Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

All the one-character .sk domains to be auctioned

Kevin Murphy, September 20, 2024, Domain Registries

SK-NIC, part of Team Internet, says it plans to auction off all 36 single-character .sk domains over the coming months.

The auction plans also include releasing all the 200-odd two-letter domains that match existing ccTLDs, as well as .com.sk and .net.sk, which have all been registry-reserved to date.

The registry said it plans to hold auctions every two months starting on the 15th and running for seven days, starting in November.

There will be a trademark priority phase first, running from October 1 to October 14, in which trademark owners can apply for their matching domain for €300. If successful, the domain will cost them €3,000 ($3,348) or more if a contested mark has to be auctioned.

Opening bids for the regular auctions will start at €1,000 for two-char names, €1,500 for the 26 one-letter domains, and €2,000 for everything else, SK-NIC says.

The domains to be sold — I count 277 — are listed here (pdf). They’re all either one-character or matches for existing TLDs, but sk.sk is not on the list.

.sk is of course the ccTLD for Slovakia, but it’s owned from the UK following CentralNic’s acquisition of SK-NIC and has no local presence requirements. There are over 471,000 registered domains today, according to the registry.

Team Internet spends $41 million on content farm

Kevin Murphy, March 19, 2024, Domain Registries

Team Internet is back in acquisition mode, saying this morning it has picked up an Israeli content farm business for $41.8 million.

It’s bought Shinez IO, based in Tel Aviv and Denver, for the initial sum plus a potential extra $12.3 million if the company meets certain financial targets over the next two years, the company said.

Shinez operates a network of lightweight blogs covering areas such as food and fashion, which are marketed via social media and monetized via multiple ad networks.

It’s a lucrative business — Team Internet says Shinez had revenue of $111 million, $17.2 million in net revenue, and $10.4 million of EBITDA in 2023.

The acquisition edges Team Internet, formerly CentralNic, ever closer to becoming a billion-dollar company. It now expects revenue for 2023 to work out at $948 million.

The deal also seems to mean reduced exposure to Google as the company’s number one ad revenue source. Team Internet said “this acquisition would more than double the Online Marketing segment’s revenue generated independently of our Tier 1 channel partner”.

Team Internet says revenue beat estimates

Kevin Murphy, January 29, 2024, Domain Registries

Team Internet gave a preview of its 2023 earnings report this morning, saying that revenue grew faster than its own targets and analysts’ estimates.

The company, formerly CentraNic, expects to post revenue around $835 million, up 15% on 2022, and profit up 12% at $96 million for the year.

The firm’s Online Presence segment, which includes the domains business, had revenue up 16% at $179 million, while the far larger Online Marketing segment saw revenue up 14% at $656 million.

Team Internet will report its full results on March 18.

Team Internet hires Nominet alum as domains CEO

Kevin Murphy, October 11, 2023, Domain Registries

Team Internet, formerly CentralNic, has named Simon McCalla as CEO of its domains-related business.

McCalla is formerly CTO of .uk registry Nominet, though he’s been taking a break from the domains industry for the last few years.

Team Internet said he is now CEO of its “Online” division, which I can only assume is the business it previously called “Online Presence”.

That’s the division encompassing the company’s registrars, registries and back-end business, as opposed to the traffic arbitrage business where it makes most of its money nowadays.

CentralNic rebrands as Team Internet

Kevin Murphy, September 4, 2023, Domain Registries

Another well-known domain industry firm has rebranded itself around a forgettable, search-resistant company name.

CentralNic is now Team Internet, though it will continue to use “CentralNic” in its domains business.

The company has changed its primary domain from centralnic.com to teaminternet.com (a redirect is already in place) and its AIM ticker symbol from CNIC to TIG.

The brand comes from Team Internet the parking company, which CentralNic acquired for $48 million in 2019.

The change makes sense — CentralNic doesn’t even make a quarter of its revenue from domains any more. Today, most of its money comes from social media marketing arbitrage and domain monetization.

Even if it were still laser-focused on domains, the registrar side of the business is bigger and “Nic” doesn’t make much sense there.

The company started off selling third-level domains in pseudo-gTLDs such as uk.com and gb.com, before enthusiastically embracing new gTLDs as a back-end provider and subsequently getting into the registrar game.

As its 10-year IPO anniversary approaches this month CEO Michael Riedl observed in a press release that the company has grown from a $4 million annual business in 2013 to a $728 million business last year.

Also of note, Gavin Brown, who was with the company since pretty much the start and held various C-level positions on the technical side of the house over the years, left the company last week to join ICANN.