquatting. Due to the open nature of most TLDs, anyone could register a domain name. This led to the development of the
Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. The UDRP curren ...
in 1999.
Distinction from cybersquatting
A common accusation against domain name speculation is that it is cybersquatting.
Cybersquatting
Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.
The term is derived f ...
is defined as registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The key element in this definition is that the intellectual property rights of another's trademark are infringed by the cybersquatter. For a UDRP action to succeed one of the things that the complainant has to establish is that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights. Legitimate domain name speculation tends to steer clear of trademarks and concentrate on generic words and phrases as domains based on trademarks can be subject of
UDRP The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. The UDRP curren ...
actions by the trademark owners. As the number of registered domain names has increased, the number of
UDRP The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. The UDRP curren ...
cases has also increased. Trademark and
service mark
A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in the United States and several other countries to identify a service rather than a product.
When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. ...
owners now use brand protection services that monitor TLDs for newly registered domains that potentially infringe on their trademarks. This is due in part to
typosquatting
Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, a sting site, or a fake URL, is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly brandjacking which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser. Shoul ...
, a form of cybersquatting where variations of the spelling of a brand's domain will be registered in an attempt to profit from users mistyping the
URL
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
of the site they wish to visit.
Generic terms, such as the term "salt" when used in connection with sodium chloride, are not capable of serving the essential trademark function of distinguishing a product or service. This means that generic terms are generally not afforded any legal protection. The Canned Foods, Inc. v. Ult Search Inc. decision specifically deals with a case involving a generic term, "Grocery Outlet" and the domain name "groceryoutlet.com". The decision contains the key sentence "Generic terms receive no protection in US trademark law when they are used to label the goods and services that they describe."
Cybersquatting was first used as a legal term in March 1998 by a U.S. District Court in California in the case of ''
Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison Corporation is a multinational manufacturer and distributor of pressure-sensitive adhesive materials (such as self-adhesive labels), apparel branding labels and tags, RFID inlays, and specialty medical products. The company is a ...
vs Sumpton''.
An early definition of the practice was given in ''
Intermatic
Intermatic Incorporated is an American manufacturer of time switches headquartered in Spring Grove, Illinois. Intermatic was founded in 1891 in Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption ...
Inc. v. Toeppen'', 947 F. Supp. 1227 (N.D. Ill. 1996). The definition was "These individuals attempt to profit from the Internet by reserving and later reselling or licensing domain names back to the companies that spent millions of dollars developing the goodwill of the trademark."
As domain name speculation has evolved alongside the domain name system, the most memorable and shortest domains tend to be amongst those registered first in any TLD. For old TLDs like
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
(introduced in 1985), these domains will be long gone and people registering their first domains are often frustrated at the lack of short and memorable domains in this and other mature TLDs.
One of the main problems concerning trademarks and domain names in
unrestricted TLDs and gTLDs is that of trademarks in general: the rights of the trademark owner have to be asserted in order to protect the trademark. The trademark owner has to take legal action, typically a
UDRP The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. The UDRP curren ...
, to defend the trademark after the potentially
infringing domain has been registered. The
UDRP The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. The UDRP curren ...
action has to follow a procedure of notifying the respondent, receiving a reply from the respondent, appointing an adjudication panel and awaiting a decision. The process can take two months or more and all costs (typically more than
$1,000 even for a single domain) are borne by the complainant, while the infringing party stands to lose nothing except the registration fee (usually under $10) for the original domain and the registrar of the infringing name incurs no penalty at all.
The global and unrestricted nature of TLDs and gTLDs effectively means that anyone in any country can register a domain name in them regardless of whether they have any intellectual property rights in that name. With
country code TLDs the jurisdiction is more clearly defined. The affected intellectual property rights owner would have to take a legal action, typically a
UDRP The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. The UDRP curren ...
case to transfer or cancel the domain unless the registrant is in the same jurisdiction as the affected intellectual property rights owner. In this case, local law may be sufficient as the action may be considered as
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
tort
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...
of
passing off
Passing off is a common law tort which can be used to enforce unregistered trade mark rights. The tort of passing off protects the goodwill of a trader from misrepresentation.
