From idea to planning to operate to find an audience, all personal and business brands have likely struggled with one thing when considering their launch.

Whether a new service, product, solution, or brand in general, finding the perfect domain can often feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack, thousands usually base the name of their brand on the availability of a .com domain name.

No sooner than a person is introduced to domain investing, affectionately known as “domaining” by domain investors as known as “domainers”, that they soon encounter the ramifications of legally transacting payment and agreement of domains.

Most new investors, a few old ones too, blindly play the payment roulette game when using PayPal or a non-secure payment method when transacting payment and agreement of domains.

Individuals soon come to find out they robbed themselves blind from receiving payment as well as losing their domain in the most horrific cases due to payment clawback, chargeback or disputed credit card payment by purchaser. 

Emoji domains burst onto the scene over a year or so ago with a handful of domain investors, speculators, and hobbyists registering nearly 21,000 .WS emoji domains and a few hundred .TO emoji domains.

While the emoji domain craze has subsided with just under 1,500 .WS domains registered (best guess) and mostly single-character, the market for emoji domains has started the journey towards emoji marketing education and usage.

Whether a domain buyer or seller, one of the most challenging questions to answer realistically is how much a given domain is worth?

While one person could think their domain should be valued at 6-7 figures, another person would scoff at such a valuation, rendering the domain’s value as a few hundred dollars on the best day, or simply worthless.

While there are only a few new top-level domain extensions that have captured my attention and a few investment dollars, there aren’t many likely to stand the test of time.

While there are thousands of new top-level domain extensions to choose from, there are only a handful of industry professionals I’d be willing to put my money on being and building a profitable success.

From Slither.io to Clothes.io to CodePen.io to a growing list of personal and company brands, .io domains have become the darling domain of tech startups and domain investors.

The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for .io was originally assigned to the British Indian Ocean Territory before tech world dubbed it “input/output” domain for the next great tech idea.

There have been and are many tech startups using a .io domain to brand their digital presence.

When most people think of leasing, they tend to think of common things such as vehicles, buildings and land to name a few.

But what most fail realize is that domain names are high on the list of things to be frequently leased.

Although leasing is nothing new under the sun, domain lease agreements often encounter significant setbacks when lessors and lessees forget to identify and address key elements of their contractual agreement.