Welcome to the latest and greatest domain movers where we detect domain names on the move that have been recently acquired, registered or just moving for one reason or another, mainly all by large companies!
These are often early detections and lead to new products, brands, services, advertising campaigns and much more.
Here we go with the latest, and if you like this series, checkout some of the past articles here in the Domain Movers category.
Future Media Architects Inc. has sold the 2 letter domain name RP.com to a “huyubin” of China. The domain was for sale using DomainNameSales.com and has been registered since 1992. With only 676 2 letter .com domains, they are valuable and rare, with prices climbing on them north of $500K and often reaching 7 figures! This sale has just taken place.
Overstock.com has registered the domain names Clubo.net and CluboApp.com. They currently do not own Clubo.com but will likely be attempting to purchase it (as they should) or may already be in the process.
Expedia, Inc. has secured the domain name itn.net from SabreMark Limited Partnership. It appears SabreMark is a subsidiary of Travelocity. Expedia acquired Travelocity in early 2015.
Yelp Inc. has taken ownership of the domain name SeatMe.com with whois information coming out of privacy protection at eNom. The domain name is redirecting to seatme.yelp.com sub-domain. Yelp acquired SeatMe on July 18, 2013.
Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, which owns a little over 2,100 domain names has registered TheProxySeason.com.
Mindspark has taken ownership of the domain name Foodily.com, which is a recipes site, from a Hillary Mickell.
Circle.com was acquired by Circle Internet Financial on September 23, 2014 according to whois records. I did detect several changes with the domain name starting on October 16, 2013 so there is potential the sale dates back to then. The domain transferred from GoDaddy to Tucows (both under privacy). Domain name servers were set to Amazon hosting at that time.
Jeremy Allaire shows up in whois on September 25, 2014 and the domain transfers to GANDI SAS on CloudFlare dns which they do today.
Circle is a bitcoin startup founded by Jeremy Allaire and they just received $50M in funding from Goldman Sachs and IDG Capital Partners.
Spil Games Intangibles B.V. has sold the domain name 9942.com to the owners of 4.cn Hangzhou Duomai E-Commerce Co.,Ltd on April 7, 2014 and it appears 4.cn has sold it. Spil purchased 9942.com at Sedo for $490 in December 2008. NNNN market has been fairly hot lately with many selling for high four figures and some fetching five figures. Yes, some are getting six figures as well.
HLT Domestic IP LLC (Hilton Hotels) registered the domain name DiscoverCurio.com on April 20, 2015 and has since launched a website on it relating to a “collection of hotels that defies the ordinary”. The website uses the tag line Be Intrigued.
Hilton is pulling out all the stops for this, as they acquired the premium domain Curio.com as well, which took place on October 13, 2014 when I noted at the time of that domain being acquired by a currently unknown company at MarkMonitor.
MakerStories.com has been acquired by AOL Inc. with the help of secret domain buyers The Treadstone Group, Inc. / Ross Bulla. The domain name was acquired from Phil Shapiro with a @ His.com email address. The transaction took place on August 5, 2014 with the domain name transferring into GoDaddy from Domain.com. The domain has since transferred to CSC Corporate Domains.
MakersStories.com redirect to Makers.com/makersstories and displays a message to download the Makers Stories app “which puts professional filmmaking tools in your hand so you can interview inspiring women and share their stories.”
Makers.com was acquired by AOL, using The Treadstone Group, Inc. from Thought Convergence, Inc. The transaction took place on my birthday in 2011. (March 18th for those not aware of my birthday).
The Absolut Company AB has acquired the domain name RumSociety.com from HugeDomains.com. The domain had a listing price of $1,795.
Abbott Laboratories Inc. has acquired the domain name JustBlink.com from EXOTIC DESIGN GROUP and has launched a website on the domain relating to its Blink Tears eye drops product.
Qualcomm Incorporated has acquired the domain name WhyWait.com from Rovi Corporation according to whois records. Rovi corp is a publicly traded company with over $2B in assets and recently acquired Veveo.
Home Box Office, Inc. registered the domain name BallersReport.com on April 16, 2015 and appears to be reading a website as they switched domain name servers to Amazon hosting. This is very likely related to “Ballers” that stars Dwayne Johnson (The Rock).