The law of passing off prevents one trader from misrepresenting go ...
.
Primary market speculation
The primary market for domain name speculation covers newly registered domain names that have not been registered before. Such domain names are often linked to news and current events. The launch of a new TLD encourages primary market speculation as domainers rush to register generic terms and also phrases that make a pun on the TLD name (
domain hack
A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, and , using the fictitious country-code domains ''.ds'' and ''.le'', suggest the words ''birds'' an ...
). Other more organised domainers or domain name speculators register trademarks in advance of the launch of new TLDs specifically in order to register these short, memorable and potentially high value domains in the sunrise period of new gTLD launches. The Sunrise period is when intellectual property rights owners (trademark owners etc.) can register their trademark in the new gTLD in advance of the gTLD being opened for general registrations. In the last three years the main new TLDs launched were
.eu
.eu is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the European Union (EU). Launched on 7 December 2005, the domain is available for any person, company or organization based in the European Union. This was extended to the European Economic Are ...
ccTLD,
.mobi
The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective ''mobile''.
The domain was approved by ICANN on 11 July 2005, and is managed by the mTLD global r ...
TLD and
.asia
The top-level domain .asia is the officially designated regional domain in the Internet for Asia and the Pacific. It is a sponsored generic top-level-domain (gTLD) operated by the DotAsia Organisation Ltd. The domain is open to companies, indivi ...
sTLD. All of these had landrush periods of varying success.
Secondary market speculation
The secondary market for domain names covers previously registered domain names that have not been renewed by registrants or are available for resale.
Sometimes these ''dropped'' domain names can be more valuable due to their having had high-profile websites associated with them. They will have links from other websites and could still have users searching for the websites because of these links. Others can be valuable because of the generic nature of the domain name or the length of the domain name, with two and three character names being the most sought after.
The business of registering the domain names as they are deleted by the registries is known as ''
drop catching''. It is a highly competitive business. The main operators in this business typically set up a number of front companies as registrars.
VeriSign
Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gener ...
, in the case of TLDs
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
and
NET
Net or net may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence
* Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2
* Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...
, allows each registrar a slice of the resources that may be used to register dropped domains. VeriSign drops domains in a random order, giving registrars only a vague idea of the particular drop time of a particular domain. Sometimes a group of
drop registrar
A drop registrar is a domain name registrar who registers expiring Internet domain names immediately after they expire and are deleted by the domain name registry. A drop registrar will typically use automated software to send up to 250 simultane ...
s often work in confederation to increase their possibility of registering a dropped domain immediately after it is deleted by the registry. If the domain is caught by a confederation of registrars attempting to fulfill a domain backorder, then whichever domain registrar caught the domain will register it to the entity who backordered the domain. If the newly reregistered domain is captured by a company that has no customers who backordered it, the domain may be auctioned to the highest bidder by the registrar who captured it or an auction intermediary. The time between a drop and a capture is often measured in seconds or fractions thereof.
Some registrars do not allow domains to drop in the normal fashion, instead introducing an intermediary (e.g., Snapnames and Namejet) that auction the domain prior to their deletion. If nobody buys the domain at auction, it will pass through the normal deletion process.
Domain name speculation and the rise of Pay per click websites
Cybersquatting has a clear legal definition, but this definition tends to be lost when people open a webpage with only
pay per click
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked.
Pay-per-click is usually ...
('PPC') advertising. It is often assumed that such a domain is "cybersquatted", especially when the person is searching for the domain in order to register it.
The ease with which
PPC
PPC may refer to:
Computing
* Personal programmable calculator, programmable calculators for personal use
* Pay-per-click, an internet advertising model
* PearPC, a PowerPC platform emulator
* Peercoin, a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency
* Periphera ...
revenue could be derived from parked domains effectively created a situation where domains were being registered purely for their
type-in traffic
Type-in traffic is a term describing visitors landing at a web site by entering a keyword or phrase (with no spaces or in place of a space) in the web browser's address bar (and adding .com or any other gTLD or ccTLD extension); rather than follow ...
. Many of exact phrases that people were searching for in search engines were being registered for the sole purpose of serving PPC advertising. The
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
TLD grew from 23,662,001 registered domains 1 January 2003 to 80,759,835 registered domains as of 1 January 2009. While part of that increase in the number of registered domain names is due to the increase in ecommerce and business conducted online, some of the increase is due to the ease of generating revenue from PPC and
type-in traffic
Type-in traffic is a term describing visitors landing at a web site by entering a keyword or phrase (with no spaces or in place of a space) in the web browser's address bar (and adding .com or any other gTLD or ccTLD extension); rather than follow ...
.
Domain tasting Domain tasting is the practice of temporarily registering a domain under the five-day Add Grace Period at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated second-level domain. During this period, a registration must be fully refunded by the ...
, a practice by which millions of domains would be registered for a limited period (the five-day Add Grace Period during which a domain could be deleted without the registrar effectively having to pay a registration fee to ICANN) and only those generating sufficient revenue from PPC advertising would be retained, also served to increase the number of domains registered. This practice involved
domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar ...
s being created purely for the purpose of domain tasting. The situation became so bad in 2007 that
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...
was forced to take action. In June 2008 ICANN added a provision to its Fiscal Year 2009 budget to limit the number of domains that a registrar could delete using the Add Grace Period before having to pay the ICANN fee. The effect of this was to massively curtail the number of domains deleted in .com and .net during the Add Grace Period. From June 2008 to April 2009, AGP deletions fell by 99.7%.
The March 2006 Verisign Domain Brief stated that out of approximately 57.37 million
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
and
NET
Net or net may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence
* Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2
* Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...
websites spidered, 26% were single page websites, 60% were multipage websites and 14% had no associated websites. Numerically, the number of single page websites was approximately 14.91 million. The single page websites include under-construction,
brochure-ware and parked pages in addition to online advertising revenue generating (
PPC
PPC may refer to:
Computing
* Personal programmable calculator, programmable calculators for personal use
* Pay-per-click, an internet advertising model
* PearPC, a PowerPC platform emulator
* Peercoin, a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency
* Periphera ...
) parked pages.
The latest statistics for domain name usage quoted in the Verisign Domain Brief for June 2009 states that of the 92 million
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
and
NET
Net or net may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence
* Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2
* Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...
domain names, 24% of these domains have one page websites, 64% have multipage websites and 12% have no associated websites.
In purely numerical terms, those single page websites would account for approximately 22 million
COM
Com or COM may refer to:
Computing
* COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
* COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
* .com, an Internet top-level d ...
and
NET
Net or net may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence
* Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2
* Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...
websites. The survey quoted in the Verisign Domain Brief does not explain the methodology or provide anything other than a summary of the results. However this is effectively a rise in single page websites of just over 7 million websites.
Some hosters such as
Godaddy
GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.
, GoDaddy has more than 21 million customers and over 6,600 employees worldwide. The co ...
have their own
domain parking
Domain parking is the registration of an Internet domain name without that domain being associated with any services such as e-mail or a website. This may have been done with a view to reserving the domain name for future development, and to prot ...
systems and allow unused domains to be parked with the registrant receiving a share of the PPC revenue earned. Other hosters have similar systems.
See also
*
Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
*
List of most expensive domain names
This is a list of domain names that sold for $3 million USD or more.
The list is limited to pure domain name and cash-only sales. Sales which included website content or involved equity (finance), equity deals are not listed.
Domain transactio ...
References
.EU Registration figures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Domain Name Speculation
Domain Name System