The Coca-Cola Company registered the domain name CocaColaStream.com
Sanofi registered the make sense domain name SpeakToYourDoctor.com to add to its 9,600+ domain portfolio.
The United States Shoe Corporation (Luxottica) has registered the domain name BuckTheStatusQuo.com
Allstate Insurance Company appears to be moving ALL of its domain names from MarkMonitor to CSC Corporate Domains. This is a pretty big deal, as Allstate owns over 5,500 domains. Hundreds have been moving out of MM daily to CSC.
Caesars License Company, LLC has acquired the domain name HorseRanch.com. It appears that the domain name was acquired in early 2013 from a Buffalo Studios according to whois records. The domain transferred to a Delta Two Holdings, LLC in a March 19, 2013 whois history record and using a Caesars.com email address.
The domain name has been using “Cash Parking” via GoDaddy since. The domain name has now transferred to MarkMonitor. Caesars is a new MarkMonitor client as they had the majority of their domains registered at Network Solutions.
Gyro LLC (Gyro.com) has acquired the domain name IgniteSomething.com from BuyDomains. The domain name sold for $1,322. Gyro.com loads with the text “Ignite Something” which you have to click to enter the site.
Prosper Marketplace, Inc. has registered the domain names ProsperManagement.net and .org. They currently do not own the .com.
Brunswick Corporation registered the domain names StandHacks.com and StandingDeskHacks.com
Home Box Office, Inc. has acquired the domain name RealTimeBlog.com from HugeDomains.com. The domain had a listing price of $1,995. The domain name was registered Christmas Eve 2014. The domain name was registered before at 1&1 but expired on October 6, 2014 and was deleted from the registry and captured by HugeDomains during the drop.
The Procter & Gamble Company has registered the domain name PGB2B.com. The domain name was registered prior but expired on March 9, 2014.
Johnson & Johnson has acquired the domain name JointDecisions.com. The domain name was parked with Sedo at the time of the change of ownership. The domain was listed for sale in a couple places with a make offer listing with a minimum offer of $750.
QD.com has been sold. Anything.com had owned the domain for many years until about May 23, 2014 when whois changed to generic whois data at eName. Then 4.cn owners show up in whois Hangzhou Duomai E-Commerce Co.,Ltd. The domain name has now changed ownership to Jiang Cui.
4.cn according to whois records purchased the domain names: DKW.com, DWK.com, HXQ.com, PWX.com, QMQ.com, QZS.com, WXL.com… all in one DAY!
4.cn SOLD the following domains according to whois records: 2503.com , 3582.com, 9441.com and 9942.com. They continued with selling: HYW.com, XCY.com and ZDP.com.
All of the above mentioned domains were owned BY 4.cn according to whois records.
McDonalds has used the marketing and communications firm Riester and registered the domain name TasteCraftedMCD.com to help market its “TasteCrafted” new menu. McDonalds often allows branding and sweeps companies they hire to register domains that they (McDonalds) technically own, which is not good! I have mentioned this several times!
McDonalds does not own the exact match domain name TasteCrafted.com, as it was registered by a T Motherwell according to whois records on June 28, 2014. TasteCraftedMCD.com was registered April 16, 2015 by Riester. To note, McDonalds did file a trademark for TasteCrafted on June 16, 2014, which is 12 days prior to the EMD registration.
With the amount of money being spent on the ad push for TastCrafted, it simply blows my mind that McDonalds has not purchased the exact match domain TasteCrafted.com which is for sale with a buy it now of only $950 (cheaper than legal fees) and uses the elementary, poor startup company type domain TasteCraftedMCD.com! I get the MCD thing, as it’s part of McDonalds branding.. but it’s not needed and simply looks unprofessional. It’s 2015 Reister/McDonalds, get with the program! They are tweeting #tastecrafted and talking TasteCrafted, TasteCrafted… yet they have to add MCD to end of it’s domain… simply because they didn’t want to pay $950? for the exact match domain? They also use the tagline Flavors You Crave with the website and failed to register that domain as well….
Here is some more info about TasteCrafted from a brand website. (sorry, rant over)